August 20th, 2010 by Clare English

‘Speeps’ Profiles – Ruth Jones

This week, Technology director, Ruth, tells us exactly how it is with her inimitable Northern flair…

What did you have for breakfast. And why?

Slightly burnt brown toast with marmite. Because I like it.

Describe your journey from BD1 to WC2H.

Did I take a wrong turn?

What makes a good PR person?

Somebody who is hungry for success.  It is all about the result (within budget).

Favourite lunchtime venue near Leicester Square?

Ben & Jerry’s

Sum up leadership in five words. Do you make the mark?

Vision-control-delegation-motivation-accountability

Sure. And, if I don’t, it is your job to fire me.

What pisses you off?

- Excuses rather than solutions

- Lack of proactive drive (don’t talk about it, just do it)

- Made up timesheets

- Opinions without foundations

- Unconstructive feedback

- Pointless meetings

- Timewasters

- Boo shoers

- Crap coffee


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July 9th, 2010 by Clare English

‘Speeps’ Profiles – David Bell

This week, David Bell rides a huge beast and shares his views on media and PR.

Persuade us to visit your home town Leighton Buzzard in a sentence.

It’s the home of legendary 80s band Kajagoogoo. There’s also a free fight available for anyone that ‘wants some’!

You’re famed for your trademark wink. What’s that about?

That’s scary, I didn’t even realise I did it! Is it a camp wink or more manly? Please tell me it’s not too Anne Robinson?

How does Speed compare with other places that you’ve worked?

There’s a real passion and hunger to deliver results for clients. Many agencies pay lip service to it but here it’s genuine. If I was a client I’d hire Speed.

Where do you stand on media fragmentation and the rise of digital networks?

The traditional PR model was all about using the media and analysts as conduits for reaching our target audience. Whilst elements of this are still true there’s now a huge opportunity for engaging with our clients’ buying audiences directly. As a result the PR space is more exciting now than it ever has been and creativity is more important than ever. The speed at which stories break now is incredible and they’ll often be over social media before they can be qualified by traditional news outlets. This gives us in PR the opportunity to contribute to the debate on behalf of our clients but we have to be very quick to respond.

Have you got any advice for account execs starting our in their career?

Before you get into PR, gain as much work experience as possible, not only will this help you get a job in the first place, it will also mean you’re better equipped to hit the ground running when you do start. For those working on more technical clients, swot up as much as you possibly can on what it is they do, who their competitors are etc. You can’t pitch or provide counsel for them unless you understand this.

What’s been the biggest change in PR since you entered the industry?

The exponential rise in all things digital. When I first started out, I actually had clients say that “online coverage doesn’t count”, they wanted the print stuff to hold in their hands. That’s all changed in a very short space of time. I do occasionally shed a tear when I see the likes of IT Week disappear and Computing go bi-weekly. Within the next 10 years it’s highly likely that all B2B print media will be online.

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May 12th, 2010 by Chris Measures

B2B sales – from a marathon to a sprint?

NYC Marathon 2008 - the winner! Brasil
Image by Marcos Vasconcelos Photography via Flickr



The recession has had a massive effect on B2B sales and marketing – but not just in the obvious ways. Yes, companies are buying less and projects have been cancelled or put on hold, but research by TAS into the B2B sales cycle, quoted on the Inflexion Point blog uncovers some surprising facts.

Despite the recession, successful sales cycles are getting shorter. Essentially companies are only going out to the market when they have a clear idea of what they want and the signed-off budget to proceed. So time from qualifying a prospect to signing the deal has reduced by just over 23 per cent. The flipside of this is that if the sales cycle drags on, the opportunity is more and more likely to turn to dust, wasting time and effort.

Where does this leave PR and marketing? I’d say it strengthens the overall part they play in the sales cycle. Prospects are doing due diligence and research before they call you, so you need to ensure you are providing consistent information to them across the whole marketing mix. Get into the publications they read, make your website relevant, have a strong presence in the right digital channels and keep this up on a sustained basis.

With the sales cycle moving from a marathon to a sprint preparation and warming up prospects is even more vital. This is absolutely where integrated PR and marketing delivers, and careful investment here will reap major benefits further down the sales process.

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April 23rd, 2010 by Gerry Grewal

Digital PR demands discipline

There can’t be a PR agency in the UK that doesn’t have clients who remain snow blinded by social media. They know the internet offers a world of new opportunities for the creation and sustenance of positive influence and engagement, yet they don’t know where to start or where the best routes to value lie.

Social media doesn’t change the way in which human beings communicate. If anything it offers the potential to simplify communication by cutting out ‘the middle man.’ You can see social networks in action around the bar in a pub every day. And in this context the person with the most influence and the greatest reputation is not a Facebook geek, but landlady stood behind the bar.

