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Ash joined The SPA Way on Monday as a new Account Director, particularly working on BAA Retail and WDF so that Soph can put her feet up and prepare for the arrival of baby Lennon.
Chanelle, has also joined us this week to join Laura's team working on beauty clients and the publication businesses: Time Out, Men's Health and getlippy.com.
Welcome, welcome...........................!
First of all, there's an article about our new licensing deal with Pazang PR:
SPA Way breaks new ground with licensing plan
A London PR agency has 'licensed' its media relations strategy in what is believed to be the first deal of its kind in the UK market.
The SPA Way has signed up Wilmslow-based independent agency Pazang PR as its first 'licensee'.
Pazang will follow The SPA Way's pay-by-results media relations method, which guarantees a client a certain amount of coverage.
The SPA Way, led by CEO Sara Pearson, will offer Pazang's staff intensive training and mentoring. This license is the first of a projected four the London agency will sign up in 2008.
The agency has identified ten UK regions, including Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, that it will target with its media relations licences.
Pazang PR founder Tanya Arturi believes that signing up to this media relations programme will set her agency apart in an increasingly crowded regional marketplace. "We've recently seen a surge in new agencies opening," said Arturi. "We recognised we need to have a unique selling poing and new type of offering that was head and shoulders above our competitors."
Pearson said she expected to announce a second licensee imminently. "I believe our business model offers real scope to regional agencies wanting to take the high ground," she said.
The Spa Way bills its time monthly according to PR industry convention, but works at its own expense or reimburses its clients pro rata at the end of a billing period if it has not met its guarantees.
And in case anybody missed the article, we ran an ad a couple of pages later:
Finally, there was a piece about our newest client, Hearst Digital.
Publisher Heart is focusing on promoting digital versions of its titles... and has brought in consumer agency The SPA Way to boost its online stable, which includes web versions of flagship titles Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping...
Hearst Digital marketing director Claire Higgins said that the decision to hire PR support was not based on fatigue in the print sector. "We've decided to look at PR to increase brand awareness of the titles," she said. "We want to show that Hearst Digital is the publisher that knows women online. We work within a publishing company that has really successful print magazines, and we don't really see them as competition. We're building on the success of our print titles."
The SPA Way MD Sara Pearson has appointed associate directors to run separate teams at the London agency, with PROs targeting different consumer and trade titles for each respective Hearst Digital website. "A site like handbag.com is very different from NetDoctor," said Pearson.
She added that digital publishing whould increasingly be a focus for The SPA Way , which works for print magazines Men's Health and Time Out but has not tackled web titles until now. "There's a huge scope, and an opportunity," she said.
All in all, a good week for The SPA Way!
We won Hearst Digital! This is SO exciting. Hearst Digital is owned by The National Magazine Company and the titles we will now represent include handbag.com, getlippy.com, cosmopolitan.com, allaboutyou.com and netdoctor.co.uk.
Have spent a chunk of today thinking 'what if' it was possible to not only guarantee coverage for our clients but, more than that, guarantee to deliver it in the media that science has pre-determined will be the most influential. Just imagine how powerful that would be and how amazing for clients to buy a service that is entirely based on tangibles!
My friend Dylan from Latitude may have just that solution. He can bring impeccable online expertise and the associated science and The SPA Way can bring the ability to deliver specified media coverage. Together we could have the PR equivalent of the Holy Grail!
Watch this space!
Nellie and I went on a long run this morning through the mist in Hyde Park - between 3 and 4 miles - did the same on Saturday as well. I have officially come out of hibernation - with the lighter mornings will come a lighter and more efficient me! The rest of the team will be pounding the streets with Terry this evening and plans are afoot for either the Great North Run or the Great South Run (the latter is only 10 miles!) Charlotte is considering doing the New York Marathon - decisions, decisions.
Speaking of Nellie, the old arthritis seems to be on hold at present and she is her usual happy, skippy self. However, there was a dodgy moment in the community garden last week when she put up an old, mangy dog fox that was skulking in the hedge and it tried to lead her out into the road. Thankfully, she obeyed my screeched order to ' WAIT!'
A little late in the day but here is a picture of Nellie (and Dash) on Christmas morning.
A fab start to the year with several wonderful new clients: Time Out, easyBus, Ebury Publishing and University of Bath. It's a nail biting time as we are awaiting the outcome of several more - all of which are not just about winning them but because we know we could do a fantastic job for them. Is it going to be a good week? Everything is crossed!
We have just bid farewell to the lovely Alia who has been headhunted by McKinsey - what a terrific achievement for her - goodness we are going to miss her. Bex has already stepped up to the plate and doing a great job. Also, Sophia is leaving to join Elton John's entourage - how exciting is that? Anthony, our social media genius, (better known as 'Dead Ant') is off on his fab trip to Brazil with his girlfriend - hurry back but don't bring any big spiders in your rucksack! Meanwhile, Guy has joined and stepped into the breach - and what a great job he did last week on the two big pitch presentations.
We're seeing lots of new people at present and expect to make several appointments in the next couple of weeks. But there's still time to send in CV's if anyone is interested.
January 1st 2008 saw The SPA Way sign its first 'licensee' deal with Pazang PR - a great little agency based in Wilmslow. This marked the first of eleven licensee deals with local agencies who will be trained to do media 'the SPA Way'.
The last six months of 2007 saw Alison Mathias, our in-house trainer par excellence - compiling the techniques and training that goes into ensuring that all our staff do their media relations according to our guaranteed method. Sometime ago it had struck me it would be possible to train others to do this sort of 'accountable' media relations which is so attractive to our clients. Coincidentlly, Tanya Arturi, the founder and MD of Pazang PR got in touch to say she would like to ensure her agency had a real point of difference from the others in her locality and was there a collaboration we could have.
This was just the inspiration I needed to make the concept of: MEDIA RELATIONS WITH GUARANTEED COVERAGE - THE SPA WAY a reality. We expect to sign our next licensee within 4-6 weeks.
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