Communications
I am a communications consultant. I have worked in the creative and cultural sector for over a decade and offer a range of services: communications and marketing strategy, advertising planning, advocacy and public relations. My clients range from Natural England and Tate Liverpool to The University of Manchester and the issues-led communications agency, Creative Concern. Here are a few of my favourite projects.
The Best of Manchester Awards.
Working with Urbis.
Organised by Urbis, led by Manchester’s creative director, Peter Saville, and judged by a panel of industry experts, The Best of Manchester Awards spotlight the work of some of the best creative professionals working in Manchester today. Open to anyone who lives or works in Greater Manchester, the Awards have three categories: art, music and fashion. Deliberately broad, these categories are designed to encourage entries from those working across disciplines or whose work defies categorisation. Working closely with Urbis, I managed the 2008 awards, securing judges as diverse as Luke Bainbridge (Observer Music Monthly), broadcaster and critic Miranda Sawyer, Caroline Elleray (head of A&R at Universal Music Publishing), and David Mallon, the fashion brains behind international labels Elvis Jesus and Ringspun. The campaign I devised, along with the profile that our panel of 17 judges brought with them, worked: entries to the 2008 awards were up by 65%. I’m now working with Urbis on the 2009 awards.
Brand Manchester.
Working with Creative Concern, Peter Saville and Manchester City Council.
In 2005 Peter Saville developed a brand vision for the city of Manchester: the notion that Manchester could become the original, modern city. Here, Peter argued that if everyone in Manchester aspired to be original and modern in everything they did, Manchester would not just have a brand – it would become its own brand. Peter’s clients across the city, however, were expecting a new visual identity (or at the very least a logo); what they got instead was a call to action. Working with Creative Concern, I developed a communications strategy around the brand vision that included network marketing, media relations, an events strategy and a series of workshops designed to help sectors as diverse as finance and higher education understand their role in creating the original modern city.
Jake & Dinos Chapman.
Working with Tate Liverpool, FACT, Cornerhouse and Modern Designers.
The Chapman brothers are among Britain’s most successful contemporary artists. They rose to prominence during the 1997 Sensation show at the Royal Academy and are contemporaries of Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst. In 2007, Tate Liverpool hosted the brothers’ first ever career retrospective. I developed a communications strategy to support this show that would attract a younger and more diverse audience to the Gallery. The strategy included print media and advertising, but it also included a joint marketing campaign between the Tate and two other contemporary galleries (FACT and Cornerhouse) and a student advocacy strategy. Here, I approached and mentored art students at Manchester Metropolitan University who then became ‘advocates’ for the Tate. The overall campaign worked: visitor figures for the Jake and Dinos Chapman show exceeded targets by 40%.
The Natural Economy.
Working with Creative Concern, Natural England and the Northwest Regional Development Agency.
The communications brief for this project was simple: ensure that business leaders across the Northwest value the countryside. But the simplicity of the brief belied a complex task. How easy is it, for example, to convince the corporate world that the region’s natural environment isn’t just something green and pleasant to be enjoyed outside the boardroom? Working with Creative Concern, I developed a branding and communications strategy for Natural Economy Northwest that underlined the benefits that the environment brings to the region – benefits worth protecting and investing in. Alongside advocacy, media relations, print media and advertising, the campaign centred on a 100 day-long campaign that uncovered one new fact about the environment every day: everything from the £2.6bn generated by the environmental economy every year (and that’s just within the Northwest) to the fact that a third of the region is either a dedicated national park or an area of outstanding natural beauty.
The University of Manchester.
Working with Creative Concern, Graeme Cooper and the University’s School of Arts, Histories and Culture.
The University of Manchester is nothing if not ambitious: its so-called “2015 agenda” aims to place the university within the top 25 universities in the world within the next decade. To contribute to this strategy, the School of Arts, Histories and Culture commissioned Creative Concern to develop a profile-raising strategy for its activities. Arts 2015 was the result: a major advocacy strategy (that included everything from media relations to events) alongside a 64pp book. The result of in-depth research and interviews with staff across disciplines as diverse as religion and electroacoustic music, this glossy publication gave an overview of this remarkable school – which includes luminaries such as Martin Amis among its staff. It was published as a tool for staff to use to raise the profile of what they and their colleagues do. It was a huge success, with staff reporting letters and emails of congratulations from their peers who received personal copies.