The conventional approach of media relations no longer works alone. The media required to engage with an audience is now diverse: print media, social media, all kinds of media. And all of this is not only confusing, it’s bloody difficult.

We’ve seen the rise of specialist social media or word-of-mouth agencies to address this emerging opportunity. They have a role, but it is just one piece of the new jigsaw. More traditional firms have attempted to drag their antiquated techniques into online environment creating confusion in their wake.

PR agencies have taken three distinct approaches to social media:

- The creation of a team to focus exclusively on social media programmes. Potentially short term, not inclusive and creates a silo of expertise

- Hiring a high profile individual or small team to handle digital assignments. Likewise not inclusive and silos expertise

- Building skills throughout the organisation and integrating digital into a client’s campaign where it’s appropriate – Speed’s gig

The PR industry is undergoing a radical modernisation. If you work in the PR industry and want to continue working in the industry you need to equip yourself with digital skills in order to help clients integrate digital PR into their broader communication effort.

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April 13th, 2010 by Caroline Allen

Speed campaign shortlisted in CIPR awards

In 2005 Speed created the Tesco Baby & Toddler Club BabySafe initiative – a nationwide programme of seminars offering parents the chance to learn emergency first skills for free.  Since then, thousands of parents have learnt valuable lifesaving skills.   Highly rated by attendees – 100% would recommend the seminars to family and friends – we were delighted to hear yesterday that our work has been nominated in the prestigious Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Excellence Awards.

It’s the 25th year of the CIPR Excellence Awards and each year they recognise and reward best practice in public relations throughout the UK and acknowledge personal and team achievement at the highest professional level.  This year the Excellence Awards received over 750 entries across the 27 award categories – for a full list of award categories, visit the CIPR website (available later today).   Winners announced on 16 June – keep your fingers crossed for us!

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March 11th, 2010 by Flora Turner

Anyone you recognise…?

When discussing our jobs with non-PR folk it can feel like we are constantly justifying our ‘very busy, very important’ role as a ‘real’ job by attempting to explain in 100 words or less what it is we actually do all day. Even worse, is the assumption that we’re all vacuous champagne-swilling lushes. (- It’s amazing that Ab Fab continues to perpetuate the myth of the PR professional 6 years after the series ended!)

Times have certainly changed since Lynne Franks swapped fashion for Feng Shui, and consumer PR is now a much varied and forward thinking place, full of dynamic individuals.  However, it did come to my attention on my short-lived travels as a freelancer, that as an industry we do generally seem to fall into certain PR tribes:

Work hard, play hard – Works like a dog which earns them the right to party. Hard. Hard to the point where it all becomes a bit scary for those with them during said partying and those beside them at work the next day

Most likely to…have a heart attack

PR not ER – Constantly on the verge of tears and believes that without their manic micro managing and hysteria the whole company would go to the dogs

Most likely to…type through the tears because there’s no time to go to the loo for a proper cry (or a pee)

Posturing pervert – Can’t handle working in an industry surrounded by nubile young flesh and believes they have earned the right to ‘give it a go’ with the team assistant after a boozy lunch

Most likely to…be really inappropriate and summoned by HR

The bitter intellectual – Got a big fat academic chip on their shoulder because they are ‘too good’ for PR but have managed to work in the same agency for the last 10 years with minimum career progression

Most likely to…belittle the graduate trainee because they are secretly jealous of their youth and

Nice but dim – Exactly as the name suggests. It’s amazing they ever managed to get a job, let alone keep it but these twits seem to be recession proof. Probably because Daddy owns the company

Most likely to…look vacant while being given a simple task before asking for it to be put on an email so they can ‘get their head round it’

Lazy and deluded – The most infuriating group as you find yourself channelling a grumpy old person and saying things like ‘they wouldn’t know a day’s work if it slapped them round the face’

Most likely to…‘push back’ on work they are given because they are ‘totally maxed’ then leave the office at 5.30 on the dot

Nice as pie – So-o super nice and helpful. Never shouts, even if people deserve it, and can be a bit put upon

Most likely to…have a ‘falling down’ moment at the next inter-agency meeting and put a pic of their privates in the middle of a presentation to the company heads

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February 2nd, 2010 by Speed Briefs

New Year, new briefs

Well you have to change occasionally don’t you?

Speed Briefs has been upgraded for 2010. A literary lick of paint. More accessible, more welcoming, a more comfortable and pleasing experience all round. Not that it was bad, but we can always do better.

Why would you want to know what’s going on at a PR agency? Well you may prefer it to us pestering you with calls. And you always say you need to keep on top of things in the PR world but never have the time. So consider it a bit of public service, a moral duty if you will. You might even enjoy it.

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December 10th, 2009 by Caroline Allen

Where has Father Christmas gone?

