One year we’re creating a rap about pensions with Big Zuu, the next we’re bringing back Mallett’s Mallet! It’s never quiet for long at TS towers and last month saw us come back for year two of the industry-led Pension Attention campaign alongside the ABI and PLSA. After months of planning and tireless work across our integrated team, it was brilliant to see our work with Timmy Mallett, an iconic and much-loved 80s and 90s TV presenter, all come together and land with a splash across press, digital, social and out-of-home as we called on the UK to take an Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny look at their pension with ‘The Pensions Playback’. 

Working with Timmy Mallett was a joy and while I’m a tad young to have watched his primetime shows in my childhood, I certainly understand how our target audience for this campaign are so taken by him. 

On our shoot day he enlisted Mallett’s Mallet and Pinky Punky to take contestants back to the 80s and 90s so they didn’t feel so “Bleugh” about their pensions. With this nostalgic take, we were able to encourage people to look back to yesterday and uncover their ‘lost’ pensions to maximise their future. It sounds simple, and it really is, but so many people just aren’t claiming them. In fact, the DWP estimates there will be 50 million dormant and lost pension pots by 2050. And with the average person having 11 jobs in their lifetime, it’s never too soon to get on top of it. 

In the run up to launch, the team worked to build the assets for launch day. This included the Pension Attention landing page, the out-of-home advertising, the social clips and all the assets for PR. This meant when it came to launch day we had a wealth of content to amplify the PR as we hit go on our media day with Timmy to get the nation talking and taking action. We had pitched away in the week running up to launch and landed a packed-out schedule with Timmy conducting interviews across many major national publications and radio stations (we also quickly learnt we have a lot of Timmy fan boys and girls in the media!). 

These articles have all since been landing and we’ve already reached over 52 million people with the coverage. Hits have been secured in core nationals such as the Mail Online, The Express, The Sun, Evening Standard and This is Money and we still having a bunch of articles in the pipeline! We’ve also heard Timmy across the airwaves and TV and been so heartened to hear him bring his own personal experience to the campaign, talking about all the jobs he’s had and the importance of tracking down those pensions. He was a real pro and so seamlessly mixed our messaging with titbits of local knowledge for radio stations, 80s trivia and chats about his own passions including biking and painting. 

While the pitching certainly doesn’t stop here, it’s been a great start to year two of Pension Attention and we look forward to continuing to bang the drum over the coming weeks and months.

Your attention please! Senior Account Director Kathryn Cleaver reflects on the launch of the 2023 Pension Attention campaign and what it was like working with the legendary Timmy Mallett. 

Last week was a busy week on the news front and, while heartening to see some non-cost-of-living headlines being generated, why did they go for the cake?! And why did Adidas think hiding behind a banal statement would help counter that activist hoax?

In case you missed it, cakes started lighting up our Teams chats when the Food Standards Agency chairwoman Professor Susan Jebb likened cakes in the office to passive smoking.

As part of an interview with The Times- which the Prof insisted she was speaking to in a personal capacity- Jebb claimed that “If nobody brought cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes." She then went on to claim that colleagues should think about creating a “supportive environment” and delivered the fatal blow when she likened cake proffering to passive smoking. 

So much to unpack here in all of this, including the personal responsibility elephant in the room perhaps, but it really made me feel quite sad that we have one of our national food advisers calling for an end to cake! 

Most workplaces and education settings are now, thankfully, very mindful of ensuring there are a plethora of healthy alternatives available for employees and students alike. The fruit bowls in our office are literally bulging and we’ve (even) added non alcoholic beverages to the drinks trolley. 

The point is, we need to offer people choice and encourage people to make good decisions not just take the lemon drizzle away and, certainly not suggest that having one on the high table in the office is verging on polluting peoples air space with cigarettes… although part of me is curious about legions of ’cakers’ gathering outside buildings. 

Speaking of bonkers behaviour, sportswear giant Adidas was the subject of a publicity hoax this week.  In what can only be described as a masterstroke in communications management, a series of phoney press releases and the staging of a fake event were devised by activist group, The Yes Men working alongside the Clean Clothes Campaign.

The group posed as Adidas and shared “news” of a new CEO for the group along with claims it would soon launch a new "pre-worn" collection at Berlin Fashion Week. In the press releases the activists spoke of Adidas’ treatment of factory workers and revealed the “new” CEO, former Cambodian Factory Worker, Vay Ya Nak Phoan, would be responsible for ensuring “ethical compliance! 

Eeek! I can only imagine the calls and frantic DMs across the Adidas communications teams as this unfolded. I genuinely feel for any comms professional navigating as public and cleverly orchestrated a stunt as this, but to land on the “no comment” square feels like an opportunity missed. 
Maybe the idea was not to add fuel to the fire, perhaps they wanted to see how it was received but I can’t see how a “We are not commenting on these releases” helps reset Adidas’ narrative in any way. But perhaps for them it felt like the best way forward. 

