Media Agencies in England

Battenhall

We started our third day in London at Battenhall, a multi-award winning global communications agency for the social media age that was founded in 2013. The first person we met with was Drew Benvie, the founder of the agency. Battenhall is reinventing how public relations is done across all industries, using social media as the main discipline.

In the last few years, Battenhall has made global expansions with a lot of clients in France and Germany. The company grew from one person to over fifty employees, all with a deep background in digital work.

Public Relations Through Social Media

Next, we talked to Stephanie Bennet, Director, at Battenhall. Steph talked to us about all of the social media accounts that they work on for clients— Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We also talked about the importance of content calendars and tracking progress. One helpful tip that Steph gave us was to look at world events, or trending events and align it with your companies brand or message.

Then, we talked to Alice Simpson, Senior Account Executive, and Shannon Leahy, Junior Account Executive, at Battenhall. Alice and Shannon talked about media monitoring and newsjacking. Newsjacking is the practice of taking advantage of current events and news stories in a way that promotes or advertises one’s product or brand—similar to what Steph was talking about earlier.

They also talked to us about the rise of influencers and their rule in the advertising industry. Influencers are people who have a large, loyal following, making them great to partner with for product promotion.

Last, we talked to Jonny Awtter, Senior Data Analysts, at Battenhall. Jonny talked to us about the importance of analytics because it can provide proof and information to clients. Analytics are essential to tracking the progress of a campaign or media effort.

Burson Cohn & Wolfe

After our visit with Battenhall, we took a short walk over to meet with the people of Burson Cohn & Wolf (BCW). BCW is the worlds first agency purposefully created to deliver integrated communications. BCW is a global company with 138 agencies in 40 countries that started in public relations, but is now moving into more integrated communications.

First we spoke to Pete Way, Creative Director, at BCW. Pete talked to us about the current state of public relations and how the lines between PR and advertising are blurring, which is why the company is moving towards intergraded communications. Pete also told us that BCW specializes in creative support, brainstorming, facilitation, platform ideas, and creative production.

After meeting with Pete, we spent the rest of the time going through a creative brief with Petra, Mark, and IO. For this activity, we were broken up into groups where we had to fill out a creative brief where we needed to sell butter to a brand new demographic. We answered questions like who are we targeting, a meaningful observation that give the product leverage, what effect we want the campaign to have, and so on.

After filling out the creative brief, we had to switch briefs with some other group and come up with the finalized idea and present it to everyone in the room.  The activity was very educational and helpful because it presented us with a different way of looking at the standard creative brief.

Going into the Evening

As the day came to an end, myself along with some other friends decided to spend the rest of the night exploring London and taking advantage of some well earned shopping time. We then ended the night at a restaurant called Zizzi where we had some pretty amazing Italian food, before heading in for the night.