Muckle Media, the creative PR and digital agency, has made two senior appointments in Edinburgh as it gears up for a year of growth.

Mark Probert has been appointed as finance director and joins the agency in August. Mark will bring his sound financial judgement to the team as the agency seeks to increase revenue by nearly 50 per cent this year.

Also joining Muckle Media’s new central Edinburgh office is head of media and events, Annie Diamond, who started in February. Annie’s career has spanned agency and in-house roles in London and Scotland and she oversees a number of client accounts in the luxury sector.  

Ellie Wagstaff has been promoted to account manager, Helen Nimmo has joined as finance manager, Eilidh Marshall has rejoined the agency as senior account executive and QMU graduate Fiona Reyner has been retained as a permanent trainee PR account executive following a successful internship.

Annie Diamond said: “Muckle Media is well positioned for success having recently secured a string of high profile accounts. I am delighted to join the team during this growth period where I can make a real contribution to the business. I will be working with our clients to deliver impactful communications that not only positively impact the future of their business but also the future of Muckle Media.”

The agency has also been shortlisted for six CIPR Scotland PRide awards including: Outstanding Public Relations Consultancy; Best use of Media Relations; Arts, Culture or Sport Campaign; Consumer Relations Campaign and Corporate and Business Communications campaign. Ellie Wagstaff has also been shortlisted for Outstanding Young Communicator of the Year.

The agency is currently hiring at all levels following a number of exciting new business wins.

Nathalie Agnew, managing director, said: “Annie and Mark join Muckle Media’s senior team at an exciting time and will help to shape the future of the agency as we seek to best serve our clients with strategic communications programmes that deliver business results. This year we’ve moved into new city centre offices in both Edinburgh and Inverness and secured a number of high profile client wins, including supporting Mark Beaumont’s around the world in 80 days cycle. I’m really looking forward to working with all three our colleagues as we seek to grow to enter the top ten PR agencies outside London list by 2020.”

About Muckle Media
Muckle Media is a creative PR and marketing agency with offices based in the central belt and Highlands working within a wide range of sectors to deliver creative and impactful campaigns which support business’ objectives. Established by Nathalie Agnew in 2012, the agency has grown over the years and acquired Inverness based agency Platform PR in 2015. Agnew and her team have implemented PR and social media strategies in a wide variety of sectors including tourism, food and drink, entrepreneurship and social enterprise.

Muckle Media are PRCA Ethical Champions, and most recently won Media Relations Campaign of the Year at the 2017 PRCA DARE awards for their work with ultra-endurance cyclist Mark Beaumont.

If attention spans are getting shorter should that mean videos should be too?

In 2017 we are now swamped with online video content, most of it being fed to us via social media. For the marketing world this can be a daunting prospect as the audience attention span has now shrunk to a mere eight seconds, which can be compared to a goldfish coming in at nine seconds. What does this mean for audience engagement for video content?

According to research* if you can hold the audience for the first eight seconds then the optimal length of a video should be no longer than two minutes, after this engagement begins to drop. However, perhaps it is a good thing that most people drop off after eight seconds as you are then left with your true audience – with people who are truly interested in what you have to say and are more likely to comment, like or share.

Nonetheless length of video should not be an absolute, it should be a consequence of considering your target audience, keep the video tailored to them and this may help you decide on a suitable length. Also remember to consider quality, it is always more important than quantity, the audience will more likely keep watching if you are offering them a quality product which entertains them.

Finally it should be noted that 12 minutes or more is a big ask, stick to the safe zone between six to 12 minutes, this apparent ‘sweet spot’ means the audience will generally commit to anything in between this so don’t stress on length here.
If you want to test your own attention span, try watching this video and note at what time your mind begins to wonder this can be simply scrolling down the page or starting to read something else on your screen….the result may surprise you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwyHk8OkGng

*https://wistia.com/blog/optimal-video-length

On Wednesday 5^th July, Muckle Media sponsored the ‘Muckle Media’s Miracle Miles’ race at Perth Racecourse. Our teams from Inverness and Edinburgh both attended the races for Muckle’s away day, and all enjoyed a flutter. But what makes sponsorships so important for brands and businesses?

Sponsorships are a great way to increase brand awareness. Businesses can sponsor anything from teams and individuals to events and TV shows to get their name across.

Under Armour, the American sportswear brand, is a great example of a company that gradually built their reputation as a leading brand, helped in large part from sponsorships. After producing sporting outfits for films such as The Replacements and Any Given Sunday, the company went on to secure deals with the National Football League, the National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball teams. While the brand enjoyed significant prominence in the US, it was less well known in the UK. This changed, however, when Under Armour teamed up with Andy Murray, Tottenham Hotspur, and the Welsh Rugby Union through sponsorship deals. These associations helped take the business to the point where it is now the UK’s 12th biggest sportswear brand, and is soon set to open a flagship UK store.