An exciting week for sure and plenty to muse on… I’m off for an angel slice.


Director Emma Evans shares her take on the news of last week. From communal cakes and passive smoking, through to a publicity stunt that took on sportswear giant Adidas and ended in a “no comment” – it left plenty to muse on. 

When the first national lockdown was announced on March 23rd the UK came to a standstill. Unlike anything anyone had ever experienced there was an overwhelming sense of the unknown which spread across the country. 

For one of our clients, [Audley Villages](https://www.audleyvillages.co.uk/), a luxury retirement living provider, the spread of the pandemic presented perhaps an even more difficult set of challenges. While we were all still travelling to and from work before lockdown, going to the pub, out for dinner, Audley had taken the decisive move to shut all 19 villages down. The property owners who live in Audley Villages are all aged above 55 which means they’re more susceptible to being vulnerable to the virus. Audley had to get on the front foot and that they did.   

As this happened, we pivoted our PR strategy. We wanted to showcase the amazing work that was happening at every single Audley village and deliver much needed ‘good news stories’ to the national and consumer media. 

We had carers become hairdressers, village team members take property owners on socially distanced walks around the villages as they were unable to see friends or family, planned exercise classes from owner balconies, virtual coffee mornings and iPad support sessions to help people stay connected with loved ones. We even had members of Head Office heading out to Waitrose to do weekly shops for those who couldn’t get out. These were the stories we wanted to tell. 

We spoke to the Metro about incredibly dedicated Audley carers working in the villages and local communities while raising money for charity, we profiled personal trainers running virtual Zoom classes and children sewing mask ear protectors for care workers on BBC News and we even showcased the Audley Redwood lockdown bar! Cocktails delivered to the doorstep was a winner all round. And, we also achieved national coverage in The Guardian for the Audley pen pal scheme which connected owners and local school children. Thanks to Summer, one of the team’s daughters for that wonderful idea.  

No one could have predicted what 2020 had in store. Property pages, which are our usual haunts, were cut from the nationals and we had to adapt. The pandemic, and impact to our villages, made us switch to a new PR newsroom approach, targeting completely different journalists and with brand new ideas. It was a real opportunity.

Speak to anyone on the Audley account and they’ll tell you that the pandemic has shone a light on what it is really like to live in a retirement village, the community, the support and numerous benefits. While it’s still early days, the infection rate has remained incredibly low and owners have been supported and kept safe. Being able to tell just some of the incredible stories of the incredible people who have cared and supported owners, friends, loved ones, and strangers through a hugely unsettling time helped us all deal with lockdown too.

And as we make our way through our second lockdown it feels a little less unknown and we’ll be ready to share the stories of the people doing everything they can to keep those who are vulnerable as safe as possible, both physically and mentally.

An annual event to celebrate women around the world, International Women’s Day (IWD), sounds like a new phenomenon.  A marketing gimmick even- in some cynical quarters-, or worse, a joke with cries from die hard feminists of ‘what about the other 364 days in the year’! In fact, IWD has been celebrated on March 8 for well over a century, with the first IWD gathering in 1911.

Today IWD is intended to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. And, perhaps in more recent times, it serves as a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
In keeping with this, the theme for this year’s IWD is gender equality, be that in government, around the boardroom table, on the sports field, in the media or in our workplaces. To play our part in keeping the conversation on these big issues going, we have put together a short video with some insights from many of our leading women (and men!) here at Teamspirit- 



<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/395992784" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 
As many of my colleagues beautifully articulate in the video, there is a part of me that hopes, one day, we won’t need a day to recognise the achievements of women.  But, until we are even close to addressing the gender pay gap, events like this are very much needed. 
 
Recent research from Mercer’s new ‘When Women Thrive 2020 Global Report’, shows just 40% of the global workforce is currently female with only 29% of women holding senior positions and reports last week from the TUC showed women have to work for free for two months a year as a result of the gender pay gap. Against this backdrop, it looks like we still have a long way to go and initiatives like IWD will remain fundamental to ensuing others recognise and celebrate the value and power of women. 

An annual event to celebrate women around the world, International Women’s Day (IWD), sounds like a new phenomenon

We are thrilled to have won Best PR Campaign at the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) Annual Shareholder Communication Awards, held earlier in June. 

The PR award, which was secured for the second year running, was in recognition of a campaign revealing the state of the UK IPO market.  The judges remarked this campaign was ‘highly impressive and something industry professionals can spend a lifetime trying to achieve’ and commended the high quality of coverage the campaign had attained, including front page in the Financial Times.  

The AIC developed these awards to demonstrate the industry’s commitment to providing excellent communications. The awards recognise those member investment companies and their managers that stand out by using effective communication methods to keep shareholders informed.

Teamspirit wins Best PR campaign at the AIC Shareholder Communication Awards

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