When people ask you on a Monday what you got up to over the weekend, one answer you maybe don’t expect is “I helped to break a world record”. But that is exactly what the Meteor meet and greet team said and did a couple of weeks ago.

Early on a Saturday morning armed with coffee, the Meteor meet and greet team – or the Meteorites as we like to call ourselves, arrived at a car park in Gatwick Airport with our fighting spirit intact. The record we were trying to set was for one person to park 50 cars in a car park in under an hour.

The team got to work straight away, making sure the photographer, videographer, official time keepers, and of course the 50 cars were all in place. As the clock struck 1030, we all got into position and held our breath as the starting horn blew.

The Meteor meet and greet driver was on fire, expertly screeching cars ranging from BMW 5 Series to Fiat 500s into the spaces and sprinting back and forth to the start line. When the 50th car was parked and the horn sounded, all eyes rushed to the clock. We had successfully set a Guinness World Record, parking 50 cars in a car park in only 22 minutes and 16 seconds.

Once the XP side of the event was complete, Launch Group set the all-channel wheels in motion and achieved some fantastic on and offline coverage.

Check out the video here:

You may remember this time last year, the Launch Virgin Holidays team were braving the cold and attempting the World Record for the World’s Largest Burlesque Dance?

Well, in December, Virgin Holidays tasked us with the brief to launch their famous sale once again, alongside the opening of their first stand-alone store in High Street Kensington and in true Launch style we wanted to out-do our previous work!

We decided this year to attempt the record for The Longest Swimwear Queue, again in keeping with Virgin’s cheeky reputation, and bold enough to generate some top notch coverage.

Launch fired on all channels and the experiential, digital and media relations teams pulled together to produce some amazing results.

Coverage included Daily Mirror, The Times, The Mail on Sunday, Daily Star, Evening Standard and Metro, along with The Sun Online, Daily Telegraph Online, This is London, FHM Online, Talk Talk and many more.

Launch started life as a consumer brands project PR agency in 2001.  We were one of PR Week’s best new agencies of the year, attracting great people and great clients alike.

In 2005, our offer began to integrate media relations, digital and events.  We launched our corporate team around this time too.

And now, towards the end of 2011, we’re talking to people about our all-channel PR offer.

Innovation is good in business.  In fact, if you don’t innovate, your business quickly loses its shine and appeal.

All-channel PR?

It’s logical – whatever you have to communicate, to whichever audiences, we consult around the key PR channels-to-market to do it.  And we have all the capability in-house.

Clients should be guided, clients should be advised, and they shouldn’t feel hampered by one dimensional offers.  There’s too much at stake in the real / virtual / consumer / corporate inter-connected world and the relationship between experience / content / digital and media needs to be well explained – and bought in part (if that’s the need against the audience), or in whole.

Some clients come to us and say – ‘we’d love a bit of that.’  And that’s great.  Others come saying ‘we’re not sure, you tell us’.  And that’s equally, if not more exciting.

One size doesn’t fit all.  Having all the channels open and available has to be in a client’s best interest.

Add amazing people, brilliant thinking, collective culture and nice coffee and you’re probably on to something.

Recently I’ve found myself watching hundreds of videos by brands from all over the world – this might have something to do my new obsession with Twitter – but it’s got me thinking…

I’ve noticed a pattern emerging which goes against what traditionally experience / events are measured on.  Before the explosion of the digital age, brands focused on how many people they could get to physically engage with their brand experience – the more the better.  Yes there are numerous variables, but the fundamental goal was volume of engagement.  Direct brand experiences for the masses is still a core component to the experiential marketers toolbox, but now we have new exciting shiny social medial tools to play with.

These new online tools allow us to turn the engagement theory on its head.  No longer do we need thousands of willing consumers to interact with a brand for it to be a success. All we need is a few willing participants to have an amazing experience which they’ll want to share.  You then capture this experience and stick it online for people like me to OOO and ahhh over.

BUT…  Is it really that simple?  And do massive consumer engagement experiences have a shelf life?
The answer, surely, is to combine the two, but if you haven’t got the budget to engage large numbers then the second option isn’t a bad one.

Give them a great experience.

Capture it in a compelling way.

Share it.

More to come from the Launch XP and Digital teams soon.

In our second week at Launch, the Tesco for Schools and Clubs team asked us if we wanted to join Eleanor and Maddy on the Busk for Vouchers tour. As we weren’t the most well-travelled of girls, we couldn’t think of a better way to spend a week than exploring all of England’s most famous cities – and their respective Tesco stores.

