All posts by rachel_eaton

PURO.EARTH REAPPOINTS GONG FOR PR AND MEDIA RELATIONS

Gong Communications, a Wilful Group company, has been reappointed by engineered carbon removal platform Puro.earth to provide UK and international communications support following another successful year.

Puro.earth, majority-owned by Nasdaq, is the world’s first and leading carbon crediting platform for engineered carbon removal, certifying methods for removing CO2 from the atmosphere for at least 100 years through the Puro Standard, and issuing digital, tradable CO2 Removal Certificates (CORCs) into the public Puro Registry for market transparency. Puro is also scaling the carbon removal ecosystem through Puro Accelerate, a mechanism helping suppliers receive corporate commitments to launch or expand their operations.

Gong is working with Puro.earth to increase brand awareness and influence sustainability and ESG decision-makers, building on coverage already achieved in international business press such as Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, and Yahoo, and sustainability titles like GreenBiz, BusinessGreen and ESG Today.

GONG’S PRO-BONO SERVICES BOOST IMPACT OF CLIMATE ACTIVIST’S EPIC JOURNEY

Though our Impact Committee which oversees our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) work, Gong Communications, a Wilful Group company provided pro-bono support for climate activist Craig Cohon and his Walk it Back campaign. 

After decades of living decadently, the businessman and ex-Coca Cola executive vowed to remove his entire lifetime worth of carbon emissions. As part of this promise, Craig made a tremendous 4,250km walk from Europe to Asia on a fact-finding adventure to create the world’s biggest dialogue on carbon removal and its role in the fight against climate change.  

In the lead up to the finish line in Istanbul on 5th June, Gong worked alongside Craig and the Walk it Back team to provide media relations and boost impact, achieving top tier coverage in Sky, Independent, Daily Mail, Yahoo and over 300 international and UK outlets. Gong also provided a social media toolkit for Walk it Back’s partners and additional support with blogs and thought leadership. 

Craig said, “Gong Communications was instrumental in delivering media relations and social media support for our team. Gong delivered strategic insights and achieved fantastic media coverage at the climax of our environmental campaign, expanding brand awareness and helping us build a global dialogue on carbon removal.” 

B2B PR SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

B2B PR SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

 

WE ARE WILFUL

A new kind of communications agency designed to support the ideas and innovations solving the world’s biggest problems. Wilful is a taskforce drawing on the talent and expertise of two founder agencies, Gong Communications (Corporate and B2B) and Cherish PR (Consumer).

 

GONG COMMUNICATIONS

Gong Communications is an award-winning international PR and communications agency and a proud B Corp. We offer our clients the full spectrum of PR, marketing, digital and creative communications services from our offices in London and Nairobi.

We work with companies ranging from publicly listed multinationals to feisty start-ups, mostly in the B2B and corporate sectors. All our exceptional clients share our entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to keep pushing the boundaries. Key sectors include professional and financial services, infrastructure and renewable energy, global health and development and technology. Gong also has expertise in the cross-cutting themes of culture, diversity and inclusion, sustainability and purpose.

 

1.0 ROLE PURPOSE

A Senior Account Executive works as part of an account team to execute competently and proactively against the agreed PR programmes for each client. This involves taking a leading role in the day-to-day running of client accounts, including tracking, and driving progress on all actions and identified priorities, strategic forward planning, providing a reliable client point of contact and providing any other support required for delivery of the programme, for example, sourcing and managing third party suppliers. Senior Account Executives are also responsible for content creation and quality control for client facing documentation.

 

2.0 CANDIDATE PROFILE

The ideal candidate will have at least 1 year of relevant work experience, the ability to multi-task, an enthusiastic and adaptable personality, with a keen interest in corporate communications. A passion for sustainability and climate is a must.

An undergraduate degree with PR, media, communications, journalism, politics, international development, geography or similar, isn’t essential but would be an advantage.

