Now in San Francisco too

June 7, 2010 in BondPR, Business, Marketing, PR, Technology by Tom Burgess | No comments

As mentioned before, my unexpected extended trip to San Francisco in April, gave me time to conclude a deal that has significantly strengthened our presence in the US. So we have officially announced today that we are merging our US operations with SF based PR and communications agency – Rainemakers. Rainemakers was established a little over a year ago by Debra Raine, former GM of Waggener Edstrom‘s Western Region, EVP Weber Shandwick’s Bay Area, and PorterNovelli in Asia. She has a tremendous track record driving US and international campaigns for companies such as IBM, HP and Amazon; and she’s already grown a strong client base for Rainemakers in what is a difficult and highly competitive market.

For US clients particularly those tech companies in Silicon Valley, we can offer strong domestic PR capability integrated with seamless and scalable international campaigns without the high cost associated with traditional multinational PR firms or the hassles of managing multiple agencies. For clients based outside USA we can now offer strong US public relations capability covering consumer, corporate, digital, IR and technology, all as part of their international campaigns. Read more

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Clash to the Titans

May 20, 2010 in BondPR, Business, Marketing by Tom Burgess | No comments

Part of our role is to make ordinary things interesting.

So what is interesting about Disk Storage? Well, a London-based visual effects house Cinesite, a Kodak company, carried out artistic rendering of animation and scene development for the  Warner Bros blockbuster “Clash of the Titans” using a storage system from BlueArc. Also Cinesite is currently working on the following forthcoming releases, “Marmaduke” (Fox), “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” (Fox/Walden) and “John Carter of Mars” (Disney/Pixar), all of which are being produced on the same BlueArc system.

And other customers include: Double Negative Visual Effects (the FX studio behind movies like “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and “Batman Begins“), Eidos Interactive, Mill Film, Photon VFX and Redchillies.vfx. Most recent success in the sector was when four-time Academy Award® winning New Zealand based visual effects creator Weta Digital relied on a BlueArc storage solution for artistic rendering of groundbreaking animation and scene development for the film “Avatar.”

So its not that you think you have a great product but who is using it and what for that can make it interesting. More on this story

Thanks to the Ash

May 20, 2010 in PR by Tom Burgess | No comments

My recent trip to San Francisco got unexpectedly  extended from 7 days to 16 due to the volcanic ash flight ban. Not a bad place to be stranded, and seeing I had the use of an office and support, it was really just business as usual.

And the good news is that it gave me time to conclude a deal that has significantly strengthened BondPR presence in the US which we will announce shortly.

Global campaigns just got easier

January 5, 2010 in BondPR, Business, Marketing, Media, One World by Tom Burgess | No comments

Happy New Year everyone. So a new year, new hope, new opportunities.

For successful international PR campaigns, it is very important to have PR professionals who understand the local market, know the local media, live the local culture and speak the local language. But this does not have to mean you have to have a retained PR firm in each country.  Much of the management can be handled at a regional level,  for instance campaign coordination, creating regional content and measurement of success.  So  in-country teams focus on personal media outreach and monitoring.

There are also benefits for certain campaigns that may only need to reach an English speaking audience such as in South East Asia,  Middle East or Southern Africa where there are number of regional media in English or in Latin America where Spanish and Portuguese dominate.

Now that we are working in 50 countries and with Regus in 30, it was time to move forward with our plan to establish 10 regional hubs that can cover the whole world. These regional hubs will be

  1. London: Western Europe
  2. Paris: Southern Europe
  3. Munich: DACH region
  4. Prague: Central & Eastern Europe
  5. Dubai: Middle East
  6. Johannesburg: Africa
  7. Singapore: Asia
  8. Sydney: Australasia
  9. Buenos Aires: Latin America
  10. San Francisco: North America

Apart from London and Paris, which are owned offices, BondPR regional hubs will be joint ventures with independent local PR firms or experienced professionals who are already working with us. Where possible we will concentrate resources and activity at the regional hub level and bring in any of our established team of local delivery partners in over 80 countries as required.

The aim is to offer one point of contact for the world or the region, so reducing the hassle of coordinating multiple agencies or managing separate campaigns at a country level. This means clients retain control centrally or regionally, ensuring consistent messages, topical content and cost effective use of budget.

So if you want to talk to the world, talk to us, global campaigns just got easier…….. more info

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Regus work with BondPR in 30 countries

December 14, 2009 in BondBuzz, Business, Marketing, PR by Tom Burgess | No comments

Great news here, Regus has said it is OK  for BondPR to publicly announce that we won the contract to handle international PR campaign across 30 countries. It was good to read the story in PR Week UK . Actually we finalised the deal back in October but we all agreed not to talk about it until some results had been achieved.  But now that results are coming in from around the world we can tell you all about it.

As Regus grew to operate in over 75 countries, so too did the number of PR agencies and it became a  management nightmare. Regus still maintain agencies in 10 key markets  such as UK, USA, France…., but for 30 countries where there were 20 agencies, there is now one. Regus wanted the best support in local markets but through a single point of contact, they selected BondPR, as we offer “a unified cost-effective and results orientated approach, as well as good chemistry and significant global reach.”

The campaign is being built around Regus’s key messages which are particularly relevant at this time of globalisation, cost review and changing work patterns.  Regus  already generates a significant amount of content in the form of news, articles, briefing papers, surveys and research reports. BondPR is tailoring, localising and translating this content to meet the needs of key business and management media around the world.

So being in PR we wrote a news release about this.

We  were already a customer of Regus and look forward to making a significant impact on their further success.

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How global is their reach?