As Sophie went north and Gabriella went south, the week of trains, Tesco and the delights of Premier Inn had begun.

The first, and arguably the most important task was to test the Premier Inn breakfast. We were, after all, going to be eating this for the rest of the week. Luckily, it did not disappoint.

With full stomachs and arms laden with busking equipment, we piled into a taxi and headed for our first day in store. Going “backstage” at Tesco was pretty exciting, and organising the teams of buskers was brilliant fun. All the children were great sports and worked super hard to collect lots of vouchers.

A personal favourite of Gabriella’s were the football team – controlling a group of 9 year old boys indoors with footballs was challenging to say the least! Sophie however, preferred looking after a group of male gymnasts. As this act was performing outside on a hot and sunny day, the eldest member was forced to remove his shirt, something we later learned from his team mates that he liked to do regularly. Rumour has it that even Ellie enjoyed a cheeky peak of the perfectly “6-packed” male torso.

Our typical day on tour would involve a variety of activities and responsibilities, ranging from selling in to the press to controlling children dressed as farm animals. Never a dull moment! Meeting the press at the event was a new experience and taught us a lot about how to look after the media when on-site. It would then be our job to ensure the children who had arrived to busk were set-up and ready to perform and that it all went smoothly. Although we had to give the most reluctant shoppers a little extra encouragement to donate their vouchers, the children all did brilliantly and the public were very generous – a success all round.

The tour gave us a real chance to see what it takes to run an event smoothly, and the organisation and hard work that went into it was really impressive. We certainly learnt a lot!

Thank you Tesco team for sending us on such a brilliant adventure – we’ll miss you!

The New Year got off to a flying start for the Virgin Holidays team at Launch Group as we attempted to break the Guinness World Record for the Largest Burlesque Dance, in celebration of Virgin Holidays’ famous January sale.

A burlesque troupe made up of brave Virgin Holidays staff and burlesque enthusiasts dressed only in sexy burlesque attire, braved the freezing January temperatures to perform a five minute routine in front of the National Portrait Gallery in London’s Trafalgar Square.

The event certainly helped to put a smile on the faces of bargain-hunting shoppers and bemused tourists alike, as well as the waiting photographers, who included PA, The Sun, Daily Mail, The Telegraph, Getty, Sky News, Rex, AFP, AP, United by Photography and LNP – none of whom complained!

To date the campaign has generated over 90 pieces of coverage, which includes 4 national pieces in The Sun, Daily Mirror, News of the World and The Financial Times, as well as London Evening Standard and OK!, and online news sites including The Telegraph and Metro.

The total audience reached is in excess of 107,921,885 people, with the AVE currently standing at £81,118 – and the coverage just keeps on rolling!

That time of year has come when the nights get darker and the days colder, and that means the slowing down of events season. Well, until the Experiential team start planning all over again for 2011!

However, in true Launch style we like to go out with a bang, so we were very excited to hold our most recent event at the Kensington Roof Gardens for our new client DBM.

This was my first opportunity to get my hands dirty and work through every step of the event planning journey alongside the client – from budget formulation, design consultation on the event website and collateral, to helping to run the event on the day – right from the moment the first guest arrived through to when the review process was completed. 

Normally, when the words ‘corporate event’ are uttered, the first thing that comes to mind is ‘boring’ – but not when Launch are in charge!  I’m pleased to say that ‘boring’ was the last thing on our guests’ and clients’ minds. 80 guests from the UK, Brazil, Spain and America attended, giving the event a truly global feel.  In fact, our Google Analytics analysis of the event website revealed that we had interest from 25 different countries.

Because of the importance of the event we needed to choose a venue that would excite all delegates. After much deliberation we settled on the Kensington Roof Gardens, an iconic space in the heart of London with world renowned gardens, not to mention four resident flamingos. 

And to compliment such a great venue we needed an equally inspiring keynote speaker – and being in the right place at the right time definitely was the force behind our choice…It’s not every day you end up sitting opposite Sir Clive Woodward on the tube. I know the law on the underground is not to speak to strangers, but on this occasion I am very glad that my colleague threw caution to the wind and struck up a conversation with Sir Clive – so well done Rebecca!  The client loved our recommendation, and by judging from the reaction of the audience, we made a few delegates sporting dreams come true!

Thanks to a brilliant Launch team effort, everything ran smoothly and the feedback from guests speaks for itself:

“It’s been a really fantastic event, very impressed with the whole day”

Simon Lloyd, Santander

“I was very impressed with the event, particularly Sir Clive’s talk.  It’s great to hear from an established and interesting speaker”

HR Director, Olympic Delivery Authority

Now it’s back to it – there’s 2011 planning to do!

