Consumer climate change

As the grip of the financial crisis tightened, Lansons produced a detailed insight into how all age groups of differing financial fortunes would cope. Using this insight we drew up a blueprint for communicating with customers during the recession, specifically aimed at everyone in the financial services industry.

Six months on the blueprint has been updated to provide fresh perspectives. We aim to highlight changes in the public psyche and illustrate how the recession is impacting on individual choices. The report identifies opportunities for financial services providers to build brand stand out and loyalty, and influence consumers’ product choices.

The research also provides unique insight into which media are making the greatest impact with audiences. The recession is distorting earlier trends, and financial services companies need to stay on top of how target groups are reacting and interacting with different media types.

For a full copy of the latest results please contact searchforanswers@lansons.com

Know your TER from your APR

Almost two years ago, few people had heard of the term ‘credit crunch’, but now there’s little else, except perhaps Susan Boyle and MPs expenses occupying our dinner party chat.

Lansons invited four leading journalists to its offices to share their first hand experiences of covering the credit crisis. The event, chaired by Lansons CEO, Tony Langham and attended by a 70-strong audience of Financial Services Forum members saw Hugh Pym, BBC’s Chief Economics Correspondent, Joe Lynam, BBC’s Weekend Business Reporter, Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Editor for The Daily Telegraph and Matthew Vincent, Personal Finance Editor at The FT summarising their views about the current crisis and what impact it has had on how they do their jobs.

To read more click here

Building trust and reassurance for
Invesco Perpetual

Lansons was tasked with creating a thought leadership campaign for Invesco Perpetual. We focused on the “flight to quality”/”flight to safety” sentiment to create a campaign which would position Invesco Perpetual as the asset management ‘house of choice’, for the current crisis and beyond.

By providing reassurance to investors, Invesco Perpetual was recognised as the strong, trusted, experienced and active fund management house which delivers superior long term results. The campaign was built on Lansons targeting relevant news outlets with internal literature and thought pieces produced by Invesco Perpetual’s in-house team. The PR team responded quickly to the news agenda by utilising a diverse range of opportunities, including features and web conferences. Much of the campaign’s success in highlighting Invesco Perpetual as a ‘thought leader’ centred on its Chief Economist John Greenwood (OBE), being available for comment on news events.

Read the full case study here

Wake up call for hedge funds

The relationship between hedge funds and High Net Worth Investors was the subject for a recent debate hosted by Lansons. The key issue was credibility, not just for hedge funds but for the financial services industry overall in the wake of the Madoff scandal. Panellist Tim Mitchell of Invesco Perpetual said hedge funds in particular needed to “redefine what they are”. A clear one-size-fits-all definition of what a hedge fund is has always been elusive, but recently the term has been stretched further to fit all manner of exotic strategies and products. It is not a case of trying to reposition the industry – that is already being done by the regulators and the investors, whether alternative asset managers like it or not.

It may well be that we look back on the current crisis as a turning point for the hedge fund industry, and the debate highlighted the challenges facing the industry – reputation, transparency, liquidity, lower fees and increased regulation to name but a few.

To read more click here

Following the debate, we filmed our key speakers discussing some of the main points raised. This video can be seen by visiting here:
http://www.eubankers.net/eu_view_tv.php?videoid=40

If you wish to participate in our next event, please contact davidm@lansons.com

A blast from the past from brightsolid

Budget Day tends to bring bad news for many of us – but the centenary of David Lloyd George’s People’s Budget (which helped shape the modern welfare state) was the perfect opportunity to raise awareness of brightsolid’s role in digitising the 1911 census – which painted a snapshot of 36 million people’s lives. brightsolid, an online publishing house is the parent company of findmypast, the UK genealogy website, which launched the online 1911 census earlier this year. Lansons Public Affairs recommended using the People’s Budget centenary as a hook and we worked with brightsolid to organise an exclusive dinner bringing together senior figures from the world of politics, business, media, academia, family history and archiving. Lansons secured Vince Cable MP, Shadow Chancellor and advised on how to approach Natalie Ceeney, Chief Executive of The National Archives, to be the guest speaker.

And it turned into a real blast from the past – with more than 50 high profile guests including descendants of Churchill and Asquith. Elisabeth Ribbans, associate editor of The Guardian, and Lord David Steel, were just a couple of the ‘names’ in attendance. Video collateral consisting of short interviews with brightsolid and guest speakers was created for use by the client in communications with stakeholders.