 

3.0 RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Support the account team with tactical implementation of communication strategies.
  • Develop and sustain relationships with client contacts based on understanding of clients’ industries, needs and the brief we are delivering.
  • Research and draft content for clients (for example: key messages, press releases, thought leadership, case studies, media briefing documents, etc.).
  • Providing support and guidance to junior members of the team.
  • Draft story pitches and pitch press releases and feature ideas by phone or email to media.
  • Secure and manage interview opportunities with key journalists for client spokespeople – in person or over the phone – and facilitate these interviews as appropriate.
  • Speak to journalists regularly to develop useful relationships.
  • Monitor media coverage and help spot opportunities for clients.
  • Handle clients’ social media accounts and digital work (including SEO Management).
  • Deliver analytics reports on social media, reporting on traffic, engagement, and follower figures.
  • Activity calendar creation and management (aka forward planner), including owning reporting and delivering in a timely manner.
  • Contribute to brainstorms with fresh ideas for PR campaigns.

 

4.0 GONG BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, DEVELOPMENT & MARKETING

  • Spot commercial opportunities and contribute to new business activity.
  • Take responsibility for creating content to Gong’s social media channels and website.
  • Provide programme delivery support and input ideas into Gong’s marketing strategy.
  • Attendance at external networking events as well as Gong-led initiatives.

 

5.0 REQUIRED SKILLS

  • Excellent command of English language writing skills.
  • Excellent communication skills both orally and in writing.
  • Strong interpersonal skills.
  • Motivated to meet client KPI’s.
  • Ability to prioritise and forward plan effectively.
  • A passion for news and a strong awareness of current affairs.
  • Ability to work across different teams and specialities.
  • Good knowledge of Microsoft Office.
  • Good knowledge of the use of digital tools and social media.
  • Willingness to take initiative, own and take responsibility for work.
  • Awareness of new media developments and latest communications industry developments.
  • Creativity, proactivity, and ideas sharing.

 

6.0 Benefits

  • Structured and financed L&D programme
  • Hybrid working approach
  • 25 days annual leave
  • Additional AL days between Christmas and New Year gifted
  • 2 additional days per year
    * 1 for birthday
    * 1 volunteer day (to be used during the calendar year)
  • All Wilful employees receive a laptop and work phone
  • Bonus (discretionary 10% of net profit to the team)
  • Health insurance option
  • Cycle to work scheme
  • Enhanced pension contribution (4% & 4%)
  • Organised social events (Christmas and summer parties, regular meet-ups, team lunches, etc.)
  • Flexible working (early Friday finish in the summer months)

 

To apply for this position, please email  careers@thewilful.com

 

GONG APPOINTED TO EXPAND STX’S SOCIAL MEDIA SHARE OF VOICE

Gong Communications, a Wilful Group company, has been appointed to provide social media support for STX, a leading global environmental commodity trader and corporate climate solutions provider.

STX is at the forefront of driving global efforts towards reducing pollution and preserving natural resources. For more than fifteen years, STX has been valuing the true cost of emissions and pollution, fostering confidence in carbon reduction and green energy trading.

As part of the project, Gong will devise a social media strategy and create social content to enhance STX’s thought leadership and employee brand, with a goal to spread brand awareness, generate new business leads and attract new talent into the rapidly growing sector.

STX was founded in 2005 to pioneer a nascent environmental commodities industry, and in 2022 was named “Best Trading Company – Renewable Energy Certificates in Europe and North America” for the third time consecutively in Environmental Finance’s Annual Voluntary Carbon Market Rankings.

When is the right time to hire a PR agency?

This is a question that frequently arises as companies grow. We have 25 years’ corporate communications experience to draw on in being able to advise on this. We have worked with hundreds of companies at different points in their development, from seed funded start-ups to listed multinationals looking for a reputational reboot or an image refresh. There are probably just 2 key questions that you need to ask yourself when thinking about whether it is the right time to work with a PR agency regardless of size and life stage of organisation.

 

1.  Are you clear on what you want PR to deliver?


2. Do you have enough time and resource to work with a PR agency?

 

This article addresses question one, with part two to follow next week.

1. ARE YOU CLEAR ON WHAT YOU WANT PR TO DELIVER?

This might seem like an obvious question, but it is more complicated than it may appear. PR is just one discipline in a big bag of ever blurring marketing competencies. If you asked most people to describe what PR means to them, most would say ‘press coverage’, but media relations (or some call it publicity) is just one of the ways in which PR does the job of building awareness, preference and influence with different groups of stakeholders.

