JWA Newsletter Autumn 08.indd
Transcription
JWA Newsletter Autumn 08.indd
Autumn 2008 Slezská 63, 130 00 Prague 3, Czech Republic, Tel: (+420) 242 454 740, Email: info@jwa.cz, www.jwa.cz THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM! Dear JWA Clients and Friends, I am sure that many of you will agree that we have been living through some pretty strange months! I remember when I was first here in the early 90s everyone used to say that we should all just close down for July and August (if only!) as no-one would be working, but this soon changed and for us, quite often, these were the most difficult months – our clients definitely expected us to be working, our staff definitely expected to have some time off (!) and the journalists and lots of our suppliers were rarely available. This year, though, we had a real lull before a huge storm – a very quiet July and August and the craziest start to September ever! There is not a lot I can say about it right now, but it has definitely been interesting! This leads me nicely into something that one of my friends told me after reading our last newsletter – he pondered out loud how many people really understood what a PR agency actually does, mentioning one of the clients that we had talked briefly about and asking what, exactly, we had done for them other than banging out a few press releases and organising a couple of events! I thought, therefore, that it might be interesting if we included in each newsletter a very brief ‘case study’ that, I hope, shows what a PR agency really does do (other than the obligatory press releases and events as mentioned!). And while on the subject of events – I should say that September might have been crazy, but it started out in style – pretty much JWA’s first ever client when we were just two people was Healey & Baker (who then became Cushman & Wakefield). How great it was, therefore, that we could organise Cushman’s 15th Anniversary party on 4th September, having worked with them on and off since day one. I bet not many agencies can beat that! INTRODUCING A NEW MEMBER OF THE TEAM! Early in the summer we decided that, if things continued as they had been in the first part of the year, we really needed to find another senior PR person, but despite advertising, asking around and interviewing lots of different ladies (yes, ladies again… still no man has thought to try and join us...) we just couldn’t find the one that had all the right experience, looked the part and fitted in with the rest of us. We therefore asked our old friend Richard Hunt to put on his ‘hunting’ hat and see if he could find us someone, and sure enough, soon after, Simona Hanna was sent along to meet us. Apart from extensive experience in the PR world, Simona looks great, speaks fluent English and, in the tradition of JWA, offers yet another amazing language skill as she is fluent in Arabic! Simona joined us on 1st August and it feels as if she has been with us forever! JWA NEWSLETTER – Autumn 2008 Some of our recent events! CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD – 15TH ANNIVERSARY As we have already mentioned, one of our longest standing and favourite clients, Cushman & Wakefield, celebrated its fifteenth anniversary in the Czech Republic with a ‘red and blue’ party in Hergetova Cihelna on 4th September. Over the years, JWA has organized several events for C&W, as well as working on a number of other projects, and one of our favourites was the 10th Anniversary, which took place on the same date in the same venue five years ago! From our perspective, this event was even better, and you could see the sort of esteem that C&W is held in by the people that turned out for the evening. I wonder if we will all be doing the same thing again in another five years’ time! IBF – LAUNCH EVENT Fast on the heels of the Cushman & Wakefield event was the IBF Gala on 8th September, held in the gardens of Grebovka Villa. Even though this was an event for the IBF, such was the scale of the evening that JWA were involved from the beginning as there was a lot of event management required; with three sponsors, two Ambassadors speaking, 400 guests and slightly dodgy weather, there was a lot of juggling going on beforehand, but the end result was, we believe, a huge success – many of you will have been at the event so you were able to judge for yourselves! CASE STUDY JWA WAS THE AGENCY IN CHARGE OF THE PR AND MARKETING CAMPAIGN FOR THE LAUNCH OF OBCHODNI CENTRUM LETNANY What everyone saw was the opening itself; three action-packed days of events, pop bands, fashion shows, VIP guests and so on, plus an advertising and promotional campaign that started about six months before and ran on until the opening weekend. What they didn’t see was the huge and complicated amount of PR that went on for nearly three years beforehand. Problem: the Mayor and councilors were not sure that they wanted to agree to the building of the biggest shopping mall in Europe (at that time) in the middle of what was, in effect, a small village. The locals didn’t like it one bit, and there was an election coming up so the Mayor was worried about how the situation would affect his votes. Our Solution: ongoing support by the developer for the local community – sponsorship of sporting events, the local schools’ art competition, regular information by way of monthly newsletters and information boards on the site, competitions for people living locally, opportunities to meet celebrities on the site (ice hockey players signing autographs, singers performing at the weekend, etc) with the aim of persuading the locals that this was a ‘good thing’ and, thereby, encouraging their support of the Mayor – plus, of course, monthly meetings with the Mayor and councilors to up-date them on progress. Problem: the Letting Agents needed support to persuade the brands that they should be in this mall above all others – bearing in mind that it is 8 km outside the centre of town, and the first of its size and scale. Our Solution: ongoing positive articles about the mall in the real estate media (which the potential tenants were most likely to read), regular events on site with invitations to potential tenants (a) to visit and see the scale of the development, (b) to meet other tenants either signed or otherwise, and (c) to make potential tenants feel that they were something ‘special’. Problem: the Czech Republic was not sure that it was ready for so many shopping malls and hypermarkets at this time and the media was, in general, writing fairly negative reports on the effects of such schemes, which had the potential to undo the good work that was being done with regard to the Letnany residents and likely tenants. Our Solution: a proactive and consistent national media campaign, positioning ourselves/the developer as the experts on hypermarket development and stressing all the benefits that the hypermarkets bring to the area which, of course, required a significant amount of research and preparation (often using the UK as an example) – the number of jobs brought to the area, the improvements to transport links, the number of additional leisure activities that the hypermarkets bring (usually cinemas, sporting possibilities (in the case of Letnany an ice rink and swimming pool), the increase in the value of property in the area, the additional parking and so on. The Result: the launch campaign for Obchodni Centrum Letnany was voted the best marketing campaign for a shopping mall in the whole of the Czech Republic for that particular year.