72Point Enter PRWeek's Top 150
April 23 2018
Entering PRWeek's Top 150 at an impressive #54, we demonstrate our unique offering as a PR Consultancy with an innate understanding of the news environment, able to tap into the media landscape across all platforms in a way that most traditional agencies can’t.
Start A Conversation - Christmas Campaign in support of The Silver Line
November 30 - December 31 2017
In 2017, 72Point launched it’s first Christmas Campaign with The Silver Line – the only national, free and confidential phone line dedicated to older people suffering from loneliness and part of the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness (2016 - 2017).
We used our talents to #StartaConversation about loneliness and pledged to donate £100 from every new business project we received in December to support The Silver Line’s work.
Our supporters came forward to start a conversation about loneliness in our campaign video. Three brave people, including Luisa, appealed to anyone
watching to “keep talking to each other” – reminding us that we have the power to change someone’s day and create connections that count.
The campaign raised £1,400 and achieved national coverage for The Silver Line in The Independent, The Sun and The Evening Times as well as Scottish Sun and The London Economic, reaching over 288K coverage views and an online readership of 253million.
We also supported the charity's national #FoamAlone campaign on our social media channels, with raised £2352 in donations, as well as reaching hundreds of new supporters. The money raised helped The Silver Line to answer an additional 450 calls over the Christmas period.
Brand new website launch
January 22 2018
2017/18 was a turning point for 72Point, and this was reflected in the launch of our brand-new website. We achieved a record breaking year in 2017 by going back to basics. We have expanded into areas such as social media while solidifying our national media base with our basic principle that good stories perform well on any platform. And the proof is in the pudding. We let the numbers do the talking in our 2017 round-up
Prolific North Live 2018
February 28 - March 01 2018
Prolific North Live provided 72Point the opportunity to network with the biggest movers and shakers of the Digital industry. It also allowed us to showcase our digital content and social outreach work through the Digital Keynote Theatre, which featured talks from industry leaders from BBC, Channel4, Barclays and The Sun. It was a fantastic way to share our message up North as leading news-generation and content experts.
Download the event e-book, Prolific North Live - What Marketers Want 2018
Related blogs:
- Why PR Needs to be a Valuable Part of your 2018 Marketing Strategy
- How to Make the Most of Marketing Exhibitions
- The Future of Digital Media is in the North – Here’s Why
Watch highlights from the 72Point Digital Keynote Theatre in our exclusive video:
PRCA Digital Awards 2018
April 5 2018
72Point is thrilled to be shortlisted as In-House Digital Team of the Year at the PRCA Digital Awards 2018. Our team will be there on the night to present the Best Social Media Award category and the award for Best Digital Journalist/Blogger Award. The PRCA Digital Awards 2018 will be judged by some of the biggest names from the worlds of digital leadership, communications and journalism.
PR360 2018
April 19 - 20 2018
Head of Digital, Jack Peat, will moderate a breakout panel at this year’s PR360 Conference on “How PR’s should adapt to the new media age”. As well as heading up all of 72Point’s digital and social media outreach work, Jack is also the founder and editor of The London Economic (TLE) - which was the most shared news publication of the 2017 General Election - and also a regular contributor to the Independent online, VICE and Huffington Post.
View Jack's Keynote Address from Prolific North Live on how the North has become the digital media powerhouse of Britain.
Watch the highlights from the 72Point Digital Keynote Theatre below:
Prolific North Awards 2018
May 28 2018
72Point is proud to sponsor the Video of the Year category at the Prolific North Awards 2018. The awards recognise and reward exceptional talent in the creative and media industries across the North of England. Read why we are celebrating the rise of the Northern Digital Media Powerhouse here.
2017 – Letting The Numbers Do The Talking
Although the PR industry has developed remarkably over the past few decades, one thing that hasn’t changed is our compulsive need to use bizarre jargon to sell our wares. Incubators for influencers, accelerators for thought leaders, alignment for holistic viewers. Surely it’s time to de-layer the ecosystem?
While some may argue that the many faces of the digital revolution has necessitated an explosion of terminology in PR, it also threatens to overcomplicate what are often very simple objectives. Brands seldom approach us with such terminology in hand, so are we not doing them a disservice by adding waffle to their brief?
Here at 72Point we achieved a record-breaking year in 2017 by going back to basics. We have expanded into areas such as social media while solidifying our national media base by sticking to the basic principle that good stories perform well on any platform. And the proof is in the pudding.
We generated over five thousand print and digital cuts for our clients across the year, landing on an average of 15 publications for every story we put out. Add social media engagement statistics to that – a total of 635,000 shares across the year – and you get a decent picture of how our clients are getting serious bang for their buck.
But the highlight of 2017 was how we took our traditional press offering and applied it to social media. With a new social team in place – including UNILAD hires and a new social media management structure – we were able to generate a succession of viral campaigns, one of which was aired on Good Morning America with Will Ferrell and others which garnered a reach of hundreds of thousands of people across our social media suite of platforms.