TV shows are another of the most highly sought-after sponsorship opportunities for brands. Research has found that viewers often have more positive impressions of brands who sponsor their favourite shows, which makes those short appearances on either side of the ad-break a desirable spot. However, there are always risks involved with these kinds of associations if circumstances change around the show in question. Carphone Warehouse famously withdrew their sponsorship of Celebrity Big Brother at the height of its popularity in 2007, after the programme became talked about for all the wrong reasons – an important reminder that brands should always keep their values and public message at the forefront of their minds when securing sponsorships.

As for Muckle Media, we were delighted to sponsor Muckle Media’s Miracle Miles Novices’ Handicap Chase at Wednesday’s races. It was a close race but Welcome Ben emerged on top, with the team going on to present the trophy to the winner. Hundreds attended on the day, and Muckle Media had a prominent presence across the racecourse. Our trip to the races had two key objectives. Firstly, to reward our team with a fun day out for all their hard work over the year, which was achieved. Secondly, our aim was to drive up awareness of the agency to secure sales, which we are currently monitoring and will continue to measure against to evaluate success.

Here are our top 5 tips for getting the most out of sponsorships:

1. Remember your objectives – what are you hoping to achieve through the sponsorship? Clear objectives will help you to identify the right approach for your brand
2. Ensure what you sponsor is aligned to your brand and has a clear purpose
3. Maximise the sponsorship by creating compelling content to shout about your partnership
4. Negotiate marketing reach within the sponsorship deal – how many name checks will you get and what is the reach
5. Always evaluate sponsorship and measure the impact of what you will get back from it

What do you think about the value of sponsorships? Let us know @mucklemedia

Today it was announced that Arianna Huffington, founder of Huffington Post, will be taking the lead on Uber’s PR strategy, sitting on the board of directors after a disastrous year so far for the company’s public image.

In recent months, Uber have battled with claims of stealing self-driving technology from Google, as well as a serious of allegations of sexism and sexual assault throughout the organisation.  Last month, the CEO of Uber Travis Kalanick resigned in response to key investors pleading for a change in leadership, however he remains on the board of the company.  

Where does communications come into this? As the new face of the company, Ms Huffington said, “the goal should be not just to fix Uber but to fix the systemic culture of Sillicon Valley”. But from a PR perspective, how easily can this be fixed?

PR is no longer seen as an add on to a company, it should be involved in an organisation’s strategy from the very beginning. The culture deciphers the communications, and after a global communications crisis takes place, it’s often difficult to regain trust from the public. This is where a new PR strategy is vital.  Can Arianna change the views of the many people around the world who are openly boycotting Uber and their new service Uber Eats?

It’s not just the customer that is important. Internal audiences are vital, and if employees are unhappy within a company, the business is unlikely to be as successful. Let’s hope that Arianna can get to the core of the company to change the way customers feel about the business.

Fiona Reyner, assistant account executive @mucklemedia

Our senior account executive, Ellie, was busy last week at Media City in Manchester with ultra-endurance cyclist Mark Beaumont appearing live on Blue Peter! Mark fulfilled a childhood dream of getting the coveted Blue Peter badge, and after the show took part in a live web chat with online audiences.

Mark will also be taking ‘Shelley the Tortoise’ around the world with him on his attempt to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. Catch up on Mark’s Blue Peter appearance: https://bbc.in/2t9SE11

Find out more about the challenge here: Good luck, Mark!

Ultra-endurance cyclist Mark Beaumont set off on his record breaking attempt today to cycle around the world in just 80 days. In 2008 Mark successfully cycled around the world in 194 days, this time he will attempt to do it in less than half the time.

Inspired by Jules Verne’s classic adventure novel Around the World in Eighty days published in 1873, Mark will attempt to circumnavigate the globe over 144 years later by bicycle rather than balloon as he embarks on the Artemis World Cycle.
Mark departed from Paris at 04:00 this morning, making his way towards Poland en route to Beijing through Lithuania, Russia, and Mongolia before cycling between Perth and Brisbane in Australia.

In New Zealand Mark will head for Invercargill and Auckland with the fourth leg of his challenge taking him between Anchorage in the United States and Halifax in Canada. He will attempt to complete his journey by cycling from Lisbon back to Paris with the aim of arriving by Thursday 21^st September.

