Spark Coverage Cup
Media relations is at the heart of a successful campaign and our team take great pride in beating their colleagues to win the weekly Spark Coverage Cup vote.
The winning piece of coverage isn’t just about circulation or credibility. A great business national or broadcast piece doesn’t always beat trade coverage – outcomes are key. How effectively was the client’s message communicated? What was the engagement like? Did it result in leads?
While earned coverage is now only part of what we do, the impact of what we deliver is often why clients choose to work with us in the first place. It’s why 80% of our clients come through referral and why some of our clients have stayed with us for over ten years.
Below are some of our previous highlights:
Coverage Cup 6/3/2020
On 7th March 1876 Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone – and boy are we glad that he did! We’ve been hitting the phones hard in the past few weeks to secure client coverage for everything from Freedom of Information requests and research on cloud security, to company name changes. With the office coverage gong ringing non-stop, let’s get on with the week’s Coverage Cup round up.
National coverage has reverberated around the office this week, firstly from a Viasat Freedom of Information (FoI) request on the number of phones and laptops lost – and often not recovered – by the UK government each year. Highlighting the need for good security policies and procedures, the Viasat team secured coverage with BBC News Online and The Telegraph, as well as trade publications Government Computing, TechRadarPro, Defence Online, Verdict, ITProPortal and Infosecurity.
Also creating a buzz with the national press this week was Verizon. After announcing Verizon’s new 5G Lab in the UK, the team secured coverage on Bloomberg after hosting an interview – including a tour of the new facility. Another hit with the nationals this week was the Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISec), with comments from its CEO included in a Forbes feature on the ‘hackers’ who have helped shape the cybersecurity landscape.
Chiming in this week is the Insight team, which is continuing to make waves around the UK’s National Sickie Day – our last Coverage Cup blog has a round-up of the previous coverage. This time, Insight’s research was covered as part of a feature on the UK’s workplace culture in The Telegraph. The Insight team also saw a news hijacking opportunity this week, after the government published a report on AI in the UK. Using comments about the need to augment AI with a human workforce, the team secured coverage in Business Reporter and AI News.
Dialling up the battle for the cup in the office this week was the Blue Yonder team. While some colleagues in the office thought we’d won yet another client, on this occasion it was simply the result of a name change for long-term client JDA – which had interestingly taken the name of the AI company it acquired 18 months ago. Some great pitching resulted in a fantastic feature on dignomica amongst others.
This week’s final call for the cup came from 4sl which issued a warning to the financial services industry about back-up practices for the cloud. With many companies at risk of data loss or non-compliance, the team had phones ringing off the hook to secure coverage with Data Economy, IBS Intelligence, Continuity Central, UK Tech News and Financial IT.
And so we hang up our phones after another week of fantastic coverage. With endorsements of the coverage ringing in our ears, we begin the debate over who gets to take the Coverage Cup home.