Public relations, to give it its full name, can be relevant for all the different audiences that matter to organisations, from perhaps the most obvious one – customers, to others including investors, commercial partners, trade and industry groups, regulators, NGOs and even internal audiences like staff and other companies in a group.

With these potential audiences there are naturally different ways to reach them. The media is certainly one route, but it is by no means the only one. Social media channels are what we PR firms class as ‘owned’ rather than ‘earned’ media and they need content strategies and pro-active management in order to do their work of engaging with relevant audiences.  Speaking at conferences and events, organising your own events from attention grabbing stunts, to product sampling, round tables and panel discussions, winning awards, publishing research and white papers, making a podcast or a video, holding a staff townhall – all of these are valid ways of reaching an audience and PR firms get involved in delivering all of them to a greater or lesser degree, depending on client needs.

So, if you know the who? (audience) and the how? (the channel you are going to use to reach them), then you need to figure out the what? Or rather, the content, what you are going to say – your messaging. This is also a very typical part of a PR firm’s mandate, to help clients figure out what they want to communicate when they stand on platforms or give press interviews to make the desired impression. All this may appear to be achingly obvious, but ask anyone who has experienced the messaging inconsistency of a fast-growing company’s leadership team who are all going off in different directions with their own agenda and they will tell you that projecting a consistent and clear message doesn’t happen without some professional intervention. The other classic is the untrained spokesperson who lets slip some information before they should to a journalist, either because they are nervous, distracted or pressured into it.

Let’s assume for the sake of brevity, that you have figured out your messaging, (naturally it flows from your vision and mission), and you have a clear comms plan in place that is going to get your story in front of the people that matter, the only thing left to figure out is how you will know what success looks like?

There are plenty of people who think PR is an expensive waste of time. There are others, like Bill Gates who share the opinion, “If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on public relations.” I would put money on the fact that the main difference in their experience is that those in the Gates camp were clear from the outset what they wanted their PR to deliver and they agreed with their PR team how it would be measured, evaluated and reported on.

Too often, inexperienced people – on both the client and agency side – fail to do this part well enough at the outset. The result is that they discover too late that their expectations were never aligned, or that their understanding of the impact of the outcomes was not the same.

In its broadest definition, (that of attention that has been earned because something was clever,  entertaining or thought provoking rather than paid for through advertising or sponsorship) PR can deliver an outsize return on investment.

But it is important to be realistic. One press release about a product upgrade isn’t going to set the world on fire. Generally speaking, to get attention, you need to invest careful thought and realistic amounts of money, but that’s not to say that an unusually creative idea, or a brilliantly charismatic spokesperson won’t generate a huge return on investment (ROI). That’s the holy grail that every client and every PR person is always chasing.


NEXT TIME:

2. Do you have enough time and resource to work with a PR agency?

Gong Communications Impact Report 2022

We are pleased to share our 2022 impact report. In a year in which we donated 180 hours to CSR activities, spent 325 hours in training, and recycled 100% of our e-waste, we also celebrated making an impact through communications for our clients tackling urgent issues such as climate change, circular economy, global health, and education. 2022 Impact report front cover

We are pleased to share our 2022 impact report. In a year in which we donated 180 hours to CSR activities, spent 325 hours in training, and recycled 100% of our e-waste, we also celebrated making an impact through communications for our clients tackling urgent issues such as climate change, circular economy, global health, and education.

Click on the image above to download Gong Communications’ B Corp Impact Report 2022.

If you’d like to get in touch and find out more about our work, email us at info@gongcommunications.com

When is the right time to hire a PR agency?

In part two of our guidance on when is the best time to hire a PR agency, the second key question to ask is: Do you have enough time and resource to work with a PR agency?

Very often companies hire a PR agency too early before they are fully able to dedicate enough attention to ensuring that it will be a success. So, consider whether you are set up for an agency to succeed. As we explored in part one, success is dependent on good fundamentals. Is there a clear brief? Are we all in agreement on which audiences are the priorities and what we are going to focus on in terms of key messages? Do we know what good looks like?

