Funding Circle heads to Brazil

A quick new business update: We’re excited to reveal that we’ve just started working with Funding Circle, the online marketplace where savers and investors directly lend to small businesses in the UK.

Founded by three entrepreneurs in 2010, the company is unlike any other, and we’ll be working closely with them to increase traffic and position Funding Circle as a true alternative to a bank for savers, investors and small businesses. We’ve already kicked it off with some great online coverage in April (in the Telegraph, the Independent and on This is Money) and May (on the BBC, in City A.M. and on MSN UK), and the team, led by Brazil associate director Sean Williams, will be working hard to keep it up throughout the year to ensure that Funding Circle meets its ambitious growth targets.

You can find out more about Funding Circle at its website, and if you’re a journalist, email fundingcircle@agencybrazil.com for further information or comment.

Made in Britain

What does the Honda CR-V have in common with Brompton bikes and Aga cookers? The answer, as you’ve probably guessed from the title, is that all three are built in British factories. Since 1985, Honda has produced more than two million cars in its 370 acre factory in Swindon. These British-built cars go on to be driven around the world. Step into a Civic Type R in Japan and you may well find that you’re sat in a British-built car. British drivers are incredibly supportive of their local industries, and many motorists actively look to ‘buy British’ when they buy their new cars. The trouble for Honda is that, being a Japanese company, not everyone realises that Honda produces cars in Britain. Honda wanted a campaign that would highlight Honda’s British credentials to consumers, and together with digital agency Collective, we put together the Made in Britain campaign. The campaign encourages British ‘makers’ to submit their creations, and centres around a Facebook page. The very best entrants, British makers who are trying their best to turn their hobbies into a business, will each win a £1,000 development grant from Honda. Where does Brazil come in? Working with Honda and Collective, Brazil has put together a campaign to spread the word about the competition, and make sure that it reaches as many people as possible. The campaign only kicked off recently, so the really exciting stuff is still to come, but already we’ve lined up star judges from Shortlist, Stylist and New Design Magazine, as well as a fantastic competition with links to the campaign on the Sun’s website. So, if you want to see the best British makers out there – or better still, if you want to showcase your work – head over to www.facebook.com/hondamadeinbritain and take a look at what’s going on.

Warner Bros shows its face on social media

This month Facebook announced that Warner Bros will be using www.facebook.com to allow its customers to rent and stream films.

Launching with The Dark Knight, users will pay $3 (roughly £1.85) per to rent a film for two days. Crucially, if Facebook decides to use personal data to decide which films to suggest to you, the outcome will be scarily targeted, and the move into this sector makes Facebook a serious challenger to iTunes and Spotify.

However, the ability to pause, fast forward and rewind films will have a big effect on the current user experience. This may prove something of a challenge for Facebook, as users are accustomed to rapid browsing and not staying on a single screen for more than a few seconds.

Working as a Facebook app, another issue may be content management. Facebook currently has no facility on the site to track your apps or list them in order of preference, and with more apps available than we can count, it is likely that items such as this may get lost in the games, shop and other retailers all fighting for the space on your Facebook homepage.

Stores such as ASOS already allow products to be bought directly from the Facebook page, and at this rate, it won’t be long before Facebook controls your entire web experience. It’ll be interesting to see what rivals can come up with to even the scales.

"I've been robbed - someone tweet @999!"

The last thing the internet needs is another post with a five step plan telling you how to "do" Twitter. Instead, we want to point you in the way of someone who's doing it well. Last week, we chanced across Sevenoaks Police's Twitter page. What's so special about it? In a world full of social media experts/gurus/ninjas (delete as applicable), its a breath of fresh air: instead of the endless self promotion, retweets and follow Fridays that fill Twitter, this police force concentrates on original information that people following it are actually likely to find useful. it's a way for the force to demonstrate what it does, and also to get warnings out to the people it serves.

If you've read this far, you're probably thinking that this is not the first time that a police force has used Twitter, and you'd be right - Greater Manchester Police famously took to Twitter last year with a hugely successful project where the force tweeted every call that came in. However, this is no publicity stunt; police forces are using Twitter for its own sake, and it's very interesting to see what they're able to do - check out this picture of a siezed cannabis farm found by Salford North Police - especially given that these guys are operating on public sector budgets.

It's not perfect (from a PR point of view, it's probably unwise to tell people about successful speeding prosecutions) but it's refreshing to see Twitter used to inform rather than promote.