Mark comments: “This is my chance to shoot for the stars and take on the ultimate endurance cycling challenge. Since I last pedalled around the world nearly ten years ago, there has been a growing desire in me to push the boundaries of what is possible and to retake the circumnavigation World Record at a whole new level. I know what I’m getting myself in to, this will be the toughest challenge of my life and will be an immense physical, mental and logistical battle before I reach the finish line.

“I have spent the last three years creating an amazing support team, who are in charge of my nutrition, logistics, navigation and safety, allowing me to purely focus on my performance and being an athlete. I don’t think anyone has ever tried to go this fast and this far before and I have been building on my experience as an endurance rider over two decades to prepare for this journey”.

In the run up to his world record attempt, Mark completed a 3,300 mile training route around the British coastline in April, setting the pace for his bid to break the around the world record. To successfully complete the challenge, he will be required to cycle for 16 hours a day, which is 240 miles for 75 days.  The remaining five days allow for two days contingency and flight time.

The Artemis World Cycle has partnered with Twinkl to create lesson plans and educational material for primary schools across the globe.  Mark also aims to raise £10 for every mile cycled, a total of £180,000 for Orkidstudio, a humanitarian architectural charity which he has worked with for the last decade.  Sponsorship can be by texting ‘ORKD80 £10’ to 70070 or online at justgiving.com/fundraising/markbeaumont-80days

Beaumont has secured international corporate sponsorship from brands including Artemis Investment Management, LDC, Cardtronics, Koga, Altura, Panaracer, VisitScotland, Menzies Aviation, Hiscox/Bikmo, 80 DAYS Digital, Muckle Media, and Thorntons Law LLP.

Keep track of Mark’s progress via the website  www.artemisworldcycle.com which will be regularly updated as the journey progresses, and via social media channels:

Twitter via @MrMarkBeaumont
Facebook via MarkBeaumontAdventures
Instagram via mrmarkbeaumont

Ellie Wagstaff senior account executive @mucklemedia

Seven-time tennis grand-slam champion John McEnroe has been making the headlines again this week, following his comments about World No. 1 Andy Murray coming in a ‘distant fourth’ in his era of tennis. McEnroe highlighted Murray’s grand-slam winnings only equalled a quarter of Novak Djokovic’s, a fifth of Rafael Nadal’s and just one sixth of Roger Federer’s. A little harsh, but is there any truth in it?

Serena Williams is the latest player to feel the wrath of the American tennis pro turned commentator, with McEnroe commenting Serena would only be ranked 700^th if she played the men’s circuit. You cannot be serious? Sadly, it’s true.
McEnroe is renowned for his ‘opinionated’ comments on and off the court, but what’s to be gained from such pointed statements? He didn’t face a high amount of criticism, so how does he get away with it?

Interestingly, the players used different channels to respond to McEnroe’s comments. Murray only issued a statement to media and didn’t signpost on social channels, whereas Serena issued two tweets in response. The first one was mild but the second one was more targeted: https://bit.ly/21pIszo

The responses from Serena were evidently well received by her 8.62 million Twitter followers, game set and match you would think. But astonishingly McEnroe has more followers than both of the players combined, with 17.1 million (Murray only has 3.7 million). It begs the question, what makes him more interesting to follow? Comedy. He apologised to Serena over Twitter, but his tongue in cheek tone is still clear to see: https://bit.ly/2rY2Kkc

Using comedy in responses can sometimes be a risky move, but McEnroe’s self-mocking posts appear to keep him on the right side of the line. With Wimbledon around the corner, there will undoubtedly be more curve balls flying around, so keep your eyes peeled!

Ellie Wagstaff, senior account executive @mucklemedia 

Fife Tourism Partnership, one of our clients at Muckle Media, has been hitting the headlines and gaining coverage on Kingdom FM after Fife was awarded WorldHost Customer Service Destination status.

Fife has been awarded WorldHost Customer Service Destination status helping to set Scotland apart as a visitor destination thanks to its outstanding customer service.

The national customer service campaign aims to promote Scotland and its regions as leading tourism destinations through customer service excellence, ultimately resulting in being awarded the coveted WorldHost Recognised Destination status.

To qualify for this status, at least 99 local businesses in Fife had to become WorldHost recognised by March 2017. To achieve this, businesses had to put at least 50% of their customer facing staff through WorldHost Customer service training, in the form of a full day workshop.

Alistair Bruce, Chair of the Fife Tourism Partnership comments:  “We are absolutely delighted at the levels of investment we have seen from local businesses who want to deliver the very best customer service to visitors and residents of Fife.