This sounds flippant, but it gets to a much more important truth about experience. Is there someone on your team who has worked on or in PR before? It’s completely possible to know nothing of the workings of PR and be a great client, you just need to choose the right agency that is experienced at guiding you through the process.

The other major consideration is who is going to be the PR firm’s main point of contact? This may not necessarily be the same as the person who is accountable for PR in your organisation. Setting the strategy and the budgets and judging the results isn’t the same as getting hold of a spokesperson or approving a quote or a social media post on a daily basis.

Different agencies work in different ways, but they all need help to be effective. Let me share an example. An experienced PR client will know that media opportunities need to be acted on quickly. If your PR secures an opportunity for you to provide a comment for something that is in the news, or if there’s a journalist who wants to speak to you, you have to act quickly to secure the opportunity.

Journalists very often have a few conversations on the go because they know that busy executives aren’t always going to be available to meet their deadlines. Similarly, if the PR comes up with an idea they want to pitch to a journalist around specific moment in time or news item, you have to be responsive enough so that they can land it in time. Responsiveness is a biggie. Otherwise you will be wasting your money paying for your PR team to develop opportunities that are going to waste. It’s not only morale that suffers in that scenario: Journalists like people who get back to them as they are usually working to deadlines. If you are a bottleneck, relationships will suffer and you won’t get the best result.

Other ways in which inexperienced clients can unwittingly do more harm than good is in scope creep. Like so many other service businesses, time is money. In order to be a well-run business, PR agencies need to keep an eye on over-servicing clients. If the fee you’ve agreed covers an amount of time or is set against delivery of a particular activity, introducing new tasks and asking for lots of extra calls and meetings uses up the time and takes the focus away from delivery of the agreed deliverables (sometimes referred to as KPIs). And we’re back to creating conditions to enable success again.

One final watch out is whether you have anyone who is happy to step up and actually be the public face of the organisation (if it’s that kind of PR, product campaigns rely less on people than PR that’s designed to work at company level). But again, this can really be a major factor in whether the agency is enabled to succeed. Spokespeople should be media trained. There is no such thing as a ‘natural’ it’s just that experience makes it look easy.

Too many communications consultants may be familiar with a scenario in which you have a request from the BBC for someone to appear on the Today programme, (the flagship business focused morning radio show), the one o’clock news and the six o’clock news. But none of your potential spokespeople are willing to move their day around to do it. So, after many, many calls and conversations and attempts to coerce and cajole the various spokespeople, a day is lost, as is the opportunity that had probably taken months to foster.

The real point here is that someone on the client side needs the authority to make it happen. PR can very often be seen as a discretionary activity by people inside an organisation who are the subject matter experts the media wants to interview. Setting clear expectations on both sides at the outset can be helpful if this situation arises.

Other areas that need addressing are often somewhat creative and therefore often subjective. Writing for a media audience is a case in point. There is an art and science to writing a good press release.  Endless rounds of reviewing and revisions of media materials by people inside client organisations can become problematic and time consuming. We have a saying which is ‘be careful who you ask’ because most people have a point of view and will fiddle around with a document given half a chance. This can end up with a Frankenstein’s monster of a press release over-long, overtly salesy and stuffed with bland quotes from everyone and their dog. This segues into a great cliché – why get a dog and bark yourself? If you’ve gone to the trouble of hiring a PR agency, they should be more than capable of advising you on the contents of a press release.

And this is a good place to end. Trust is key. Don’t be surprised if your agency sets out a ‘ways of working’ manifesto that helps to frame reasonable expectations on both sides at the beginning of your relationship. In fact, be happy if they do, because it means they are determined to remove all barriers to doing a good job for you, even the ones you might not realise are there.

GONG COMMUNICATIONS SUPPORTS THE FALCON AWARDS FOR DISEASE ELIMINATION FROM GLIDE

We are delighted to have supported our client, the Global Institute for Disease Elimination (GLIDE), in branding and launching  the second iteration of the Falcon Awards for Disease Elimination (FADE): The Climate Edit.