Along with our national media offering and regional publication package we were delighted to introduce the Breakthrough Package in 2017 which delivers unrivalled cut-through for clients looking to get national exposure as well as touching the regions and getting traction on social media with the people who really matter to them.
The inflatable sanctuary project run for Hotels.com is a classic example of this. The project, featuring a mock ‘sanctuary’ for left-behind animal inflatables, was a huge hit with the national media garnering 29 pieces of organic coverage on titles such as The Telegraph, Daily Mail and Fox News. It also ran across over 170 Johnston Press regional titles and was distributed to tens of thousands of people on social media who are interested in travel or thinking about booking a holiday – a remarkable result all told.
It is a package we look forward to delivering more of in the New Year, quite simply because it delivers what it says on the tin without getting bogged down in meaningless jargon. It guarantees national exposure, it guarantees regional hits and it guarantees a targeted social boost or your money back.
That’s a straight-talking package from a straight-talking agency.
Start a Conversation this Christmas
Recognising Loneliness as a chronic issue in the UK, the late Jo Cox MP established a cross-party initiative called the Jo Cox Loneliness Commission, of which 15 major charities including Age UK, British Red Cross and The Silver Line UK are taking part. The Commission aimed ‘not simply to highlight the problem, but more importantly to act as a call to action. With the message ‘Start a Conversation’ about loneliness, and with each other. The Commission has got people talking at all levels – whether chatting to a neighbour, visiting an old friend, or just making time for the people they meet. After a year of research and community-building activities it will close on the 15th of December.
Bereavement is a prevalent cause of isolation that affects everyone, but in particular the older generation. Chronic loneliness can often set in when an individual loses close friends and partners who they have gone through their entire life with, leaving them with no one to spend time with on a daily basis. This leads to a vicious cycle where an individual has next-to-no contact with the outside world, therefore they cannot meet new people and make new friends and feel increasingly isolated from society. Charities such as Sue Ryder launched their #ConnectingThread campaign, which is on online community to provide people going through a difficult time with support – the campaign has provided people with a safe place to find practical advice, and an opportunity to share what they’re going through.
Poor health is another factor which can be experienced at any age and one that limits people’s contact with society. It’s an unfortunate fact that many elderly individuals are more prone to suffering from poor health, making it difficult for them to get around town or even their own home. Half a million people over 60 usually spend their day alone. In July 2015, Co-op and British Red Cross launched an innovative partnership to tackle this. The partnership has raised £6 million to fund new Red Cross services, helping over 12,500 people connect with their local communities by providing up to 12 weeks of practical support, helping finding activities and groups to join.
The Silver Line UK is the only national, free and confidential helpline for older people that is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 68% of callers contact The Silver Line because they feel lonely or isolated, 90% live alone, and 54% say they have no one else to speak to. The charity is doing great ground work in providing older people with practical support, or simply giving them someone to have a chat with. Last Christmas, The Silver Line say they were unable to answer 5,000 calls due to huge demand. It costs £5 to answer a call. So this year, we at 72Point have partnered with The Silver Line to help them answer every single one.
We pride ourselves on being conversation starters. This Christmas we will launch our #StartAConversation campaign, urging people to talk about issues of loneliness, and more importantly – talk to each other.
We’ll be launching a new video on Friday the 24th of November to help The Silver Line start conversations that count this Christmas.
Stay tuned.
72Point Celebrates Its First 250k Share Month
Little did we know that a decade on 72Point was more symbolic of the number of online shows we make – three campaigns in September, ironically, had precisely that number of hits. But in many ways extensive media coverage is just one part of our arsenal today – which is why our first quarter of a million share month is massively poignant.
Interactions and engagements have become the currency of the internet today, and we have invested significantly in social media to ensure that “shareability” is at the forefront of everything we do.
The chief reason why is undoubtedly volume. Likes and shares are the equivalent of buying a newspaper in the old days and leaving it in a waiting room or office canteen. The copy shifts from one pair of eyes into a social or professional group of many, putting the content to work by opening networks of like-minded people.
But social media allows you to do much more than just spread the word. Through groups and friendship circles it allows you to talk to the people who really matter to you, and we’re becoming increasingly targeted with every project we do.
Take, for example, the inflatables sanctuary story we ran for Hotels.com. On the one hand the client was delighted by over 30,000 social media interactions to complement almost 3m coverage views, but they were equally delighted that we were able to position their brand in front of people booking a holiday on social media with a nostalgic, light-hearted video that was well targeted.
Soon, social media shares will not only be the currency of the public relations industry but everything else PR firms pertain to now cover. Google now uses social media indicators as a ranking signal, and marketers are flocking to social media in bid to engage consumers rather than just stuff commercialised fluff in their face.
The take-home is that unless social media is at the forefront of your strategy moving forward then you are