Chandler Chicco Companies

How would you sum up 2009 for your agency?

Dynamic, exciting and challenging!

What was the high point of 2009 for your agency?

Hitting 100 employees, continuing to do great work and securing some exciting new opportunities with clients we haven’t worked with before whilst adding 9 new babies (six boys & three girls) to the CCC family.

What was the low point of 2009 for your agency?

None, really!

Please give an overview of your staffing through 2009, including significant hires and internal promotions.

With a number of new joiners including Caroline Maddock (C&W) and Karine Jegard (H&K) to CCA, Emma-Kate Yates (Fast4Wd) to Brandtectonics Access, Helen Turner and Roman Protasiewicz to ‘nition, (our creative unit) and internal promotions of Neil Beasley and Kelly Teasdale the teams continue to expand their bandwidth and capabilities. We’ve increased our secondments between offices from Europe, US and Asia Pacific to ensure we can share learning and best practice – after all we are a Global organisation. We’ve enhanced our affiliate engagement programme supporting our affiliates and adding value through a strong cultural understanding and knowledge.

What was your best client/account win of 2009 and why?

Allidura winning the innocent campaign, which is about getting the ‘2 of your 5-a-day’ message to consumers via HCPs – this was a first of a kind opportunity with government approval for innocent to position their smoothies as being part of the solution! It’s such a cool brand that also has evidence to support it!

What were your three best campaigns of 2009?

Difficult to choose just three but award winning campaigns last year included:

CCA’s Window’s to Health for Pfizer – a DTC campaign to increase awareness of the importance of early diagnosis of glaucoma exceeding all objectives including achieving: 47 pieces of coverage including BBC Breakfast, GMTV totalling 93 million media impressions; 90% key message uptake; Nearly  900,000 people had an opportunity to see the campaign messages through the road shows; 1,200 retinal eye checks carried out and approximately 3,500 people sort advice from experts on the stand; Boots the Chemist changed their spectacle counter information to include warning to customers to seek eye tests for glaucoma; Winner of the 2009 Communiqué award for Best Media Relations campaign.

Biosector 2’s launch of the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations’ (GAVI Alliance) new fundraising initiative showed just what could be achieved with excellent media insights on a small budget. This complex story was translated into a simple to understand humanitarian narrative that enabled journalists to understand and engage with the real-world impact that GAVI delivers to children in resource poor countries. Biosector 2 smashed the target set by GAVI by gaining over 70 pieces of coverage (rather than the 10 anticipated). This coverage, in print, broadcast and radio achieved 100% positive tone and all pieces delivered the key spokesperson quote. GAVI were looking to raise £50m with this initiative, and yet by the completion of the project they had achieved five times this amount. The GAVI Alliance is a public-private partnership of major stakeholders in immunisation, specifically working to reduce vaccine-preventable deaths and illnesses among children under five in the poorest countries of the world.  IFFIm (Registered UK Charity Number 1115413) is an innovative financing institution for development, designed to accelerate the availability and predictability of funds from long-term government pledges for immunisation.

Litmus’ Women For Positive Action (WFPA) in HIV, a faculty led partnership initiative empowering women, sponsored by Abbott International. The WFPA was inaugurated in 2008, as a unique international partnership of medical and community representatives, with the mission of equitably representing and supporting women across all stages of the HIV journey and every level of the research agenda. WFPA promote shared care and equality of representation for all women living with HIV under the guiding principle of "nothing about us without us." With multiple work streams and already achieving significant outputs with involvement of 38 ‘wise women’ from 18 countries incorporated in the partnership.

How did the recession affect your performance in 2009 and what trends did you notice throughout the year – e.g. clients taking longer to sign off budgets etc?

2009 was difficult but we were able to navigate the recession without any major impact on our people or clients; our strategy of innovation, integration and opportunity helped keep us ahead of the field. Clients have been slower to sign off programmes, they’re increasingly project driven but as soon as you are able to demonstrate a measurable ROI the game changes! Procurement departments are becoming more involved in the pitch process and financial negotiations across the board – ‘everyone wants more for less’ it’s the same in every recession.

Of which achievement in 2009 are you most proud?

Our focus on delivering great work for our clients and keeping our people at the heart of our business meant we were able to continue growing from an already large base during a major recession. We have always evolved our business model driven by the needs of our clients and creating opportunities for our people. The mantra here is ‘be careful what you wish for, you may just get the opportunity’.

Describe your agency in five words

Empowerment drives creativity and ownership.

How have you embraced social media in 2009?

We are increasingly providing counsel to clients on how best to use this channel to establish interactions and conversations with stakeholders that are meaningful and appropriate to their communications strategy. Implementation is a given SEO, SMM and SMO, and increasingly our EU and Global clients are looking at our best practice examples from the US and asking how we can help them deliver something similar in their region. It’s fascinating when you get tweets from colleagues highlighting your own company’s work! We established a specific offer ‘Verstone Digital’, although our approach is one of strategic counsel and advice rather than development of a stand alone unit – everyone in PR needs to understand the channel and know how and when to put it forward in the mix.

What are your plans for 2010?

To maintain our focus on delivering great client work, expanding our client base, keeping our people and continuing to be at the forefront of our industry’s evolution. We had ambitious plans to achieve revenue of £10 million by 2010, we are significantly ahead of schedule and want to stay there.

If your agency were an animal, what animal would it be and why?

A Griffin.

In heraldry, the griffin's amalgamation of lion and eagle gains in courage and boldness, and it is always drawn as a powerful fierce monster. It is used to denote strength and military courage and leadership. Griffins are portrayed with a lion's body, an eagle's head, long ears, and an eagle's claws, to indicate that one must combine intelligence and strength.