Everywhere I look this year, it seems Father Christmas is still at home in the North Pole and an imposter has taken his place – Santa!  There are Santa sacks to hang by the chimney, the Santa Express at Selfridges, and even children’s favourite Rod Campbell has a book called ‘Dear Santa’.  What’s happened to the great British tradition – we’re not American!  Blah humbug, in my house, it will be Father Christmas who comes down the chimney and Father Christmas who eats all the mince pies.

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October 2nd, 2009 by John Brown

Future graduates: your PR career has to start now!

Your career seems like a lifetime away and anyway, surely a 1st in some form of degree will be enough for you to waltz into a PR agency of your choice and demand a lucrative salary and expense account.

Future graduates, you are wrong.

Whether you are graduating in 2010 or 2013, you will be entering one of the most competitive job markets in recent years and you need to make damn sure that you have earnt some PR stripes well before you send through your CV.

So as a relatively recent graduate who managed to avoid the doll queue, I thought I would share with you my top ten tips.  No…..Scrap that.  I will share with you the top ten minimum criteria that you need to achieve in order to stand a good chance of getting that first PR role:

1.    Read: Industry press, newspapers (regional and national), trade magazines, influential bloggers; you need to be keeping up with the media and PR industry on a daily basis.  Read, absorb and read again.

2.    Get a PR client: You are at university and have access to a thousand and one different societies, clubs, sports teams etc. Approach these people and offer them your PR services.  There may even be a little (and I mean tiny) bit of budget there to do a PR campaign, but most of the time it would be your time spent for free

3.    Start pitching: The biggest fear a grad starter has is speaking with journalists.  Well as one of my MDs put it in his recent blog “That’s a big part of the job, dummy”.  The sooner you overcome this fear the better.  Develop a press release for your new penniless client and start pitching it to the local press.  Try and make sure it is at least vaguely interesting, it will help

4.    Blog: A blog is a fantastic way of honing your writing skills, commenting on industry issues and getting yourself noticed.  Write what you want but bear in mind who is going to read it, a blog can be the most important bit of writing you do before your first job.

5.    Tweet: If you haven’t been then you need to get a move on.  Twitter, despite its recent increase of spam, is still a great platform for developing a network, showcasing your activity, pitching to journalists and interacting with future peers and colleagues.  Ignore it at your peril

6.    Get LinkedIn: Develop your profile and add anyone and everyone you come across in a professional capacity.  Having a bank of contacts to bring to the table at interviews will impress and may make things easier once you start

7.    Experience Junkie: It doesn’t matter what your lecturers say, you cannot learn the trade with a hangover in a lecture theatre and agency owners know this.  I promise you, if you are eager, you won’t be a coffee monkey.  Work experience is gold dust to a new grad, start yours as soon as possible.

8.    Work at a publication: Maybe blurring the lines, but I think utterly valuable.  Spending a little time in a newsroom will give you a glimpse into how busy a journalist’s life is. It will make you appreciate their time, their working day and their editorial process.  You may even like a couple of them.

9.    Don’t be an arse: PR is still full of self righteous people who treat journalists as a nuisance and clients as a means to max out the company credit card.  These people are quickly being exposed as the industry gets tougher.  Start off well, understand that you are at the beginning of a very big learning cycle and always act professionally.

10.  Get in quick: Start applying for jobs at the beginning of your final year.  Hopefully, if you have followed the above, you will have relationships with a few agencies, be able to get some journalist references and have a portfolio of work.  Now all that is left is for you to do is get in there before anyone else. It’s never too early to apply.  Worst that can happen is that they advise you to apply later, they may even remember your name!

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    August 26th, 2009 by Matthew Watson

    Is Woofer barking mad? Or a great ePR stunt?

    Following on from the success of Twitter, the micro-blogging site which lets users publish 140 character updates, a new social network has launched that allows users to post messages that are at least 1,400 characters long. The novelty macro-blogging site Woofer, now has more than 4,600 users, many of whom have already posted several wordy ‘woofs’.

    While social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, have changed the way that PROs can communicate and collaborate with colleagues, clients, journalists and industry peers, Woofer is really taking the biscuit!

    Although the macro-blogging site with its 1,400 character woofs is clearly a joke, it has attracted a lot of media attention and is currently one of the most shared web pages on social bookmarking site Digg. But rather than just being a novelty site setup to point fun at Twitter, it looks like the developers have cleverly created Woofer as a digital PR stunt to drive traffic to their website ShuffleTime.

    A PR stunt can be defined as the creation of a strange or sensational story that has the sole purpose of generating media and public interest in order to raise awareness of a product or business that is associated with it. That is exactly what Woofer does, but online. By developing a humorous site that ridicules one of this year’s most talked about topics they have created something that many people will be interested in and will choose to share with others online. This personal recommendation is key to helping the site to go viral and attracting yet more attention and traffic to the site.

    It will be interesting to see if any more companies opt to create digital PR stunts now that the silly season is in full flow.

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