Using global to go local

Plenty has been written about social media as an effective tool for global brands, and growing number of small businesses have been getting in on the act too. Penderyn, the Welsh whisky distillery, has won praise for using social media to punch above its weight and develop an international presence, for example. While researching local businesses for this month’s Swift Awards, we’ve found that more and more local businesses are getting in on the act too - using social media to keep their finger on the pulse.

A desire to attract new customers and keep existing ones is vital to local businesses’ use of social networks. As a result of its uptake, service will no longer stop when the doors are closed. People are constantly connected and a 24 hour working day is likely to become a reality, at least as far as customer service is concerned.

One Swift Award winner consistently using social media in a local capacity is Reading-based poultry breeder Widgit’s Birds. Businesses don’t come much more local than this, but enterprising staff members are using Facebook to keep in touch with existing customers and build the business’s reputation. As well as the usual customer service support, the suppliers offer free advice, particularly important when keeping animals during the winter months. It’s great to see social media catch on locally – a clear sign that it’s here to stay.

Online versus traditional coverage

When developing proactive campaigns, brand mentions in the right places remain the most important thing to our clients, not necessarily how we incorporate social media in to existing plans. The core for all those in the communications industry is still about identifying the target audience before building a campaign which is relevant and interesting to the target audience; the appropriate medium – whether that includes social media or not – should always remain secondary.

What print journalists write (or indeed blog about) will always be important to brands - no question. However, a social media comment on a client’s story or brand mention is much more personal, which may well exceed the reach and power of a newspaper mention. Understanding and being able to evaluate this for a client is imperative.

With every client, we instill Brazil’s philosophy of adopting a proactive social media strategy for the right reasons, rather than simply as a ‘me too’ exercise. This approach allows us to measure exactly what we set out to do, which our clients clearly appreciate.

Brazil’s recent swiftcover.com campaign to reach mid-to-late ‘20 somethings’ about the dangers of drunk passengers in the run up to Christmas is a classic example. We prioritised social media activity alongside targeting major online news channels such as MSN and Yahoo! as well as the national newspaper websites such as the Mirror, Guardian and Daily Star – all of which we gained coverage in. The knock-on effect and planned seeding of the story resulted in thousands of tweets not necessarily mentioning the brand but each and every one linking to the coverage, which mentioned swiftcover.com throughout. A hugely successful campaign based through an online strategy – and we got significant articles in a few national newspapers too, which is always welcome!

See our thoughts on this in prmoment, or, for more information, get in touch!

PR Trends 2011 - Five of the Best

PR, like any other marketing discipline, is going through major transitions, and in 2011 I think we will see a number of significant trends which may evolve our industry further.

Here are five for your consideration:

1. No More PR Boxes

Everyone has their own perception and interpretation of exactly what PR is – thus the difficulty I had in explaining to my mother what I actually did for a living. However, the boundaries of this loosely defined discipline will blur even further in 2011. We are now seeing brand owners looking for creative campaigns rather than generic PR support – so PR can’t be put in a box and must innovate and collaborate in order to maintain a stand alone image.

2. Social media – common sense please!

Possibly more of a wish than a definite trend, however we’ve becoming increasingly jaded by the plethora of “social media gurus” and specialist social agencies trying to capitalise on the ignorance of marketing directors.

Much of social media is a combination of common sense and old fashioned communications techniques – it shouldn’t cost an arm and leg to implement nor should it be mandatory for all businesses to jump on the bandwagon.

3. Bloggalists

We have journalists, we have bloggers and we also have journalists with blogs. However 2011 be the first year in which those seeking a way into journalism become a bloggers with a loyal following first, with newspapers and magazines giving commissions based on the popularity of a blogger. Those with the most followers win!

4. Mob.Com

Everyone who is anyone has a smartphone now – and 2011 will see a further evolution. While those brand owners who produced an iPhone app last year probably think they are leading the way in mobile communications, in reality "mob.com" will be about much more than designing “cool” (but often useless) apps. QR (Quick Response) codes are starting to infiltrate popular society and there is great PR potential in developing mechanisms not just for data capture, but driving traffic to websites, shops, retail outlets and brand-related events. Also watch out for how PR can use augmented reality on mobile can engage with consumers in new and creative ways.

5. The Price is Right

The retail space is constantly being challenged. Twelve years ago the revolution started when online retailers went head to head with their “bricks and mortar” counterparts, and the pressure hasn’t subsided. This year we will see how retailers can connect to savvy consumers to offer instant deals, special offers and exclusive products. KGB Deals and Groupon have already made inroads into this market, and this model will be replicated (and improved) by established retailers, and of course shamelessly promoted through social media.