Ding Dong Merrily on a PR & Marketing High!

In this season of Goodwill we bring you glad tidings of our latest employee Miss Rachel Thomas. Rachel has joined the team as an Account Executive and is already proving a valuable asset to the team. Welcome Rachel, we hope you will be very happy with us here in the Royal Crescent and we look forward to hearing more stories of your various phobias and foibles...but we have to be honest, we are struggling to understand how you find Wallace and Gromit scary!

Work continues apace despite the Christmas holidays rushing up on us at break neck speed.

December has been a big month for newsletters and magazines for our clients; we have produced Imagine for Interserve, Woodlands News for Memorial Woodlands and the Garrett Gazette for Garrett Ingredients. We thoroughly enjoy working on these projects for our clients and are very proud that they are so well received.

We have achieved features for Great Local Offers in The Cheltonian Magazine and have lined up a host of features for Water and Stone in publications such as Cotswold Preview, Utopia and Kitchens Bathrooms & Bedrooms, using photos taken by local photographer Nick Yarsley. We also took Alison Ebanks’ portfolio into the next generation by uploading all her designs onto an iPad, allowing her to show prospective clients her previous work in glorious digital high-resolution. It looked truly stunning and Alison was delighted. The only downside to the story is that now everyone in the office now wants an iPad for themselves and is about £350 away from being able to afford one. Grrr.

In a massively generous gesture to local charity The Pied Piper Appeal, Le Spa donated a luxury overnight stay for two including a host of treatments, all food and a basket of facial products to the Total Star Radio Christmas auction and helped to raise over £6,500 for sick children in Gloucestershire.

There is a wonderful, heart warming twist to this story; the winning bidder didn’t want the break for himself but to give as a ‘thank you’ gift to friends who stepped in to look after their little girl when their newborn son stopped breathing and had to be rushed to hospital. The good news is that the baby is now fully recovered and as we write the well deserving pair are enjoying their break at Le Spa. Don’t you love it when good things happen to good people?

Stadium Marketing Solutions had a massively successful trip to the Soccerex Exhibition in Brazil this month with all the fancy new marketing kit we produced for them. We re-skinned their stand and produced new pop up banners. We also sent them off with pre-loaded and branded USB sticks, new stationary and translated a new brochure into Portuguese. It was all go in the run up but the hard work and late evenings in the office paid off!

New business continues to roll in and we are delighted to have been appointed by Deborah Mitchell to do a research project. Rachel is spending more time than is good for her trawling the gossip sites for relevant information!

So as Christmas rolls into sight, the team are in varying degrees of panic regarding present buying and card sending. Colin gets Mrs Colin to do it all so is fairly relaxed. Natalie is nearly finished everything and looking rather smug, Chris is a single boy which he thinks absolves him of all festive responsibilities and will, as per many other single men, be making some rush purchases at 16:45 on Christmas Eve. Rachel is preparing herself for a strategic attach on Cheltenham’s shops during remaining lunch hours and Louise is like a rabbit stuck in the headlights, having not purchased one card or present and is in total meltdown over the whole event. Whatever we do, or don’t do, the day will arrive, food will be eaten, wine will be drunk, presents will be opened and receipts will be requested. It’s Christmas. Enjoy x

Merry Christmas to one and all from everybody at Colin Higgins and Associates.

November / Movember

November has arrived, bringing with it....frosty weather? Icy winds? Freezing rain? Er no. Just a lot of unseasonably mild weather. Winter coats lay unworn whilst walking home in the dark after work, in a summer dress, is a rather odd experience I can tell you.

What November has brought though, in shed loads, is good news for the team here at CHA.

Good news point number one: We have won ANOTHER CIPR Gold award for our Internal Communications work with Aviance. Click here for the full CIPR statement http://tinyurl.com/28a7wfr (we are award number 3)

Good news point number two: Chris has started growing a mo (moustache) for Mo-vember.

http://uk.movember.com/mospace/547006/ this will take you to Chris’s page on the official Prostrate Cancer website where you can follow his mo’s progress and donate your hard earned pennies to help defeat this pernicious illness. 45,000 people supported the Prostrate CancerCharity in 2009 and helped to raise over £5 million. Go Chris!

Pic: Chris, on day one of his ‘for charity but also because I want to look like Tom Sellick - moustache growing attempt. What a happy boy he is.

