Posts tagged Brass

Are you a Social Media Director / Head of Social Media ?

I’m looking for a bright, sparky, highly commercial, experienced Social Media Director (Head of Social Media) to lead and grow the social media team at Brass Agency (the role would be based in Leeds, with time spent at our London office/the London area)

We already have a great team working on award-wining campaigns for clients like First Direct, Ribena and Schwarzkopf…but we want to really accelerate what we are doing in this area. The social media team sits within our ‘Connect’ team, which includes PR/Online PR, Online Media/Online Advertising, SEO, Online Insight & Analytics. This means that the social media team really benefit from not being siloed - we are able to answer our client’s briefs with exactly the right mix of channels and strategies.

As well as getting the benefits of being in the Connect team, our social media team also draws on the experience of our wider full-service communications agency, with access to fantastic content-creators, designers, video producers and much more.

So, we are looking for someone with an analytical and insightful mind, who will fit into this team well and will:

• Lead and grow a team of social media specialists

• Package and develop our social media offering

• Pitch and win business - meeting new business targets

• Be comfortable with the financials of running a team

• Get hands dirty and work on social media projects

• Be very ROI-focussed

• Help us to innovate in our delivery

• Build relationships in the social media industry and build on our reputation 

You will have a demonstrable and thorough working knowledge of the industry, metrics, planning. Salary is negotiable. 

Find me and show me you have what it takes.

Tips for making the most of your PR agency

Luke Johnson from Risk Capital partners said last month in the Financial Times:

“A good PR consultant is worth paying for and now more relevant than ever, given the new avenues of communication available to consumers and businesses alike.”

How very true!

The Head of PR at Brass has some tips on getting the best out of your PR agency.

The PR professional of the future

Lucy Allen (Lewis PR) posted a good article (via prarticles) about the PR professional of the future. What will he or she look like?

She said…

We’ll see a growing emphasis on specialized skill sets. Our industry is becoming commoditized, and agencies must safeguard their margins by being more efficient and effective than ever. Hiring highly skilled individuals who can execute quickly and bring unique value will be critical. 

I agree. PR professionals have competition from lots of different areas now. We’re no longer in the ‘safe’ days of big retainers and long lunches. The PR professional of 2011 needs to skill up, get very efficient, effective and be adaptable.

Specialists also bring access to a ready-made network of relevant contacts – not just reporters, but all forms of influencers. A PR professional’s network will become even more important, but the good news is that creating a network no longer relies on simply having the right personality. Thankfully, we should see the end of so-called PR pros whose only skill is the ability to work a room.

I’m not sure I agree with this statement so much. I think a PR professional’s personality is very important for the job. Networking with people online is just the same as networking with people offline. Bloggers these days need to be treated like reporters, so the skillset is the same. What the PR professional of today needs to learn is the technology side of online - they need to learn good SEO principles to make sure they are getting the best results from their Online PR efforts.

The ability to create content – from the written word to images, video, and interactive media – will be a key skill. Agencies will need content producers and visual directors and today’s account manager will evolve into a project manager, who is able to coordinate complex, multimedia campaigns.

I absolutely agree with this. It’s something we are doing much more within the PR team at Brass.

Gaining good Online PR is very dependant on the quality of content. This is why an agency like Brass is well placed, as it is an integrated agency - we have a dedicated creative team that work on all campaigns. They work very closely with our PR professionals, making sure that we are producing the best content…whether that is copy, images or video.

Wear it Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness

Today is National Wear it Pink Day for Breast Cancer Awareness…

It’s a cause that is close to my heart from family experience and something everyone else at Brass wanted to get involved in. So we’ve been joining in on the fun by baking lots of yummy pink buns and, of course, wearing lots of pink clothing!

There’s are lots of photos from today, but here’s a quick snap of myself, Lauren and Anne from the Connect team:

Nike embraces social media, but is “still learning”

I went to the ‘Advertising in a Social Media World’ conference recently with a few other peeps from Brass. There were some great speakers and I’ve written the first blog post, featuring the Nike presentation, for the Brass Blog. 