Launch Group has worked on integrated pr campaigns with family favourites Butlins  for over seven years, with our greatest hits including the hugely successful Ocean Hotel Launch  and Sushi Menu. 

Butlins of course needs to stay front of mind with the nation’s mums as the holiday choice for families.  So this summer we’ve let mums and dads in on the secret of how to build the perfect sandcastle – because there’s little that tots and toddlers appreciate more! Sand Guru Mark Anderson was enlisted to reveal 5 secret tips and star in a ‘How To’ video for parents. At the same time, Sandcastle ‘Masterclasses’ were held on Butlins Resorts.

Results included 87 pieces of coverage including top blog Easier Travel, GMTV and the Daily Mirror. Not to forget a screening on Butlins TV.

Other current videos we’ve made for Butlins as part of integrated PR campaigns are the fantastic ‘flash mob’ Street Dance and the humorous Toddler Art Prize ‘talking tots’, helping Butlins find the nation’s mini-Mondrians and weeny-Warhols for the first time.

With everyone having their say about what’s going to be ‘hot and what’s not’ for 2010 here at Launch HQ, we thought it might be apt to give our thoughts on the experiential trends sure to dominate the coming year.

Despite the words ‘recession’ and ‘budget’ looming inevitably over a number of ideas,  there’s one creative little gem that that has no end of magical possibilities, and that’s the pop-up shop.

Pop-up shops, or ‘guerrilla stores,’ have evolved considerably over the last few years, becoming increasingly more creative in design and location, with some going as far as to inhabit virtual worlds.

Here’s some of our top tips and hints to creating your own pop-up:

• You must always ensure when embarking on a pop-up to adhere to the brand values, and ensure that it generates an exciting customer experience
• Pop-up shops should not be used purely to drive sales – it shouldn’t be about a ‘pile it high and sell it cheap’ ethos. Rather a pop-up should engage its consumers while creating as much buzz, interest and publicity as possible
• In essence, pop-ups have to develop and expand on the in-store experience to properly allow customers to physically interact with brands (see Launch Group’s Moet example). Launch Group’s promotion of The Atelier Moët brought a bit of sparkle to shoppers last Christmas by creating the UK’s first pop-up champagne boutique, giving customers the opportunity to watch their bottles of Moët being personalised with Swarovski crystals by an in-store Artisan (see picture!)
• Pop-ups can be the perfect testing platform. You can market and trial new products, without the risk of a long lease. Brands can build any successes, and, if not, simply close without any fuss. A good pop up will also provide the space with an impression of exclusiveness, originality and freshness

We see the pop-up growing as a trend in 2010. They will no longer be viewed as just seasonal speciality shops. Brands are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits pop-ups yield in terms of capturing the public and media’s attention in a limited time frame. And consumers see pop-up shops as an exclusive retailing opportunity to purchase a limited edition / designer product. It’s the scarcity of time and limited edition product that creates such a sense of urgency in the consumer purchase.

And don’t forget that with the internet celebrating its 40^th birthday this year, we can definitely expect the pop-up concept to develop further in the digital space. The collaboration of the real and virtual world of pop-ups is an exciting extension of an activity that, in marketing terms, has been around for a while – so watch this space!

Having recently joined Launch as a graduate, I am often asked by friends and family, ‘So…what exactly is PR?’ I tell them it’s about communicating brand values and messages to the right audience, and that it’s something they experience daily, be it through the media, online or an event, but seemingly do not recognise.

For example, I was recently striding along Shaftesbury Avenue in the London pace I’ve become accustomed to, when I came across a crowd of people taking photos, laughing and singing. Old school classic tunes such as ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ blasted out into the street, and a cloud of bubbles filled the air. It stopped me in my tracks. A jolly man sat at the wheel of an old classic car, singing into a microphone and gleefully taking in the crowds with his sing-along and bubble show. I got a bit closer and noticed the car was branded.

The majority of people watching probably didn’t recognise it (much like my friends and family didn’t), but here was a company reaching out to their audience in an unusual, entertaining way. Getting out amidst their audience and allowing them to experience the brand resulted in putting smiles on faces and communicating a friendly, cheery service. You could call it experiential marketing…

Here at Launch we would have backed it up with targeted media relations and social media to ensure maximum reach and success. I think it’s also fair to say we probably wouldn’t have gone down the bubbles and sing-along route, but hats off to Handyman for doing something different. The company name certainly stayed in my mind. I’ve been planning on redecorating, and who knows, I may be calling upon them one day.