Work wise things are going great guns. We have brought on a few new clients this month; Into Play, a children’s nursery in Longleven’s Gloucester and, continuing a long standing relationship, we provided marketing material for Stadium Marketing Solutions to take to Rio de Janerio, Brazil, where they will be exhibiting at the world famous Soccerex.

Chris is mighty envious that he can’t hand deliver the goods to the event which is described on their website as,

‘...As well as the conference, exhibition and the two-day spectacular Football Festival, Soccerex mixes business with pleasure through a long list of social events, culminating with The Soccerex Sugar Loaf Extravaganza where delegates will enjoy five-star cuisine and musical entertainment, in the company of soccer legends, on Sugar Loaf Mountain.’

Natalie and I fail to see what the fuss is all about. It’s only football after all.

A beautiful cow by any other name

Earlier this month we organized what has to be the photo of the year for local food ingredients supplier Garrett Ingredients when they rebranded from Renshawnapier. One photographer, a full complement of staff a herd of dairy cows and a huge amount of lady luck later, the picture of the year was in the bag. Not in the cow pat. Thank Goodness.

Click here to see coverage achieved for this story.

Haven’t they Grown!

Annual ‘Apple Day’ celebrations came around again at the end of October so we put our wellies on and went back to Memorial Woodlands to see how apple trees planted to celebrate ‘apple day’ three years ago had grown. Looking back at the photo of the children who planted the original trees we wondered how they much they had grown as well so, with a little detective work and some really helpful mums, we managed to track them down and invited them back to be photographed again beside their trees.

Click here to see coverage achieved in the Thornbury Gazette.

Finally, we have a new member of the CHA team. Bernard was, like the lead characters in all the best novels, left on the shelf following an estimated £285 million spend on Halloween goodies by UK residents. Louise could not see him left on the literal shelf so paid for his freedom and gave him a new home at 12 Royal Crescent. He sings and dances to a fab version of ‘Rappers Delight’ and has the CHA team rockin’ away of an afternoon. We are thinking of posting him on You Tube. Watch this space.

It’s official. We love autumn, a truly spectacular time of year!

For Natalie and I it means the winter clothes are finally in the shops and we can plan our ‘look’ for the new season (Louise is going for military chic with a splash of goth thrown in, Nat has had a neat bob for a very classy winter look) and for Colin it means rugby on the telly with one of his famous hearty winter stews to accompany it. What’s not to love?

It is that wonderful betwixt and between time, when summer ends and winter arrives, when the sun is still strong but early morning frosts are beginning to become part of our daily windscreen scraping ritual.

Work wise Colin Higgins & Associates is as busy as ever. We spent time with client MemorialWoodlands at the Frampton Country Show mid September, talking to the public about their woodland burial ground as well as enjoying a fabulous day out in spectacular late summer sunshine. This beautiful photo was taken in the grounds of Frampton House early on the Sunday morning before the gates were open to the public. Can’t you just feel the tranquility?

Members of the team also spent an evening in London with client Aviance organising their staff Prize Draw. Two lucky members of the Aviance staff walked away with brand new cars and unfortunately for us we weren’t entered into the draw but we were there to film the draw and make sure the whole evening ran smoothly.

On something of a roll, we took on another new client last month ‘Great Local Offers’. Great Local Offers is an online discount voucher company with a difference; it tries to focus on truly local companies, and even tells you how many miles away the offer is from your house. Genius! Currently in Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Yorkshire, we are working hard on brilliant ideas to expand their customer sign ups and recruit new ‘Great Local Offers’ across the country.

Natalie and Colin took a trip to visit our client Interserve in the Newcastle Royal Victoria Infirmary and the Cumberland Infirmary.

Le Spa continues to keep us on our toes with beauty therapist to the stars Deborah Mitchell making a visit to train the staff in her amazing LIA Therapy treatment (including the Bee Venom Mask). Naturally we told the press about her visit and the coverage received has been phenomenal with pieces in all the local papers including the Gloucestershire Echo, Swindon Advertiser, Wilts & Glos Standard, Stroud Life and Stroud News & Journal. We also had a mention on Star Radio’s Breakfast show thanks to a cheeky text by one of the team! We are now pushing forward with plans for Christmas at Le Spa including corporate entertainment menus and of course the ever popular Twlight Spas.

We were delighted for Water & Stone’s Alison Ebanks, when she was inundated with calls after people saw the pieces about her reaching finalist in the Contract Bathroom Designer of the Year Awards. The power of PR at work again! Results are due out any day, and we are keeping everything crossed for her!

