Public relations? It’s a strange phrase isn’t it. For some, it represents spin, double-talk and propaganda and for others it’s the poorer, slightly fluffier relation to the big daddy of advertising. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

For us, relating to publics is an holistic process, involving all the marketing disciplines, often unified around a single, compelling theme and aimed at creating greater clarity and understanding. Sometimes a brand is misunderstood, sometimes it’s only too well understood and sometimes it’s just not being heard. Whatever the problem, we’d like to think we can help. The thing is, we also think it’s time our industry looked beyond the obvious.

Advertising can achieve “good PR”, so can direct, ambient and guerrilla marketing – in fact the possibilities are almost endless. Which begs the question, why do so many agencies immediately reach for the press release?

To a certain extent, we’ve only got ourselves to blame. We let other disciplines lead the thinking, we focus on the process (let’s do some “PR”) rather than the outcome, and we often lack the courage to pitch the client the big idea.

So we started Unity to challenge the way people think about PR.

Our approach is simple. We’re an integrated marketing agency that tends to solve the kinds of problems most clients give to PR agencies, e.g. reputation and issues management, stakeholder dialogue and brand awareness. Sometimes we create campaigns that confront an audience with a core thought, what we call “consciousness raising”. Other times, we develop campaigns that encourage people to act.

And we’ve lived up to our mission by delivering a range of whole brain campaigns in recent months. We’ve used Christmas puddings, podcasts and indie music legends like Supergrass and the Dirty Pretty Things to help reduce homelessness, the grim reaper to launch a property website and, tea bags to talk to insurers. Woo, hoo!

We’re also starting to experiment with a blend of research, sampling and interaction – something we call two-way marketing, which enables stakeholders to get involved in your business and often means they become fierce advocates for your brand.

If you’d like to find out more, give us a call or send us an email to request a copy of our credentials.

Gerry Hopkinson & Nik Done, Unity founders

talktome@hellounity.com
Tel: 020 7405 0974

We do most things you’d expect an agency to do; and despite our earlier quip about publicity, we do enjoy a bit of media relations, it’s just that we don’t stop there. We’re equally at home considering a client’s competitive positioning, advising on a crisis, managing a road show or developing a creative mailing.

Our range of services include:
Advertising
Ambient media
Brand experience
Brand strategy
Copy writing
Crisis management
CSR & Sponsorship
Design
Digital
Employee communications
Field marketing
Guerrilla marketing
Interactive media
Media relations
Media training
Reputation management
Research

To enable us to deliver a broad array of services, we have set up a marketing collective, we call “the Union”. They’re not employees, as they are gainfully employed already – they’re a group of like-minded friends who we’ve known long enough to be able to speak plainly to and vice versa, and who have been chosen for their specific expertise and tried and trusted ability to deliver.

In addition to calling on them as and when required for client campaigns, we get the group together regularly to shoot the breeze, share ideas and solve problems.

Victoria Collis
communications strategist, concept navigator, opera singer

Adam Garfunkel
CSR advocate, plain English copywriter, gooner

Mark Gordon
brand midwife, European diplomat, tri-athlete

Stephen Martin
market analyst, customer behaviour guru, geo-cacher

Nick Porter
PR maven, voice of reason, shoe collector

Stewart Prosser
corporate reputation builder, trusted advisor, trumpet man

David Steven
policy analyst, journalist, dust-buster

Jesse Swash
graphic designer, deadline hero, book addict

Spencer Thursfield
creative, *diversent, ex waterpolo ace

Crisis
Equazen
Fifteen
Friends of the Earth
Natmags
Netmums
Nivea
Orange
Pearl Lowe
Potters Herbals
Reed Elsevier
RBS
sk:n
Totaljobs.com
NBC Universal
Wasted Youth (prison gig)
Whizz Go
World Wildlife Fund

Experience
Abbey
BDO Stoy Hayward
BT
City & Guilds
Egg
Electoral Commission
First Direct
Freeserve
Ginsters
LogicaCMG
Manpower Plc
MasterCard
Molson
The Post Office
Royal Navy
Royal & Sun Alliance
Swiss Re
T-Mobile
Unilever
Voca
Xerox

Brief
When rock goddess and interior designer Pearl stitched her first ever fashion collection, she needed extensive media coverage to market her designs. The launch collection was stocked in The Cross boutique. As it was Pearl’s ambition to make fashion a longer-term career, it was essential she earned a reputation as a design talent and attracted attention from other high-end retailers.

Approach
Pearl had initially designed 20 one-off dresses. Focusing on the quality and uniqueness of the dresses, and carefully balancing this with interest in Pearl as a personality, we embarked on a coverage offensive.

Work
Unity’s tireless work ensured that the collection was featured in practically every high fashion glossy magazine and broadsheet. We also organised a launch party for the collection on Halloween – a night of high gothic glam.

Outcomes
There was such a buzz created that by the time of Pearl’s launch there was already a waiting list for the dresses, which were snapped up by the likes of Liv Tyler and Courtney Love. The collection was so highly coveted that Pearl took further orders from Liberty, Nieman Marcus and a raft of other exclusive retailers.
Pearl’s reputation as a respected fashion design talent was cemented. The launch we arranged for her next collection at Liberty attracted a crowd of fashion’s elite, from style editors to fashionistas and rock royalty. The dresses will also be featured in the forthcoming Charlie Kaufman film Synedoche, New York.

