Forget silly season. It’s time to capture attention.
Written by Charissa Redfern, B2B and Corporate Business Director
silly season \SIL-ee-SEE-zun\ noun. 1 : a period (such as late summer) when the mass media often focus on trivial or frivolous matters for lack of major news stories.
In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s summer. Tricky to spot when a few days of sunshine gets overtaken by pouring rain and the jumpers come back out. Now normally this is a time when grabbing the media’s attention presents a unique set of challenges or opportunities – depending on which way you look at it. Creative and innovative comms campaigns take centre stage as things wind down for a few weeks (known as silly season) and journalists welcome more of a helping hand to capture the attention of their audiences.
However, the summer of 2024 isn’t playing ball. The summer of 2024 says “hold my beer”.
MAKING HISTORY
If you had a July the 4th general election on your bingo card for this year then your predictions are better than most. Enter a new government with new focuses and a promise to deliver from day one. For the Business and Corporate Team at Tangerine that provided a brilliant opportunity to put our clients front and centre of conversations around new policies and legislation.
Rachel Reeves is making history as the first female Chancellor and as part of her new role she’s promised to overhaul planning restrictions to get Britain building again. We saw an opportunity for our client Wavin, experts in surface water management, to lead the conversation.
Ahead of her first major speech, we drafted a comment with Martin Lambley, their Global Product Manager for Urban Climate Resilience, calling on the government to repair our relationship with water by providing clarity on regulation including the Flood and Water Management Act. A quick turnaround by our media relations experts and the client team meant the comment was picked up across target outlets on the day of the speech. These included Water Magazine, Builders’ Merchants News, Professional Builders Merchant and Building Specifier.
The King’s Speech shortly after reaped similar rewards, with commentary from Wavin featuring heavily in edie and Installer magazine positioning our client as thought leaders on the topics that matter the most to their audiences.
BUILDING MOMENTUM
Delivering on sustainability remains a key focus for the new government which describes itself as “mission-driven”. Our client Encirc, the UK’s leading sustainable glass bottle manufacturer and filler, is a leader in sustainability innovation and is committed to driving improvements across the packaging industry.
With their ‘Vivid Vision’ strategy in place they are helping to inspire collaboration and innovation in the UK beverages sector. We spotted an opportunity for them to use this to steer the conversation, challenging the government to deliver change across three key areas in beverages packaging to ensure a more sustainable future. Authored by Richard Lloyd, Managing Director of Encirc Beverages, the article featured in the politics section of The Grocer, a top target for our client.
MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU
This headline grabbing activity is only made possible by following a few key rules:
Good preparation – knowing what’s coming up in the news agenda and how it’s relevant to your clients is key. Tangerine has been preparing for a potential change of government for the past year, meaning our clients could hit the ground running from day one.
Great client relationships – putting yourself out there takes bravery. It’s our job to reassure our clients that taking a stand on what matters to them is good for their brand.
Know your media – we talk to key journalists every day, so we are on their radar when it comes to opportunities like this. Those contacts pay off for clients.