With the Cheltenham Literature Festival on our doorstep and about to start any day now, this literature loving company is chomping at the bit to see some of their favourite authors in the flesh. Nat is going to see Nigella Lawson, Chris will be gutted if he can’t get tickets for Armando Ianucci and Peter Capaldi, doing a talk based on Malcolm Tucker’s character in TV programme ‘The Thick of It’ and Louise is hoping to hear Rachel Johnson talking about her time as editor of venerable magazine The Lady.

What would be on your ‘dream authors’ list?

So, it’s heads down through autumn and in to winter now, keep doing what we do well, do more of what we don’t do enough of, do enough of what we need to and do less of what’s bad for us. Sorted.

Regards

‘The Team’

So, the British summer is coming to an end (not sure it ever really began) and its full steam ahead once more at Colin Higgins & Associates!

Louise has just come back from her holiday in Rhodes (we were deeply impressed with her interest in the culture and history of the famous Greek Island….and her ability to party until dawn and see the sun come up over the acropolis) and Natalie is, as I write, sunning herself in Ibiza, leaving the rest of us here all a little jealous. (Chris especially!)

In the last few months we have taken on a handful of new clients, which is keeping us all very busy.

Firstly Le Spa a health spa hotel based, in Cirencester. Justifiably labelled as the Cotswold’s premier health club, it has been an interesting, busy project.

To date we’ve been focussing on increasing the range of beauty therapy treatments available at Le Spa, and introduced them to celebrity beauty therapist to the stars, Deborah Mitchell and her famous Bee Venom mask. Deborah and her unusual mask have been splashed all of the papers in the last few weeks being tagged as the natural alternative to botox and giving amazing results to everyone from Danni Minogue to Michelle Pfieffer!

Here are links to two national press articles about the treament:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/beauty/article-1298041/The-Duchess-Cornwall-55-bee-string-facelift.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/7917062/Ive-had-the-Camilla-face-lift.html

Having looked at before and after shots this treatment really is the “bees knees” so excusing the cheesy puns it really has been a wise investment.

We also spotted an opportunity to put Le Spa’s name in the national papers when we heard that Chloe Madeley (Richard and Judys Daughter) was looking for a location to do a glamorous 1950’s style swimwear shoot. Le Spa to the rescue! A great day was had by all and we are waiting to see the article in print in the next few days. Watch this space.

From beautiful bodies to beautiful bathrooms, we are delighted to now be working with Alison Ebanks, owner of bathroom design and installation firm Water & Stone in Stroud. Alison is really hot property in the bathroom design business, with a bunch of awards to her name already and she’s just been nominated as one of the finalist in The Contract Bathroom Designer of the year 2010. We are keeping our fingers crossed for her and drafting a release in anticipation!

Water & Stone have a really stunning showroom and have worked with some big names including the fabulous Hemple Hotel in London. We love it when we get a client that is so easy to rave about! On the minus side, Chris is suffering from massive bathroom jealousy and the hours spent on their website looking at luxury showers is making him somewhat of a ‘bathroom bore’. No Chris, you can’t have a multi coloured LED lighting system with ipod socket in your bathroom.

As you would expect from an award winning PR company like Colin Higgins & Associates, we like to keep our finger on the pulse of current thinking and we were impressed with PR giant Saatchi & Saatchi’s idea to bring creative minds together from all over the world with ‘The Impossible Brief’.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been tearing lives apart for over 60 years and to date political leaders have failed to reach a diplomatic solution to create a sense of closeness between the two nations. So the guys at Saatchi have thrown the problem open to the world and said ‘let’s get creative minds from around the world to propose their own 'out of the box' solutions on how to bring together two nations that for a long time have been physically close, yet mentally worlds apart.’

It’s an interesting idea. In this in industry we spend our days thinking creatively, maybe, just maybe we could come up with something. Hmmmm……

Can you crack the impossible brief?

www.theimpossiblebrief.com

Right, we are off for yet another fabulous coffee from the shop downstairs, Pepper Crescent, and to ponder if a celebrity football match could solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

9 July 2010

Well that’s that over for another 4 years. England’s World Cup run that is. Not sure we could have taken any more tension, Chris and Natalie certainly couldn’t. Let’s hope the word vuvuzela disappears into the African sunset along with Capello’s victory dreams. Did you hear a Russian businessman has paid approx £14,000 for an Austrian hand crafted gold and diamond encrusted one.. .WHY? Apparently it is for his business partner…again…WHY?!

