Services
Our strength is our ability to quickly analyse and respond to challenging and complex scenarios. We are committed to devising Public Relations and Public Affairs campaigns to support your business objectives.
1. How we work
We can help your customers understand the technical aspects of what you do by showing how your product or service benefits them.
To do so, firstly we agree your strategy – working with you to define goals and objectives. Then we produce a proposal which analyses strengths and weaknesses of your current position and recommends the most effective combination of tactics to achieve your aim.
We believe that integrated communications is the most valuable differentiating tool because its effective implementation improves how customers see your business. That means using a combination of communications tactics so that each can positively impact on the other and allocate your budget to achieve maximum effectiveness.
Macdonald Wynne Davies has senior experience of working within - and for businesses - helping formulate strategies that explain issues and convey messages to the wider world. With long PR experience comes judgment and we have the range and depth of experience to help you achieve your business goals.
We work either on short term interim assignments and projects, or on a rolling, contract basis.
2. Services
Our successful campaigns have helped businesses to generate new business leads, build customer loyalty, raise profiles, increase profit margins, build credibility and make marketing campaigns more effective. Some of the services we offer:
Click here for a jargon buster, explaining PR and terms used in Public Relations
Developing your campaign
Effective campaigns need to consider the following issues:
- Reputation audit – how your organization is currently perceived
- Reputation objective setting – where your organization needs to be
- Issues management – what challenges do you face?
- Audiences – who are they, who should you be talking to?
- Message development – discover how to communicate with greatest effect
People are more than potential customers. They can also be influential opinion-formers. Using a strategic communications plan, based on market research findings, means that you are more likely to implement a successful business plan.
There are many communications channels to use.
Market research can help identify which PR programmes will work best with your audiences. Should you be generating positive press coverage and educating key journalists and analysts? Would getting allies to work with you help? Would key audiences be more inclined to be positive if they knew about your organisation’s charitable work or what you do in the community?
Market research is a valuable tool to find out how your organisation is perceived. It can also establish what issues people support or those that do not resonate with the public.
We have extensive experience of using market research both tactically and strategically.
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Managing your campaign
- Planning campaigns against tight deadlines and budgets
- Long term, medium term or short term – how do you decide?
- Strategic planning for successful implementation
- Resource to implement a campaign – would external resource help?
- Plan ahead to handle emergencies or issues that are unforeseen and perhaps not yet in the public domain.
Understanding how to align campaigns with business or corporate strategy is what we do well.
Macdonald Wynne Davies has managed many campaigns, both in-house, for corporates, and also for clients. Some have been huge international projects and some very bespoke, for individuals who want to gain more exposure in their particular industry.
But for a campaign to be successfully implemented, it needs to be run against a carefully built plan.
Clear definition of goals, market testing, and management of the process and evaluation of the results are key phases that we understand well. We work with in-house teams who understand the issues well, and with others who need additional help or who have neither the expertise nor the time to deliver campaigns.
We have a network of trusted associates in a range of communications specialisms with whom we have worked for many years. They provide additional expert support in some campaigns.
Recently we managed a number of agencies across Europe in order to deliver a coherent, cost-effective and synergistic campaign.
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Media Relations
- The media is heavily influenced by PR and other activities.
- There is an ever-increasing variety of new media ranging from 24 hour news services to internet-based coverage and satellite channels.
- In Europe, there is now a sharing of news and news stories between media across the EU.
Alignment of media work with business strategy is vital in today’s electronic and digital age. We specialise in converting scientific stories into media coverage and have extensive experience both of working with the media and writing for them.
The synergy between PR and the media is often misunderstood. Every day, what appears in the media is heavily influenced by PR. However, talking to the media, especially about technical or scientific subjects, can be a challenge.
Some journalists (but not many) have scientific backgrounds and find that published company material hinders them from doing their job, instead of helping them. This happens when the material meets the internal assumptions of companies rather than the media’s need for balanced stories which do not require elaborate explanation.
The challenge is to illustrate technology benefits in simple, understandable ways. Our skill lies in our ability to identify the story that is new and which merits attention.
We have experience of talking about various technologies in bespoke ways designed to match audiences’ varying depth of understanding. [persuading the media case study] We are both experienced journalists who understand and respect the demanding pressures under which the media operates – helping journalists get a story that is both interesting and innovative.
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Public Affairs
- Public affairs is a channel to educate key audiences and opinion-formers.
- Public Affairs can be deployed strategically to create positive background perception for other audiences
- The media and writers of opinion pieces can be influenced by public affairs
Business becomes more regulated by politicians every day yet public interest and participation in politics declines.
Many countries now have NGOs with more members than the political party in power. In the UK for instance, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has more than one million members, 150,000 of whom are youth members. Labour Party membership is currently reported at around 190,000.
The EU is responsible for increasing numbers of legislative and regulatory issues, with more than 10,000 elected and appointed law-makers within the EU’s 27 parliaments.
Public affairs programmes that seek to educate important audiences with key-business related messages and issues are, therefore, a vital part of communications programmes.
Whilst Government Affairs – talking to politicians - is a key element of Public Affairs, it is far from the only one. At its fullest, Public Affairs encompasses relations with a huge range of other stakeholders for an organisation - clients, customers, suppliers, the media, trades unions, shareholders and even other organisations working in the same sector. The range of work within the sector is far too broad to be summed up so simplistically. It ranges from monitoring of activity in Parliament and other parts of the political process through to planning and running major campaigns designed to change the laws of the land (or to prevent change to them).
For more details on Public Affairs go to www.ciprgag.org.uk
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Your PR team
- Internal communications – build the goodwill of your employees
- Change management and business transformation
- Updating communications expertise
- Cross-cultural working with colleagues from differing countries and regions.
We have senior experience of managing in-house corporate teams. We believe PR can be performed in a collegiate way and can help existing teams to re-evaluate how to deliver the most effective communications.
Our knowledge is derived from running high profile campaigns, both in the UK and Europe. Our international work with different cultures and audiences can ensure that the most can be gained from communications, using awareness of the different ways in which societies operate.
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Writing for Business
- Considerable experience writing speeches, articles, reports and film scripts and copywriting for advertising and marketing
- Track record of successfully identifying what will engage the media and producing cogent argument.
- Editing and contributing ‘think’ pieces for newspapers to writing and producing award-winning publications.
We are experienced writers in a range of media - newspapers, broadcasting and the writing and production of corporate communications vehicles such as speeches, brochures, advertising copy and film and video scripts.
Avril is a former weekly newspaper editor and internal communicator. Peter has written as a columnist for a daily quality newspaper as well as having worked on broadcast programmes and video/film production.
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Personal counsel
PR techniques can be used as part of personal development – for example to raise your own personal profile or to increase your understanding of ways in which your company, organization or department can get the most out of PR and Public Affairs.
Your approach may be formalised, though a Continuous Personal Development (CPD) programme, or via private, bespoke briefings.
Discrete advice is available for those who like to have a sounding board away from their own executive committee or board and who need to form their own view on getting the most from international communications activities.
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