London Communications Agency

Describe your agency in five words:

London, expert, informed, successful, fun

How would you sum up 2010 for your agency?

2010 was a good year. Challenging but good. We saw income growth in a very tough market and some real client successes. We focussed even more on our core expertise – London and the South East – and increased our spend on research and monitoring as well as our digital offering.

What was your agency’s high point of 2010?

Taking the agency to a very cold Prague in December. Every year the whole company is involved in business planning for the following year and every 2 years we hold this session abroad. We did actually work quite hard but also had a lot of snowball fights.

That and winning the PR Week 2010 Best Places to Work Gold Award. We are very proud of that. Oh and we also won the PR Week ‘Specialist Consultancy of the Year’ Award for the second time in four years. We are proud of that too.

What was the low point of 2010?

Not a low point as such, but we had to pay out a fair whack to charity for some wrong predictions in the 2010 local elections! We always stick our necks out and predict the results of elections, and give money to charity when wrong. We were extremely accurate with the London MP seats for the general election, but no one predicted the extent of the swing to Labour in the London local elections. We’ll still make more predictions next time.

Please give an overview of your staffing through 2010, including significant hires and internal promotions.

Staffing levels remained relatively stable and we haven’t made anyone redundant throughout the tough economic times. We also remain committed to training and development and to promoting from within. 2010 saw several internal promotions including two staff members from Account Director to Director, one of whom first joined us as a Research and Admin Assistant.

What were your three best campaigns of 2010?

We love our clients and we publish our full client list proudly on our website. We like to think we do great work for everyone and most of our clients have been with us a very long time, but the three we would highlight are:

The final grant of planning permission for the £4.5bn Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration in October 2010, which marked the culmination of over 6 years work supporting a highly complex project. It will deliver a new town centre for North London and the largest investment in community facilities in the area’s history, including three schools, new sports facilities, five new bridges, a new train station, new bus station and the transformation of Brent Cross Shopping Centre.

The Shard becoming London’s tallest building in 2010, built by LCA client Mace. We are working closely with the developer, Sellar Properties and Mace to promote the Shard’s construction through to its completion in 2012 and have generated some great coverage.

Helping Wycombe Sports Development Ltd (WSDL) demonstrate over-whelming support from the local community for its plans to develop a new Community Stadium and Sport Village to provide a new home for Wycombe Wanderers FC and London Wasps Rugby Club. Professional sports clubs occupy a unique place in the community and it is a pleasure to work with such a committed and passionate team there.

What were your most exciting client wins of 2010?

Lots we could highlight, but probably the three most significant in 2010 were:

Being appointed by the John Lewis Partnership to manage the consumer PR to support the opening of their £35m new John Lewis Stratford store in September 2011. It will be the first full-line John Lewis to open in London in 20 years and the only department store at Westfield Stratford City – the largest shopping centre in Europe.

Being appointed by London City Airport to help manage their communications and public affairs requirements in support of their planning application to extend the number of flights permitted. If London is to meet the demand of air travel without new runways, it is vital that we do maximise current airport capacity and at London City Airport you have a facility which doesn’t operate at night or for 24 hours at the weekend and where the vast majority of people arrive by public transport.

Working right at the heart of the NHS reforms after winning a brief to work for one of the new NHS ‘clusters’ in London.  This intensive project has involved high level strategic management and communications advice, intense media scrutiny, and a volatile external environment where public protests and political issues are part of day to day life, as is the backdrop of NHS restructuring.

It is also worth highlighting our pro-bono support for LandAid, the property industry’s charity which supports disadvantaged communities.  LCA designed and implemented a communications plan which introduced the charity to new audiences and significantly raised LandAid’s profile across the media. We also directly supported LandAid Day which raised £100,000 from a diverse range of fundraising activities initiated by 45 companies supporting the charity.

Of which achievement in 2010 are you most proud?

Keeping our team together and continuing to run a successful agency in very uncertain times.

What trends did you notice throughout the year in the industry ie. Clients taking longer to sign off budgets?

I think clients are rightly becoming more demanding. There was certainly a pressure on fees and I would say we are working harder for the same income. We grew by continuing to demonstrate where we add value and through very hard work.

How has digital changed the agency landscape in 2010?

We commissioned our own digital strategy in 2009 and really got to grips with digital media in 2009 & 2010, both as it applies to us as an agency and to our clients. We now regularly monitor and respond to digital and social media for our clients and have built up our own twitter profile (LDNcomms) as commentators on London.

What are your plans for 2011?

More of the same. We exist to work on the most interesting and challenging communications projects in London and the South East and that is what we enjoy doing. We have a superb client base and a great team and of course we are building up to 2012 and the Olympics and the next Mayoral elections. London never stops. Neither do we.