From a marketing point of view we were impressed with the guerrilla marketing tactics employed by Bavaria Beer but didn’t envy the two ladies who spent a good few days languishing in a Cape Town jail for all their creative genius. I think we will stick to less risky promotion ideas if that’s ok?

Wimbledon has also come and gone in the blink of an eye; were we all too busy actually enjoying the good weather to sit inside and watch the telly? Natalie is on week three of her tennis-fest, long may it continue, well at least until it clouds over a bit hey Nat?Glastonbury celebrated its 40th birthday this year and some members of the team are ashamed to say they’ve never been. Discussions are underway regarding a work outing next time… but with campsites looking like this (insert photo) I think some members would spend the entire tut tutting and muttering under their breath. Glyndebourne anybody?

Work continues apace; we visited an exhibition at Olympia ofinternational hospitals and clinics offering everything from dental implants to laser eye surgery (and a few more dodgy bits in between!..) so we are now following up talks with a handful of overseas medical concerns. We will keep you posted, however if you suddenly see any members of staff bearing a striking resemblance to Sylvester Stallone’s mother then you can be fairly sure we are now working for a plastic surgery clinic on a pro-rata deal. One press release equals one age reducing medical procedure.

Am now currently pondering the potentially interesting list of what everyone might have done, but can’t afford the libel fees so going to stop here.

Other work has seen new articles added to www.parkingindurham.co.uk and production of the latest newsletter, Woodland News, for Memorial Woodlands www.memorialwoodlands.com/latestnewsletter.php, which shows all the lovely photos from the inauguration of the new War Memorial, which took place in May.

We have had initial talks with The Royal Horticultural Society at Hampton Court Flower show regarding our client’s 2011 Chelsea Garden which was very exciting. Much foliage was stashed in the back of the car on the journey home but what we are going to do with the life-size faux marble model of Michelangelo’s David I have no idea. The looks we got as we whipped back down the M4 in the boss’ car, well where else was I supposed to hook the seat belt?

On a more serious note we have begun providing internal communications to Aviance as they withdraw their baggage handling service from London Heathrow. Thankfully the HR teams from Aviance have managed to secure jobs with fellow baggage handlers Menzies as they take over BMI & Lufthansa airline contracts.

Facebook, love it or hate it it’s here to stay and we found these most amazing statistics online today:

http://www.onlinephdprograms.com/facebook-facts-you-probably-didnt-know/

And still no time to talk about itunes accounts being hacked into, Nationwide’s retreat from sponsoring the English football team or Lady Gaga beating Barack Obama into number one slot of having the most ‘friends’ on Facebook. Next time perhaps.

From

“The Team”

From our new offices in Cheltenham’s Royal Well Crescent, CHA staff are enjoying the fabulous weather, the World Cup, and the joys of working above one of the best eateries in Cheltenham, Pepper Crescent!

We continue to look after our regular clients from both a marketing and PR perspective, whilst also pitching for new clients from a wide variety of sectors.

Articles written this week range from one client climbing Mt Snowdon to another attending an aviation security course with special interest in counter terrorist measures. Fascinating stuff. We are in the final stages of production of an in-house magazine for our Facilities Management client and are very excited to be beginning talks about doing a Chelsea Garden for another.

Last month the whole team travelled down to Thornbury near Bristol to see many weeks of hard work come to fruition. Our client asked us to organise the inauguration of a new War Memorial for the South West of England and we were delighted that the day went off without a hitch, with over 150 guests including members of the Army, Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and Royal Marines attending. The sun shone for the first time this year and the birds sang their hearts out and everyone agreed, it was truly a day to remember.

We are actually rather proud of this event and are busy drafting our CIPR Pride Award entry on the back of it, fingers crossed.

If you would like to see some photos or the ITV news coverage of the day, please have a look at our home page.

It’s certainly a very busy time at Colin Higgins & Associates!

Our staff continue to work and play hard in equal measures; Natalie has managed to keep up with her sports, this time trying her hand at tennis for a record ‘two whole weeks’ (anything to enjoy the sunshine!) whilst also enthusiastically supporting England as they inch their way through the World Cup; Chris is just about to move flats and has started playing in a new band; Colin is knee deep in dust as his house is knocked about by men who he claims he “pays far too much money to, for people who do so little work”, and Louise, newest member of the team, is looking forward to perfecting her rendition of the Dolly Parton’s classic “Jolene” at Karaoke next week.

From

The CH&A Team