Brief
Premium finance company Finsure, had been part of the RBS group for some time, but now wanted to officially incorporate RBS into its brand name. We were asked to communicate this change to the broker community and the media.

Approach
Frankly, whilst commercially important, we knew that this change wasn’t news. We also knew that it was important that RBS Finsure retained its reputation for providing a highly personal service, which could be called into question now it was openly part of such a large brand. We felt the best way to do this was create a dialogue with brokers to show we cared about their lives, so we developed a campaign based around conversation, humour and empathy.

Work
The first stage of the campaign was to talk directly to brokers, asking key questions about their working lives. They poured their hearts out to us, sharing their daily frustrations and howlers, the weirdest things they’d been asked to insure (a £250 dildo and a stone called Michael, if you’re interested) along with telling us the things that make the job worthwhile. More than 1,500 brokers took RBS Finsure into their confidence, meaning that the brand directly engaged with a large proportion of the community from the word go.

We then spoke back to brokers by drafting and designing the Broking Record from the newly named RBS Finsure, a little book of grievances that made for amusing reading. The book was mailed to our target audience, along with a personalised cartoon of the broker’s gripes as a thank-you for taking part in the survey.

Outcomes
The media loved the story, with articles appearing in everything from the Daily Telegraph and Daily Star through to trade press including Insurance Times, Brokers Monthly and Insurance Post. And more importantly, brokers’ awareness of the new brand –along with the impression that RBS Finsure was a company that understood them – was at an all time high.

Brief
sk:n, the national network of skin and body clinics, wanted to promote its anti-aging and suncare treatments, which include skin peels, microdermabrasions and sun protection. One thing mattered: generating as many new clinic enquiries as possible during a one-month period.

Approach
We believed it was crucial for sk:n to educate the public about the regular damage most of us subject ourselves to by not properly taking care of our skin. We placed a skin scanner at the heart of our campaign - a nifty little device that can detect premature aging, sun damage and even the early signs of skin cancer - offering free assessments to the public and donating £1 for every test taken to the British Skin Foundation (BSF) for research into skin disease. We devised an integrated campaign called Face Facts.

Work
The Face Facts campaign took a four-pronged approach:
1. Online - We created an online film that showed a beautiful girl prematurely aging, and propagated it broadly via YouTube, handbag.com, eve and prima. We also created an online skin calculator that allowed members of the public to key in data and generate an average skin age.
2. Media relations - We conducted research that revealed the majority of 18-24 year olds already had irreversible sun damage, which got extensive coverage in the national press. To bring home the fact that young people were in danger, we skin-scanned members of T4’s Shipwrecked to highlight the effects of sun damage. We also scanned other celebrity endorsers such as Meg Matthews and placed their stories in the likes of Cosmopolitan and Closer magazine.
3. On the ground - We took the skin scanner out on the road, encouraging members of the public to try it and help us raise money for the BSF in the process.
4. Ambient - From one skin to another, we handed out fresh fruit with relevant messaging – easy peel oranges invited recipients to ‘Peel back the years’ and ‘Get some zest.’

Outcomes
In the four week period we generated 7089 new enquiries – a record number – and undertook 997 skin assessments, raising nearly £1,000 for the BSF. At least 2,500 of the enquiries were directly attributable our campaign. Of those 2,500, 57% were converted into full paying customers generating £142,500 of business in less than three months and on course to generate £712,500 in six months.

Brief
NBC Universal told us that they needed to convince advertisers that SCI FI viewers were a world apart from geeky boys hidden away in their bedrooms. It was a mission we chose to accept.

Approach
Unity’s planning department had a sneaking feeling that there was a growing army of big kids out there – successful urbanites who loved all things childish, from toys to science fiction. We decided to investigate further, and commissioned a heavyweight report using TGI data.

Work
We boldly went where others hadn’t and identified a brand new audience segment. We uncovered a whole new tribe, which we dubbed the New Regressives – achingly cool, affluent urban 25-34 year olds who spend a collective £6 billion every year indulging their inner child.

We designed and wrote a super-slick, graphic heavy report, and mailed it to advertisers to inform and help them speak the language of the New Regressives.

Outcomes
The report proved to have supernatural powers when it came to opening doors for meetings with potential clients, as the New Regressives gave them a whole new audience to target.

What’s more, the media loved it. The amplification of the findings within the press meant that SCI FI came to the attention of a new audience just in time to convert them to loyal viewers for the launch of new cult show Heroes.

If you’d like to find out more about Unity or request a copy of our credentials, please get in touch.

Unity
Unit 110 Black Bull Yard
24–28a Hatton Wall
London EC1 8JH
020 7405 0974
talktome@hellounity.com




Members of the Public Relations Consultants Association

PR = Advertising/Ambient/Brand experience/Brand strategy/Copy writing/Crisis management/CSR & Sponsorship/Design/Direct Mail/Employee communications/Guerrilla marketing/Interactive Media/Media relations/Reputation management/Research