Posts Tagged ‘north west’

Picture perfect win for Staniforth

Friday, November 20th, 2009 by Jon Clements

fibre-foundation.png

It’s not usual for PR Media Blog to ”big up” its benificent parent, Staniforth , but if you would indulge us for a moment…

This week, at the North West CIPR Pride Awards, the agency scooped the Best Use of Photography awards for its work supporting the launch of the Fibre Foundation.

In short, we persuaded cricketer and Strictly Come Dancing alumnus, Mark Ramprakash, not only to undress but be anatomically decorated to show the vital organs that benefit from a fibre-rich diet.

As with any good picture, it tells a thousand words; and this went down well with the national media.

The CIPR judges said: “This campaign was built on outstanding use of photography to communicate messages about public health. The use of cricket player, Mark Ramprakash, added celebrity endorsement, but the creative genius was to use body paint in a way to create very striking visual images. The campaign is memorable and reaches the client’s core target publics.”

Now you can get on with eating your Bran Flakes.

Wyth a little bit of luck, and PR

Friday, November 7th, 2008 by Jon Clements

For anyone growing up in south Manchester who wasn’t a resident of the Garden City of Wythenshawe, the place has always come with some considerable baggage.

The local website for Wythenshawe - a place once dubbed the biggest housing estate in Europe - even devotes a special section to its colourful past. This includes tales of “wanton damage by vandals and hooligans” dating back to the 1930s, a demand from neighbouring residents of “posh” suburb Gatley for a Cold War style “barrier” to keep the hordes out, along with endless reports of arson, vandalism and deprivation; leading a local churchman in the late 80s to call the place “the opposite of a community”.

If there was ever a challenge on this planet, redrawing the image of Wythenshawe is it.

And so a modestly-(by marketing standards) budgeted project called “Real Lives Wythenshawe” has begun to do just that. But, as noted by the typically wry north west media news site, How-Do, you can’t call the initiative a ”re-brand”; it’s an image campaign.

What comes across from the campaign so far is the great pride the area’s people have for the place and the long overdue need for it to be released from its positioning as neighbourhood pariah. For many people who’ve moved to Wythenshawe from elsewhere - without the pre-conceptions shared by nearby communities - the question seems to be “what’s the big deal?”

But not everyone is impressed with “outsiders” getting involved in Wythenshawe’s business. Forum comments on the local Wythit website suggest “shooting all the fancy consultants”, which doesn’t do much for the stereotype the suburb is trying to shift.

Other local commentators seem to welcome the revamp of Wythenshawe’s image as a good thing, though one adds, ironically, “a few extra police might help!”

As a 10-year-old playing on a park near to Wythenshawe, I got duffed up and had my new leather gloves nicked by some local hardnuts. Maybe, as part of the image refresh, I’ll get my gloves back.