Focus PR

How would you sum up 2009 for your agency?

A rollercoaster. Eventful and busy. It ended much better than it started!

What was the high point of 2009 for your agency?

Joint high points: being appointed by no. 1 cognac Courvoisier; winning a clutch of awards, most exciting of which was our first ever European award for several of our social media client campaigns which won awards last year.

What was the low point of 2009 for your agency?

When Wine Rack went into administration last Autumn. We’d been running a successful campaign for them which directly generated footfall and sales, but sadly their business was beyond the point of no return.

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

We acquired luxury agency Wiggin PR in December 2008 which brought us four first class new account handlers (associate director to account executive). We are very hot on personal development and performance management and we invested more in training than ever. Our major hire was our first full-time human resources manager. Several of our team received richly deserved promotions; we’ve also upweighted the contribution our account directors make to running the business.

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

Maxxium UK, and in particular Courvoisier, for its status as a major luxury brand, and the exciting scope of the communications campaign.

What were your three best campaigns of 2009?

The Cadbury Creme Egg Twisted ‘Goo on the loose’ social media campaign, which was brilliant fun and has won multiple awards (in the UK and internationally); conceiving and launching Girls Aloud Lashes by Eylure, a commercial collaboration which we were instrumental in developing with Eylure (a long-standing client) and which is going from strength to strength; the amazing Courvoisier Architectural Punch Bowl event where we worked with food architects Bompas & Parr to flood a billiard room with a Courvoisier cocktail. BBC London News twice broadcast some of the 1,500 people who rafted across it!

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?

Lots of new business (we did more pitches than ever in 2009), but a higher proportion than ever ended with no agency appointment (hugely frustrating and resource-draining). Clients tightened up financially, with increasing involvement of procurement and stringent purchase order procedures being put in place. On the flipside, more than half of our fee income comes from clients who’ve retained us for three years plus. We have worked hard to build a high level of trust, loyalty and partnership which stood us and our clients in good stead for continued profitable growth.

Of which achievement in 2009 are you most proud?

Not just surviving but thriving: we grew our turnover and operating margin despite the recession; we won new clients in each of our five sector specialisms; (food & drink, luxury & lifestyle, beauty & health, leisure & entertainment, art & interiors) and we continued to invest in our team and the business (we built our new website from scratch, introduced several major new training initiatives, refined our positioning and proposition as a result of a six-month strategic project, appointed Kingston Smith to work with us on building our next three year business plan...).

Describe your agency in five words

Tangible results. Energy. Ideas. Ambitious.

How have you embraced social media in 2009?

Having won awards for our digital and online client work in 2008, we’ve naturally folded increasing levels of social media into our campaigns as the channel has grown in its importance for target audiences. We’ve taken the deliberate approach of training all our team and encouraging everyone to treat social media as a new channel of media, to be considered (as appropriate) for each client brief. This pan-agency approach is bearing fruit as we’ve continued to win awards for our skilful use of social media. From a consultancy perspective, we have an active Focus PR Twitter feed and our team all contribute to our blog. We’re doing increasing amounts of journalist liaison via Twitter and social media is already an integral part of our day-to-day communications.

What are your plans for 2010?

To invest in our team and our clients to deliver great and tangible results. And we are on track to more than double our profit this year over last.

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

A dolphin. Intelligent, highly evolved, adaptable, friendly, resourceful.