After we successfully helped launch the inaugural Falcon Awards in 2022, our international development communications team worked alongside GLIDE to name this years’ awards, ‘The Climate Edit’. This was to underscore the awards’ purpose in backing innovation and knowledge expansion at the intersection of climate and disease elimination.

Our sustainability comms specialists created fresh branding materials, a logo, webpage, concept note, a full brand book, a press release and thought leadership in preparation for the launch. The awards attracted 79 applicants from across 44 countries in six continents and garnered coverage in key trade and regional titles such as SG Voice, Eastern Eye, PharmiWeb, and Relief Web.

Nine winning projects were selected from Africa, Asia and South America, receiving up to $50,000 to undertake a formative research project and the opportunity to be showcased during COP28. They covered a variety of knowledge-building research in new and under-explored areas of climate and infectious disease, such as the influence of rainfall patterns on malaria elimination in Zambia, disease forecasting in the Peruvian Amazon, and community-led surveillance and response to elephantiasis in Tanzania. To learn more about the winners of the 2023 Falcon Awards for Disease Elimination, see the full winners announcement here.

Gong wins again at 2023 Africa SABRE Awards

Gong Communications was delighted to win two Certificates of Excellence at the 2023 Africa SABRE Awards which highlight superior achievement in branding, reputation, and engagement.

The team was recognised for its work across Africa with clients the Global Institute for Disease Elimination (GLIDE) and Aon, the multinational financial services firm.

The international development communications team has been working with GLIDE as its PR partner since 2021, naming and launching its inaugural Falcon Awards for Disease Elimination (FADE). The team received recognition within the Central Africa category for its media relations support as well as developing and managing the content for GLIDE’s Webisodes Campaign, “Building Awareness to End Diseases of Poverty”.

As D&I communications experts, the Aon team was commended, alongside its African partners Phyllion & Partners Limited, within the Superior Achievement in Research and Planning category for their work on the industry staple, Dive In Nigeria. The 2022 event marked Gong’s third year in supporting the insurance giant’s event and is part of the global Dive In Festival – the largest diversity and inclusion employee engagement brand platform of its type, developed with Gong.  This year’s Dive In Festival will be held between 26th-28th September 2023 and will include branded events across the globe.

It’s the third consecutive year that the corporate communications team, which operates out of its London and Nairobi offices, has enjoyed success at the SABRE Awards. In 2022 the team won the Central Africa and Media Relations categories for its work with African private equity firm, Birimian Ventures. In 2021 the Aon team won again within the Research and Planning and Public Education categories, receiving a Certificate of Excellence in the Financial and Professional Services category.

Lloyd’s insurance market re-appoints Gong as communications partner for international diversity festival

Gong has been re-appointed to manage diversity and inclusion communications for the Lloyd’s insurance market. The appointment will mark Gong’s seventh year of working with Dive In, the first insurance market-wide diversity and inclusion festival, on behalf of the Inclusion@Lloyd’s steering group.

Dive In is a global movement in the insurance sector that supports the development of inclusive workplace cultures. Its mission is to enable people to achieve their potential by raising awareness of the business case for diversity, equity and inclusion and promoting positive action for diversity in all its forms. Since the first festival in 2015, Dive In has grown exponentially, with events taking place across 40 countries world-wide, attracting more than 34,000 people.

Narda Shirley, founder of Gong said: “As an agency with a fair amount of D&I expertise, we are able to play an integral part in a very exciting and dynamic movement. With such a wide-ranging brief that covers theme ideation, video, stakeholder relations, media communications and social media, it really allows us to play to our key strengths. The Dive In Festival grows in popularity year on year, constantly breaking country and attendee records and we can’t wait to get stuck into supporting Dive In 2023!”

Described as a ‘brave and bold event’ by Marketing Week, the success of Dive In has been widely recognised by awards in the insurance sector, marketing and PR experts and employers’ networks. Dive In has won or been shortlisted for 12 awards, won seven, and been widely praised and acknowledged across the industry.

This year’s Dive In Festival will be held between 26th-28th September 2023 and will include branded events across the globe.