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Posts from July 2019

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Paddy Power’s latest PR campaign gets people talking again

By Jake - 19 July 2019



Paddy Power is certainly not averse to controversial PR and its latest campaign has once again got plenty of people talking. After announcing a sponsorship deal with the bookmaker, Huddersfield Town FC released images of the club's supposed new kit for the upcoming season featuring the Paddy Power logo splashed across the shirt in a sash-style design.

It didn’t go down well with football fans and sparked outrage across social media with many describing it as the worst kit they’d ever seen. Paddy Power issued a press release saying that it “didn’t want to get into shirt sponsorship just to do the same as everyone else" and Huddersfield even wore the contentious kit for a friendly match against Rochdale.

The sponsorship certainly got people talking before, as many people suspected, Paddy Power eventually confirmed it was in fact a stunt. Huddersfield’s shirt will, in fact, bear no sponsor this season as part of Paddy Power’s ‘#SaveOurShirt’ campaign. The bookmaker released another statement saying “As a sponsor, we know our place, and it’s not on your shirt.”, calling on other sponsors to join the campaign to give something back to the fans.

Was it worth it?

The aim of the stunt was to get people in Paddy Power’s target audience talking about the bookmaker and it certainly achieved that. It was trending on Twitter in the UK when the shirt was first released and again when it was confirmed as a stunt. It also gained a huge amount of coverage, with not just sporting publications, but almost all of the national newspapers running the story, making it a major talking point up and down the country.

The initial stunt gained Paddy Power the desired exposure but the fact it has backed it up with a campaign that will appeal to football fans, one of its main target audiences, is a smart move. Whilst the stunt got people talking, almost all of the publicity was negative, whereas the ‘#SaveOurShirt’ campaign highlights a key issue that many fans are passionate about. This will not only result in even more coverage but also get its target audience back onside, putting the bookmaker front of mind.

The power of PR

Whilst the company’s logo will not feature on the Huddersfield’s shirt this season, Paddy Power has almost certainly gained more media coverage and overall exposure in its target audience from its ‘non sponsorship’ of a team in the Championship than any of the 10 bookmakers sponsoring Premier League teams will get throughout the season. When you consider that shirt sponsorship is considerably more costly in the Premier League than in the second tier, it helps to demonstrate the impact that a well thought out PR campaign can have.

Getting our clients front of mind through clever campaigns targeting their target audiences is exactly what we do at Refresh so it’s great to see Paddy Power pulling off a campaign like this, highlighting the power of PR once again.

Tagged with: Lifestyle, Manchester, Marketing, PR

Posted in: Refresh PR

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Double recognition for Refresh PR in CIPR Awards

By Laura Mashiter - 18 July 2019



The Refresh PR team is pleased to announce we have received two shortlists in the CIPR North West PRide Awards for Best Business and Corporate Communications Campaign and Best Integrated Campaign of the Year categories. The nominations are for our work with Eurocell and the Heating Installer Awards, respectively.

The CIPR North West PRide Awards celebrate outstanding communications campaigns and recognise PR activity that makes a positive impact on the businesses involved.

Laura Mashiter, our MD, said: “When we were submitting our award entries for both campaigns and looking at the results we had achieved, we knew they were both high quality entries and deserved recognition.

“Our work with Eurocell involved market research, a roundtable, the drafting of a forward-thinking whitepaper and a hard-working press office, and the outcome made a real impact on Eurocell and its business. In six months alone, the whitepaper achieved over 750 downloads and generated significant sales leads for Eurocell, which they are now converting.

“The Heating Installer Awards, which is owned and managed by Refresh PR, has grown each year by mammoth proportions. We now use events, video, social media, press office and get on-the-ground with installers to become THE awards tradespeople want to enter - creating mass brand exposure for our sponsors at the same time.”

The Refresh PR team has over seven decades of PR experience in both the built environment and tech sectors and experienced record growth in 2018/19, with 2019/2020 looking to be even bigger. 


Tagged with: B2B PR agency Manchester , Built Environment, Manchester, North West , PR, PR agencies Manchester, PR Agency Manchester, PR event, PR Manchester, PRide Awards, Public Relations

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Refresh PR sees a digital future

By Matt - 11 July 2019



At Refresh we passionately believe in investing in developing the future workforce and helping talented youngsters acquire skills and experience. And we don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk as we demonstrated with the launch of our grad scheme last October.

Building on this we have now gone one step further by signing up to become a Digital Ambassador as part of Manchester Digital’s Digital Future initiative, a scheme that is asking businesses in the region to help bridge the digital skills gap by signing by passing on their expertise to young people. In this role we will provide advice and introductory training to youngsters across the North West on developing and implementing digital PR campaigns and strategies.

As an agency we are already seeing a growing demand for a more digital approach to PR and marketing and we passionately believe that our knowledge in this area can help young people consider a career in the field and provide them with skills that will generally aide them when they enter the workforce.

The Digital Futures programme aims to encourage more young people across GM to pursue a digital career and support educators to deliver relevant curriculum and careers guidance.

The scheme was launched following the findings of the independent trade body’s 2019 Skills Audit, which revealed that almost a third of digital businesses in the region had turned work away over the past year as a result of not being able to find the right talent to fulfil it.

Businesses already signed up to support the Digital Futures campaign include AutoTrader, On the Beach, Sainsbury’s, The Co-Op, NHS Salford Royal Hospital and Sigma. In total Manchester Digital aims to have 250 GM businesses on board by May 2020, through the GMCA-supported campaign.

We’ll share details on our first Digital Ambassador training session in due course! 

Tagged with: B2B PR agency Manchester , creatiive agency Manchester, Creative Agency, Manchester, Marketing, North West , PR, PR agencies Manchester, Public Relations North West, Social Media