More highlights from the conference are to follow.

Plus, Debs (Head of Online PR at Brass) and I live tweeted from @BrassAgency throughout the day with lots of handy stats and titbits.

I thought the Nike presentation by Simon Owen, was particularly good because he shared lots of experience and yet was very open and honest….saying “we’re still learning”. 

For the full low-down on the Nike pres, please take a look at:

http://www.brassagency.com/blog/nike-embraces-social-media-but-is-still-learning

Who will become the Mayor of Location Based Services?

Mark Kelly at Brass Agency wrote a great blog post about Location Based Services (LBS). It’s well worth a read and follows on from a discussion we’ve been having in the agency about LBS and their value.

The general consensus is that some of us use it (expanding with the introduction of Facebook Places) and think it’s “ok”….but the actual potential and future of LBS looks very exciting.

Here’s a snippet:

What value do location updates offer?

Check-in services per se are generally viewed as banal updates that clog social networks: “I’m at Pizza Express.” So what, get off my screen. Okay, I’m guilty of posting just that, as someone who currently uses three such services (in the name of trialling all that is new). But there’s a good chance you’ll be posting something similar in the future, once there are compelling reasons for you to do so (you know, the offer / bargain / loyalty / engagement thing).

Actually these location updates do offer some ‘value’; they often engender a ripple of dialogue with follow-up comments from friends, seemingly more so if you throw in a photo. And social network banter is a modern constituent in the glue that keeps our distributed relationships alive. And people do derive value from revisiting location + photos + friend comments in their digital life stream.

Can QR codes bring life to stale print?

QR codes are the funny-looking squares on pretty much everything these days.

Haven’t noticed them? Take a look at the packaging with your new skincream, your new trainers or many other items. They might be small and hidden away, but they will be there.

QR codes have been around for a while now, digital agency Swamp (now called Brass), was one of the first agencies to make a big splash with QR codes. We added a QR code on every single England Football Kit, for our client Umbro. The QR code linked to exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of the England team.

However, most other marketers, despite saying that they are going to set the world of advertising alight for many years, haven’t found many creative ways to use QR codes.

In a recent blog post, mydigitalsoapbox had a nice little idea for using them:

Savvy marketers have been talking about the impact that QR codes are going to have on advertising for a long time, but I’m more intrigued by the impact they are going to have on the medium of print in general.

A couple of days ago, I was reading an article about Cee Lo’s new “F*ck You” video in the print version of the New York Times.

It wasn’t alive at all. It was black and white. It was print.

Now, imagine if there was a QR code on the NY Times page that I could scanned with a QR code app on my iPhone.  Upon scanning, my iPhone would “link” to a blog post on NYTimes.com with Cee Lo’s video. I’d be engaged and my experience would have been thoughtfully enhanced. As a not-so-insignificant side effect, page views on the NY Times blog are increased and ad revenue increases. 

Doesn’t this seem like a no brainer?

Yep, seems like a no brainer to me too! 

I don’t always want to read newspapers online, I like the feel of paper. However, sometimes you need a moving picture or some interactivity to really bring it alive.

Adding a QR code would be a nice solution for those with any kind of phone (not just those with iPhones) to get to the online content add-on quickly and easily.

One step closer to the newspapers in Harry Potter?  ;-)

Brass work features in Best Packaging Design Worldwide

It’s good to do beautiful work, but even better when it’s internationally recognised.

The highly talented designers at Brass created packaging for Mallard Tea and it has been featured in Lürzer’s Archive of the 200 Best Packaging Design Worldwide. We feature alongside the likes of Coca-Cola, Levi’s and Panasonic.

That’s a nice way to end a Tuesday afternoon :-)

Read more at:

http://www.brassagency.com/blog/brass-work-featured-in-lurzers-archive-200-best-packaging-design-worldwide