“This dedication has seen 107 businesses in Fife achieving WorldHost status, the only region in Scotland to reach triple figures in participation rates. This commitment reflects the pride and passion of businesses in Fife and our focus on providing the very best service to our customers”.

The campaign covers all kinds of visitor businesses from hotels to taxis, attractions to cafes. Over the next two years many of Scotland’s regions will be using the WorldHost customer service programmes with the aim of securing WorldHost Recognised Destination status.

Ann Camus, Tourism Partnership Manager, Fife Council adds: “Achieving WorldHost Destination status not only pays recognition to the unique hospitality our region has to offer, but helps our businesses by ultimately benefitting their bottom line.

“We would like to say a special thank you to our trainer Ashley Petrie of MAJR Group and our Tourism Officer John Murray who tirelessly worked together to sign businesses up and deliver the training. We also have to thank Fife Cultural Trust who enrolled all of their staff in the training.”

Heather Stuart, Chief Executive Fife Cultural Trust added: “Fife Cultural Trust is committed to the highest standards of customer care across our facilities, the WorldHost training has been transformational for our staff and supports our ambition to deliver the best customer service at all times.

“We are delighted that Fife itself is now recognised as a WorldHost destination, benefitting all tourist businesses operating in the area. Visitors are now assured that Fife offers the best of welcomes and a world class customer experience.”

Launched in Scotland in 2014, WorldHost helps businesses deliver customer service excellence as it supports the development of a customer service skillset through focussed training resulting in a highly regarded ‘must have’ badge for customer service.

We are delighted to be shortlisted for three Public Sector Communications Awards for Agency of the Year and Media Relations Campaign of the Year, for work with both Entrepreneurial Spark and V&A Dundee Design in Motion.

The Agency of the Year shortlist comes only months after acquiring Platform PR and beginning work with exciting clients such as whisky specialist Gordon & MacPhail, SSE and E.ON Energy.

The shortlist for Media Relations Campaign of the Year for work with Entrepreneurial Spark was down to the quick thinking and efficiency of the team. Whilst Muckle provides ongoing media relations to Entrepreneurial Spark, the team gained substantial coverage across high-profile publications by providing comment from its CEO on the March 2016 Budget within minutes of it being announced.

The third shortlist, also for Media Relations Campaign of the Year, is for V&A Dundee’s Design in Motion travelling exhibition. The exhibition travelled the length and breadth of Scotland to generate buzz ahead of the upcoming opening of the V&A Dundee. As a result of Muckle Media’s campaign, coverage was secured in local, regional and national print publications and online and broadcast media; helping Design in Motion exceeded its target of 10,000 visitors.

Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony at The Emirates Stadium in London, on the evening of Wednesday 14^th July. Fingers crossed!

Remember to follow us on Twitter for updates on the awards @mucklemedia

We love a good brainstorm at Muckle Media, but we’ve all taken part in some terrible ones too at different points in our previous roles. These five tips will help you get the best results when brainstorming creative ideas.

1) No idea is a bad idea
The purpose of a brainstorm is generally to come up with one fantastic idea that will lead to incredible engagement, lots of sales and maybe even an award. However, to get there, you usually need to come up with a lot of bad ideas first and certainly need to come up with lots of maybes that could be built upon to create the great plan you’re looking for. 

2) Always have a brief
Every brainstorm needs an objective, so if there is no brief make your own. Try not to make it too specific. Much like above, if you prescribe the budget, channels and hashtag before the brainstorm starts you’re not going to get the most creativity from the participants.

A perfect brief sets the scene for the campaign that’s required and has a clear and measurable deliverable, which could be anything from sales to behavioural change. Worst case you could even brainstorm what the brief is at the beginning of your session, but ideally, this is in place beforehand.

3) Always plan the brainstorm
I’ve been to hundreds of brainstorms where former colleagues were eager to be creative and the brainstorm leader arrives and just says, “Okay, what ideas do you have?”. With a good team of creatives in the room, clever ideas often still come out but to get the best chance of big ideas that will work, you should plan the brainstorm ahead of time.

Start with an ice-breaker – this could be anything from a word game to creating something out of plasticine. Next, think about the tools and techniques you can use to get people thinking. We’ll go into these further in another blog post, but it could be anything from using a mind-map to brainstorming audience personas and matching ideas back to these.

4) Think blue sky
Encourage everyone in a brainstorm to think big. Even if your annual marketing and communication budget is £100 and you are a team of one, it’s still much easier to scale down a big idea than to make a small idea bigger. It’s incredible what you can achieve on a budget if you think creatively, so try not to be constrained at the brainstorming stage. The actual delivery plan can deal with how to execute it, so the A-list celebrity might need to become a Z-list and the venue might need to be secured in exchange for a reciprocal service in kind. Great campaigns start with great ideas.

