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.

Last night at the 24th glittering PRWeek Awards, Launch scooped the award for the Best Use of TV, Radio & Internet for its Walt Disney World ‘Twinned Town’ campaign which achieved more than 660 pieces of coverage in broadcast, online and print media. The story was covered by 43 TV stations and highlights included the opening story on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, BBC Breakfast and the ‘And Finally’ on News at Ten. Online, more than 100 blogs covered the campaign, and the story was discussed on more than 140 Facebook and MySpace groups and pages, as well as generating over 700 Tweets.  More than 14,500 people visited the microsite.

Next week the same campaign is up for three categories at the PRCA Awards for Media Relations, Consumer and New Media, Digital & Broadcast….. watch this space!

Hi, I’m Holly, a new Account Manager at Launch Group. I’ve just come to the end of my first week and thought I’d share what I’ve been up to as the newest ‘Launcher’…

Monday

Surprisingly, no first day nerves, just a sense of excitement at joining a PR Week ‘Best Place to Work’ accredited agency. The team is very welcoming and I have a day of inductions planned to get me up to speed. It’s nice to be back in Soho too!

Tea Received: 2

Tea Made: 0

Paper Read: Telegraph

Tuesday

Getting to know Launch processes and relieved to find everyone is as media savvy as campaign results show! The Butlins team secures a great hit for their ‘Fine but Fun Wine List’ from top drinks writer Anthony Rose. 

Tea Received: 1

Tea Made: 0

Paper Read: Guardian

Wednesday

Briefed on an upcoming launch event for premium Vodka brand Black Moth. I also get to taste the delicious cocktails which is a bonus! Keep an eye out for Black Moth from July; it is a must have for any Vodka connoisseur.

Tea Received: 1

Tea Made: 0

Paper Read: The Sun

Thursday

Briefed on two more interesting campaigns – The Discovery Channel premiere of James Cracknell’s ‘Toughest Race on Earth’ and Yell.com’s ShopView programme which is revolutionising the way SME businesses promote themselves.

Tea Received: 1

Tea Made: 1 (for me)

Paper Read: Daily Mail

Friday

Talk through the Butlins 75^th birthday project (particularly excited as my childhood ambition was to be a Red Coat!). I fill in my timesheet then it’s off to the Friday afternoon ritual of end of week catch up over some beers and wine. My first week has flown by and I had loved every minute!

Tea Received: 0

Tea Made: 2 (1 x me 1 x Account Director)

Wine: 2

Paper Read: Daily Star

The annual PRWeek Top 150 PR Consultancies League Table has been unveiled for 2010, and despite a tough year for the industry, it estimates an average growth for PR agencies in 2009 of approximately 0.75 per cent.

Here at Launch, we are very proud to have risen an impressive 22 places with significantly above-average  growth. Click here to see our featured company profile.  

Launched a brand from nothing using only PR? Introduced a risky new comms strategy? Battled to get PR recognised internally or suffered budget or team cuts?  Now’s the time to get some recognition for all the hard work. Launch Group has teamed up with PRWeek to create a new award for the UK’s most entrepreneurial in-house team.

We’re looking for a team that has performed PR miracles on limited resources.  The winning team’s prize will be £15,000 worth of consultancy from Launch Group (media relations, social media, experiential or a bit of all three), and two runners up will be given free PR workshops.  All three will be covered in a feature in PRWeek.

To qualify, in-house teams must employ a maximum of three people (or part-time / freelance equivalents).  Whether a start-up brand or a household name you will demonstrate your unrivalled entrepreneurial spirit over the past year.

To enter, document your team’s communications strategy between March 2009 and March 2010, split into the following four sections – Objectives and challenges, Strategy, Execution and results (No AVEs!).  Please also list the names and titles of your team members, and your budget. 

The judging panel of five includes PRWeek’s editor Danny Rogers, Launch Group’s CEO Johnny Pitt, plus Marcus Waley-Cohen, one of the entrepreneurs behind firefly, a £2m drinks brand built on great PR.

Email your entry (word limit – 1,000 words) as a Word Attachment to inhouseteam@prweek.com by 6^th May.

OK OK, there’s no way of doing this without blowing our own trumpet, so let’s get down to it.

Following our position as a finalist at the New Media Age Effectiveness Awards for the Poppy Appeal ’08, we’re dead happy that our Future Routers (www.futurerouters.co.uk) project for TalkTalk (with Goldsmiths University) has been selected by PR Week as one of the best ten digital campaigns of the year.

More can be found here and here.

I really am proud to see us reach the No.40 slot in this week’s PR Week League Tables of best performing Consumer PR agencies of the year. We started nearly 8 years ago at around No.2000 I imagine!  And there’s lot’s more growth to come from Launch Towers.

What I like even more is that this is truly happening from an ‘integrated’ perspective. Every breathtaking campaign we dream up always tries (wherever possible) to combine the three most important word of mouth disciplines – media relations, social media and experiential. And with a consumer or corporate option all the time. That’s important too, given today’s market dynamics.

Our vision is based on an integrated future, and I think there is good growth out there. Sure, when we close the books in June, we won’t have had our best year (due to primarily 3 big new business WINS, and several other smaller ones, not coming to final fruition), but our pitch win ratio is around 85% at the moment and has been for a while. That’s awesome.

And the inspiring Launch team only think ‘integrated’ all the way. It really does come strongly from within. And that’s what makes the future bright … and fun too.

Sensational stuff in PR Week last week on the back of Volvo deciding that its media agency will do the brand’s digital PR because PR agencies can’t do SEO. And then someone else saying that as a result of issues like this there will be no more PR agencies inside five years. Two things on this. 

One: motoring is a bit of a special case in terms of online marketing, so normal rule don’t necessarily apply.

Two: yes, most PR agencies don’t ‘talk technical’ as well as digital marketing specialists, but then most digital agencies wouldn’t know a good PR story if it came up and bit them on the twitter (no offence). 

Our contention is that it’s no good knowing about all the available channels if you don’t have good content to put down them. And that it’s easier to understand the channels than it is to develop the content. But then we’re an integrated online/offline PR company, so we would say that, wouldn’t we…..          

Can you hear the whooping from where you are? Launch Group is feeling celebratory today:  we’ve just found out that we’ve snared the bronze prize for PR Week’s Best Places to Work Awards!

It’s fantastic to be recognised for creating and maintaining a fun, warm and ambitious environment that makes Monday mornings just that much more bearable. There’s no doubt that employee opportunities abound at Launch, where a solid training scheme, mentoring initiatives and focused personal development plans are all part and parcel of the business. Any Launcher soon finds themselves moving swiftly up the ranks! We’re also pretty social, and are lucky to enjoy regular nights out, Friday drinks, and a monthly book and film club. It’s fair to say that we’re all friends here at Launch, and sometimes spending eight and a half hours together each day just isn’t enough!

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