The Reptile Group

How would you sum up 2009 for your agency?

2009 provided the opportunity to focus on our proposition for clients, growth strategies and begin a period of rapid growth during 2010 and future years.

What was the high point of 2009 for your agency?

The launch of Komodo, our consumer agency – we have built a strong company with exceptionally creative people and already a brand populated client base.

What was the low point of 2009 for your agency?

In some ways it was like treading water for 12 months. However that has certainly changed this year.

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

Our staffing levels changed little throughout the year although two new recruits into Komodo were instrumental to its success. A key new contributor was securing the services of Jonathan Simnett, one of the key figures in the UK and international PR scene over the last 25 years who has been working as strategic development director since 2009 and is driving growth across the Group by focussing on people and client development and international expansion.

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

We enjoyed beginning work with a number of new clients, but the highlight would be GetJar as the mobile application market is such a hot topic and who are the number one competitor to Apple’s Appstore, so the quality and quantity of coverage has been fantastic. The work covers B2B and consumer PR, so both Chameleon and Komodo are involved, and we work closely with both the CEO and the US PR team. The whole team at GetJar is a pleasure to work with and has a real can do attitude.

What were your three best campaigns of 2009?

Chameleon:
Our best campaigns are the ones that blended traditional and digital PR. Our highlights would be a security campaign for Siemens Enterprise Communications, revolving around social engineering, that secured considerable high level coverage and generated a significant amount of downloads of a linked research paper which created a semi-qualified sales lead database (many of which converted to sales).

We work really closely with Resolver Systems, a company that develops an advanced spreadsheet for quantitative analysis, to track the impact of our activity in terms of website traffic and those that convert through to downloading the product. Coverage has ranged from niche financial services magazines to the New Statesman. The relevant levels of impact are quite startling and, of most interest, it’s actually Wikipedia that is generating the most high value traffic to the Resolver website.

Our work with Citrix is always a source of pride for Chameleon. As the lead EMEA agency, we produce a steady stream of PR content, from topical comment to opinion pieces, and in 2009 created a virtualisation index that gives a multi-country snapshot of how virtualisation technologies are being deployed by end-users. Our analyst relations has grown from strength to strength, securing more briefings and report coverage than ever, and holding very successful EMEA analyst days in both 2009 and 2010.

Komodo:
We take evaluation very seriously so it may not come as any surprise to hear that we’re proud of campaigns that had a measurable impact on our clients’ businesses. For example, when Tesco Mobile asked us to launch an indestructible phone, a creative approach to product testing and positioning resulted in an attractive proposition for influencers to spread the word about the handset. This coverage lead to a spike in sales for the network making it the best-selling handset of the month.

Our work with a start-up called Last Messages Club, a company that specialises in sending messages from beyond the grave, is another good example of this. Strategically, the launch of this unique proposition offered a fantastic low-cost opportunity for awareness. Through our contacts at the Sunday Times, we secured an exclusive launch news article that made it to the front page of the newspaper. This was quickly followed up by a busy Sunday of selling in which saw the launch coverage grow exponentially, resulting in requests for interviews with the founder, from all over the world. Traffic to the site went from single digits per day, to tens of thousands – and we achieved all of this on a shoe-string budget.

We also work closely with the publisher of a magazine called This England, a quarterly publication that celebrates the traditional English countryside. Being publishers, investment into PR had to be measurable so we set advertising value equivalent targets as key metrics for evaluation. After creating a campaign to show the lack of understanding about England’s patron saint on St George’s Day, we secured over £90,000 worth of print and broadcast coverage which introduced the magazine and what it stands for, to new audiences.

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?

It was a slow year, and not surprisingly. From a new business perspective prospects were talking but taking much longer to reach conclusions, if any at all.

Of which achievement in 2009 are you most proud?

Blending traditional and digital PR across all client activity, improving the impact of our campaigns and generating tangible measurement and evaluation.

Describe your agency in five words

Reptilian – aggressively transforming client reputations.

How have you embraced social media in 2009?

We have embraced social media for the last 5+ years. It’s not new to us but we have seen a much warmer reception to social media campaigns from clients.

What are your plans for 2010?

2010 will see us investing more than ever before in our people with the launch of The R.Evolution Development Programme. We are investing more deeply into our digital abilities with the appointment of Mo Elnadi as digital head. He joins us with specific expertise from his time with Philips and Vodafone. We are also investing in our international representation across the world.

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

Our agencies are animals and admirably reflect their positions. Chameleon helps to transform the colours of its clients and Komodo aggressively targets vast arrays consumer audiences.