OPINION

Making PR work better for you

At a time when budgets are tight, it may come as a surprise that official figures from COI, the Government’s news service, highlight that government spending on social marketing and supportive PR is increasing dramatically year on year. Meanwhile, spending on traditional advertising activities is in decline.

So what exactly is PR? A press release? Media relations? Media events? Crisis management? It’s actually all these things - and so much more!

The Institute of Public Relations describes PR as, “The planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and understanding between an organisation and its publics.”

In other words, it’s all about positively influencing a range of audiences, whether that’s stakeholders (political, social or economic), internal audiences, partners or the general public.

And why is PR proving so popular? It can offer an excellent return on investment, by using wide-ranging, creative tactics from events, media relations and community relations activities to media training, issues management, advertising and internal communications campaigns.

For instance, one of our most recent campaigns saw us deliver more than £50,000 (advertising equivalent) of media coverage for the cost of less than 2.5 days of our staff time! That’s publicity worth 50 times the PR cost!

So there’s no doubt that PR is a powerful tool for positioning organisations where they need to be, and now - more than ever – is the time to use PR as a vehicle for delivering creative, value for money solutions.

Anna Beaumont, PR Manager

ICE was recently listed as the highest new entry in the UK’s Top 25 Public Sector League Tables 2009.

If you’d like to discuss how our PR team could work with you, please contact Anna Beaumont directly: 0151 647 4700 / anna@icecreates.com

september 09 other stories...

Feature - from Page 1

ICE has been shortlisted by the Health Service Journal for a top social marketing award.

We’ve been jointly nominated for our work with North East Lincolnshire Care Trust Plus (CTP), after a rigorous judging process saw more than 80 entries in the social marketing category (and more than 1,000 entries overall) whittled down to just six.

asgard

The nomination centres around a groundbreaking new social marketing project called Asgard, which is helping reduce the number of 16-19 year olds who repeatedly attend A&E with complaints ranging from substance misuse and related injuries, to self harm, unsafe sexual practice or undiagnosed or poorly managed chronic illness.

The project involved extensive research with young people, which laid the foundation for the appointment of a new community intervention team which works on a one-to-one basis to help them tackle these complex health challenges.

It’s complemented by a parallel initiative to raise young people’s aspirations by offering them the opportunity of paid work with Care Trust Plus, broadening their horizons and offering alternative life choices for the future.

Annie Darby, Programme Lead with North East Lincs CTP says, “This nomination is fantastic news, because it underlines all the hard work we’ve been doing to identify our most vulnerable young people and ensure they don’t fall ‘between the gaps’ in existing services.

“ICE’s support has been invaluable in helping us use a social marketing approach to engage directly with 16-19 year olds and provide the practical support they need before health and well-being issues reach crisis point.”

Our Director of Social Change, Amanda Jackson, adds, “The foundation of Asgard was based around talking to individual young people in order to understand the everyday challenges they face – and not assuming to know the answers beforehand!

“This has enabled us to devise a project which is genuinely making a positive difference to young people’s lives in this area and has helped capture the imagination of the HSJ judges.”

The HSJ Awards will be held at an event in London in November.

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