5) Encourage everyone to participate
The most creative people aren’t always the ones that shout the loudest. Much as some people like written instructions and others like verbal ones, some people like to write their ideas down and others stand on their chair shouting them out.

Think about providing post-it notes and spending some of your brainstorm with participants writing ideas down to ensure that everyone is heard. You could also try speed brainstorming where you go around the group with each person shouting out an idea. Don’t expect everyone to contribute winning ideas at every brainstorm though. When it comes to creativity, it’s not something you just switch on and off on demand. Always end a brainstorm with an invitation for people to share further ideas because you might get back to your desk to find a winning idea in your inbox.

Keep in touch
Do you have a great tip to get the most from brainstorms? Tell us @mucklemedia or email the team on hello@mucklemedia.co.uk

Creative workshops
To launch our new campaign planning process, we’re hosting free creative workshops across Scotland over the next few months for in-house PR, marketing and communications professionals. You can check dates and sign-up here. If your location isn’t included and you’d like us to visit your city/town, please let us know and we’ll do our best.

With social networking sites frequently introducing new features, it can be difficult to keep up and ensure that your brand is getting the most out of what different sites and apps can offer. To make things a little easier, here’s a round-up of the latest developments in the world of social media.

Snapchat’s Snap Map

Snapchat recently launched their ‘Snap Map’, a location-sharing element which allows users to see where their friends are and what’s going on. However, brands are likely to be more excited by the opportunities opened up by the map’s ‘Our Story’ feature. Users can submit their Snapchat Story to ‘Our Story’ to allow non-friends to see their content for 24 hours. This will give users the chance to share photos and videos from specific locations, like gigs or festivals. As a result, brands will be able to promote their events using the map, and will also be able to track how users are engaging in particular locations.

Twitter redesign for mobile

As 85% of time spent on Twitter comes from mobile devices, the site’s most recent re-design of Twitter mobile apps this week is hitting the headlines. Alongside its clean and minimalist new look, the app now includes live refreshing of comments. This change is consistent with Twitter’s aim to be the home of live events and breaking news, as it allows users to keep track of emerging stories and stay up to date without having to manually update their timeline. Links within the Twitter app will also now open in an in-app Safari browser, meaning users can access their accounts on sites they are already logged into on their main mobile browser. This will be of interest to brands with websites requiring logins, as the new ease of access is likely to drive website traffic from Twitter users clicking to in-app links.

Facebook’s Live Chat with Friends

Facebook recently began rolling out its ‘Live Chat with Friends’ feature. With Facebook Live already proving popular, and users commenting over ten times more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos, this new aspect allows people to invite their friends to a private chat about a public live video. The feature could allow more people to see live videos, drawing attention from people who may not have been watching initially, and gives people more engagement and interaction options with live broadcast content on Facebook.

Instagram influencer tags

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of attending a day at #PRFest in Edinburgh. #PRFest was founded by Laura Sutherland. Each speaker gave an insightful account into different aspects of the PR industry, ranging from myths of PR to SEO and mental health in our profession.

The day started off with John Brown’s presentation focussing on “Myths of PR”. He looked at different issues such as our low tolerance for bad videos, and why human interaction will always be better than digital communication. If we don’t show real life on social media, why should we believe the message?

After the devastating terror attack in Manchester in May, Head of Corporate Communications for Greater Manchester Police, Amanda Coleman, gave a poignant account of the events that took place, and the crisis communications procedures they followed.  She captured the audience by talking about the communication strategy implemented in the immediate aftermath of the attack, and focused on the importance of honesty, accuracy and the right tone. Amanda highlighted seven key points that are vital to have in place before a crisis:

·         Plan and prepare
·         Train key spokespeople
·         Know the roles
·         Exercise initial response
·         Work with others
·         Gain trust from CEO
·         Build a supportive network

Most importantly, being surrounded by a support network was invaluable for Amanda and her team. Her presentation was inspirational, and touched the audience, ending in a standing ovation.

Later in the afternoon, co-founder and director of Threepipe, Jim Hawker’s presentation on SEO furthered my knowledge of the challenges of digital upscale, and that often PR agencies are performing SEO without realising. Given the SEO industry’s $65 billion-dollar worth, it was an eye opener into how PR companies can use it most effectively.   

Overall, my productive day at #PRFest offered an insight into the importance of planning, how to use insight to inform strategy, and how to help a colleague who may be suffering from a mental health issue.

Fiona Reyner, assistant account executive @mucklemedia