December 4, 2009 in BondPR, Fascinating Facts, PR by Tom Burgess | No comments

BondPR undertook some basic online research on the international reach of the top 20 tech PR firms in US (Source O’Dywer) and UK (Source: PR Week). Highest was Edelman with a presence in 24 countries, Text 100 with 23 and Lewis in 20. Even outside this list, firms like Fleishman-Hillard may have 80 offices but they are only in 22 countries. Coming close is European focused group Trimedia (now includes Eastern Europe specialist Mmd) with 47 offices in 28 countries.

I can’t tell you how many countries they are running campaigns in but I do know BondPR International though not yet in the Top 20 list is currently running campaigns in 50 countries through its own offices, regional hubs and established delivery partners, working for companies like Autodesk and Regus. Reach out…. we are there.

Still Buzzing

November 12, 2009 in PR by Tom Burgess | No comments

Hmm, it seems to have been five months since the last post on BondBuzz. Well, the BondPR team have been very busy.

Now running campaigns in over 50 countries for 40 clients

Just started a campaign for the leader in serviced and virtual offices across 30 countries

In process of rolling out our plan to establish 10 regional hubs across the world to give full global coordination

Merging a PR firm with our UK operation

That’s all for now……

Making multi-country campaigns even simpler.

June 5, 2009 in BondBuzz, BondPR, Business, Marketing, Media, One World, PR, Technology by Tom Burgess | No comments

Now any PR  firm operating in the tech market can say they have a global reach of 80 countries. No more fluff and pretending, it is real. BondPR  is opening up its international network to other PR firms under the brand of BondPRNet.

Actually we have been handling international PR campaigns for PR firms in the UK, USA and Germany for a while but now want to extend our partnerships and also offer white label service if required.

BondPR only has direct employees in three countries but has put in place delivery partners in a further 77 countries and is currently active in 30. We add value by making multi-county campaigns simple. We manage the international team and take care of consistency and quality of service, offering one point of contact. However if a PR firm wants just one country we may put them in direct contract with our local office.

As more clients look to manage international campaigns centrally partially due to budget constraints, then this option makes sense, they have their main PR firm whether it is in USA, UK  or wherever and they can use BondPRNet to deliver the campaign and the message as if it was their own team. Yes, it makes multi-country campaigns simple.

The Pope does Facebook

May 29, 2009 in Fascinating Facts, PR by Helen Bannigan | No comments

panorama_vaticanPope

Living in Rome as I do, one becomes used to reading about the latest Pope Watch News: from condom usage in Africa to global interfaith dialogue, to his favorite flavor of gelato (Pope John Paul II was apparently a fan of marron glace - the verdict is still out for the current Pope Benedict).

I loved the recent announcement that His Eminence was starting a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, providing content for iPhones, and joining the wacky world of Twitter.  What a hipster, that Popester.  Who knew?

It’s all part of the celebration to mark the World Social Communication Day (May 24), founded by the second Vatican Council following a decree on the media of Social communications back in the 60’s.  The church uses “Social Communications” to refer to the mass media in general – so not necessarily referring to the “social networking” phenomenon that are embodied by Twitter, Facebook, etc.  This Vatican decree overturned a previous Church position that was critical of the liberty of the press, and the day has been used to give an annual update to the followers of the Catholic Church and to foster communication amongst the faithful.

PR, of course, is all about communication, and the exploding social media phenomenon insists that this now be two-way communication with our stakeholders and our community influencers in order to survive.

The Vatican has clearly recognized that it needs to keep on top of its PR game as much as any multi-national corporation in order to maintain visibility and credibility in the global marketplace.  To survive in the competitive area – jockeying for position amongst innumerable faiths and, every more increasingly, the growing tide of “non-faiths” (agnostics and atheists) – the Catholic church must maintain this critical two-way dialogue in a meaningful way with its “customers”.  They must strive to ensure that they don’t migrate to the “competition”,  and try to attract new customers interested in buying its celestial “product”.

How successful will the Holy See be in his endeavor ( www.pope2you.net )?  Will the young, and the not-so-young, flock to the papal Facebook page or track Benedict’s Twitter updates or stay tuned to the Vatican YouTube channel  (http://www.youtube.com/vatican?gl=IT&hl=en-GB )?  Will the content be engaging, uplifting, valuable, provocative, inspiring?  Will the church be able to utilize this medium as an effective crisis control tool?  Will the Pope follow in Ashton Kutcher’s footsteps and surpass a million followers?

God only knows.

Be heard and not seen?

May 14, 2009 in BondBuzz, BondPR, Business, Marketing, Media, Podcast, Politics, Reputation, Responsibility, Social Media, Technology by Tom Burgess | No comments

I think podcasts are great, listen to what you want when you want, especially when you can’t effectively be doing anything else like travelling to work/meetings, exercising, walking the dog and so on. That’s got to be an hour or so a day for most people. It is not intrusive and often much more inspiring than listing to the radio. Ok, listening to Bruce Springsteen fires me up but there are so many great podcasts out there especially in our field of marketing/PR/communications. But companies/organisation/governments are still not sure where to start or some think it is a great idea, yes, but why? It was similar with blogging, companies thought they had a have blog but not sure why, now it has settled done a bit! So first, you need to work out who and what you want talk to, what message to you want to send, who do you want to influence.

So we thought we would help here, to get you started Bond-i has set up its new Bondcast service, driven by our very own Neville Hobson, who has got to be one of the most experienced podcasters on the planet, having presented a show called “For Immediate Release” for four years and also co-written the definitive book on Podcasting. Corporate podcasting should be an integral part of any organization’s PR mix, it’s a valuable medium for communicating your message to a targeted audience - whether that’s customers, prospective staff, media or other key influencers. So listen up, podcast your message……now, you may be heard and eventually seen by the people you want to influence.

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