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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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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

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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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.

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.

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.

The press release is no longer just for the press. In today’s online world it is a way of communicating directly with your audience (customers, partners etc…) by supplying the online news services with content so that people will find you when they are looking for companies like you. In fact, the “press” release is a pretty bad way of communicating with the press, most journalists ignore them as they get too many and they know everyone has received the same one.

So just take the “news” release for what it is, a release of news to everyone. Craft it carefully so your key words and phrases are included and get it out online. so when a real journalist or blogger is researching your field, they find you by hitting on the content you created. And don’t just do one release a month, write more short pieces, even very week, just updates on your company, comments on the market, agenda setting thoughts on your sector. Also make sure your international offices get them too so that it gives ideas they can adapt and amplify locally. But don’t send them unsolicited to journalists, just the online news sites, journalists deserve the personal approach. So create the buzz, then you may get the bang.

No matter who you are, no matter where you go in your life at some point you are going to need somebody to stand by you. We are one world. Here is a moving performance of street musicians around the world playing the classic “Stand By Me”, produced and coordinated by the organization Playing for Change: Peace Through Music. Hope you all enjoy it as much as we did, and may it inspire you. Listen here