To watch the film, click here

Loyalty at what price?

Value, values and loyalty are key issues for consumers after the catastrophic events brought on by the decision making of company executives, regulators and politicians in the last 12 months. Increased expectations of value, simplicity and substance from brands were already emerging ahead of the recession – but tough times and a few shocks have re-emphasised their importance.

But, despite a no-nonsense battle among retailers, particularly the supermarkets, customers are still wary of opting for the latest cut price deal. Just being the cheapest will not retain customers. The balance is a fine one – too cheap a price could devalue an item’s appeal in some shoppers’ eyes.

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Real life stories about midwives and babies became powerful persuaders in opening up a dialogue with Government Health chiefs over a national shortage of midwives. Lansons was given just 10 days by midwivesonline.com to raise awareness of its ‘More Midwives to Save Lives’ campaign in the run-up to the presentation of a petition at 10 Downing Street. We picked out emotive messages from mums, and the midwives that cared for them, to get the message across that Department of Health forecast figures on midwife recruitment were inaccurate.

The media response was more a bombshell than a wake up call for the Government. The three day campaign generated 45 items of coverage, including nine nationals and a total reach over 65 million. Result – a surge in signatures on the online petition and opening of dialogue between midwivesonline, the Department of Health and the Royal College of Midwives.

Click here for the case study

Putting MPs in the picture

Lansons Live, the broadcast and new media production arm of Lansons, has played a significant part in the political parties’ recent social media push. Indeed the calibre of spokespeople to pass through our studio’s doors has been second to none with guests including MPs such as former Treasury Minister Yvette Cooper MP, now Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Liberal Democrat Jeremy Browne who were both guests in webcasts.

We have hosted individual live webcasts for all three main political parties in the past few months. It really was social media in action with online users able to ask questions direct to the people in charge of the country’s finances. The users controlled the chats!

To watch a webcast in action on-demand on our own Chataboutmoney.co.uk website, go to www.chataboutmoney.co.uk/flash/webchats.asp?EventID=152

Our on-location production work continues apace, with Lansons Live filming the brightsolid 1909 budget centenary dinner package with Vince Cable MP in Westminster. Unlike standard vodcasts which are essentially just edited interviews, this was a news-style feature package involving sound bites from multiple interviewees, a scripted voice-over, archive vision from 1909, music and B-roll.

To watch the film, click here

To find out more about webcasts and Lansons Live, email christianm@lansons.com

We tailor our services to clients’ specific needs and media experience to date. Our strength is that we offer a PR professional/journalist combination. Combining our knowledge and experience together creates a bespoke training service to ensure key messages are being communicated to great effect.

For SV Life Sciences, Managers of International Biotechnology Trust, and ahead of their interim results presentation, we were tasked with helping them improve upon their delivery of this presentation and provide a critique. Attendees defined and rehearsed their core messages – the key to delivering a successful presentation – and their answer skills technique was evaluated following a round of filmed practice interviews. The training moved on to public speaking skills - how to structure a successful presentation and various rhetorical tools to keep an audience engaged. These include switching from conversational style to presentational mode, pausing for purpose, making use of contrasts, comparisons, rhetorical questions and ways to paint pictures with words. Finally, the attendees presented in front of a real audience with the presentation filmed and evaluated. The end result was a “slick and thorough” presentation for the interim results according to feedback from the analysts present - so, a job well done all round!

For more information on Lansons Live media training services, contact pernillet@lansons.com

For further insight from the BBC’s Weekend Business reporter Joe Lynam, click here

The changing face of public relations – client events

Lansons will be organising a series of events examining the changing face of PR since the credit crisis began. Our seminars will include an examination of the ever increasing area of issues and crisis management and a discussion on when and how to interface with the law on such matters. On the more positive flip side we will also be examining where PR opportunities are growing, and offer a forum to meet those in the broadcast media from which consumers are receiving the vast majority of their information during the global financial crisis. This theme of influence will be continued at a standalone bespoke event where we will engage national newspaper commentators who have enjoyed growing influence during the political and economic turbulence. We will be issuing invitations at a later date. If you would like to find out more please email lyndsayh@lansons.com.