3rd December 2021 marked Refresh’s 12th anniversary and we thought how better to celebrate than sharing our 12 favourite campaigns that we have executed in 2021!
1. Ello – Lifetime Loyalty
We worked closely with customer loyalty specialist, Ello, to create our lifetime loyalty campaign. We developed a content series highlighting the ‘lifetime value’ of customers across some of Ello’s core UK market sectors, including retail, utilities, insurance, telecoms and finance.
The campaign comprised of consumer research, a series of sector-specific guides revealing research findings, gated content to support lead generation, press releases, infographics, social, blog content, and email content/eShots.
Results included 62 pieces of coverage in the likes of the i, The Daily Express, Drapers, Utility Week and Insurance Post as well as a total of 77 report downloads.
2. Heating Installer Awards 2021
For the sixth year running, we held the annual Heating Installer Awards in September 2021. The awards, which are owned by Refresh, are designed to champion the heroes of the plumbing and heating industry who often go unnoticed, and recognise installers who go to great lengths to deliver incredible levels of service and the highest quality work for their customers.
Working closely with our award sponsors and partners Armacell, CIPHE, Danfoss, Installer, LG and Polypipe we received over 150 entries and website views were up by 46%, while our Instagram followers increased by 42% and we saw a 202% uplift in online votes on 2020. The team built great relationships with installers across the country and Yorkshire’s Grant Gundelfinger was named Heating Installer of the Year 2021.
3. FEIN – The Future of the Metalworking Sector
Earlier this year we launched The Future of the Metalworking Sector with our client FEIN. We surveyed 100 industry experts from within the automotive, general fabrication, machine manufacturing, offshore/shipbuilding, rail, steel production and sheet metal industries.
The press campaign resulted in 56 pieces of coverage in the likes of Professional Builder, Troy, Manufacturing Engineering Solutions and Roofing, Cladding and Insulation Magazine. Plus, we also gained quantitative insight from industry experts such as Adrian Hawkins from Welding World and Jim Chadwick from Toy UK.
4. MyGlazing.com – Stay Safe with MyGlazing
Responding to the pandemic, we worked with MyGlazing.com on the Stay Safe campaign, which was designed to build back consumer confidence around home improvements and provide tips and advice on working with installers safely.
To do this, we created and implemented an integrated marketing communications strategy that included PR, regular advice articles and information on the MyGlazing.com blog and social media channels – all linking back to the client’s COVID Safe Guide for Homeowners.
The results of the campaign highlight its success with a massive 148 pieces of coverage in consumer regional and lifestyle press, 330,000 views of relevant pages on the website, and driving over 114 million eyes to the for MyGlazing.com brand.
5. Aqua Pura – Hydrating the Nation
We created a consumer and trade PR campaign for our client Aqua Pura to raise brand awareness and attract new customers while re-engaging with Aqua Pura’s target audience and increasing visibility. The campaign also aimed to educate consumers on the importance of hydration.
The campaign landed coverage in the likes of Metro, Huffington Post, The Grocer, Trail Runner, Prima, The Guardian and Daily Star, amongst others and has reached an audience of around 46.7 million.
6. Culture Shift – Maintaining Workplace Culture
We worked closely with Culture Shift, an impact software business that exists to lead positive change in organisational culture, to create a campaign which would raise its profile, shout about the work it does, make inroads into the corporate market, and help foster new relationships of importance.
We implemented a campaign with two core workstreams – the first focusing heavily on strong media relations and brand building, and the second a thought leadership campaign targeting the corporate market, honing in on workplace culture and diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
We landed 115 pieces of press coverage across vertical, national and regional publications including Wired, BBC, Reuters, The Guardian, The Telegraph, LBC, MSN, HR Director, Law.com, Personnel Today and Information Age. In total the campaign reached an audience of over 6 billion.
7. ePOS Hybrid – Hospitality Disruptors
We worked with hospitality technology provider, ePOS Hybrid, to create a campaign to build awareness of its brand within the hospitality sector.
We created a content-led future-gazing campaign that shone a spotlight on the tech disrupting the hospitality sector. This was supported by consumer research, a restaurants and bars of the future report, and a content hub that also acted as a portal to generate sales leads. Content was seeded out via press releases/thought-leadership articles and social content.
We landed 50 pieces of quality coverage over the six-month campaign including Bar, The Scotsman, Eat Drink Sleep and The World of Hospitality.
8. Etex Experts series
We worked closely with lightweight construction materials manufacturer, Etex, to create a campaign that would increase brand awareness and position Etex as a key expert within the construction sector. We also set out to increase engagement with Etex’s key audience groups.
We arranged and hosted a roundtable attended by industry experts from the likes of Morgan Sindall, Bond Bryan, Corstorphine & Wright Architects and Caddick Construction. The expert insights from the roundtable were then used alongside research from 250 decision makers in construction to form a press campaign and three mini-reports covering some of the biggest challenges in the construction sector at the moment.
To date, the campaign has generated more than 30 pieces of coverage in top trade titles including Building.co.uk, Construction Enquirer, Housebuilder and PBC Today.
9. Supercharged Commerce – Evolving Shopping Habits
Supercharged Commerce, part of the CTI Group, is an eCommerce agency that accelerates the growth of retail businesses through digital. We worked with the team on a campaign to generate leads and raise awareness of the new brand in key media.
To do this, we created a content-led campaign around the shopping experiences of the future, which was supported by consumer research, an eBook with a form fill element to capture data, press coverage and thought-leadership articles, as well as social and blog content.
Over a four month campaign sprint, results included over 20 pieces of targeted coverage in top tier outlets such as the i, eConsultancy, Prolific North and Direct Commerce, while 50% of coverage included a backlink.
10. Wienerberger – Championing More Than Just ‘Decent’ Homes
At the beginning of this year, following the completion of a successful market research project by the team at Refresh, Wienerberger, the UK’s leading provider of wall, roof and landscaping innovations, appointed us to devise a three-month PR campaign to raise awareness of its offering among decision makers in the social housing sector.
The aim was to position Wienerberger as the partner of choice for the social housing sector through targeted thought-leadership activity and help build/create relationships with key organisations operating in the sector, ultimately to make introductions/facilitate meetings.
This resulted in 20+ pieces of coverage off the back of the press campaign, as well as a number of opportunities secured to increase visibility. These included securing a presentation at Manchester’s Social Housing Conference of over 200 delegates, and a roundtable slot that was secured with North West Business Insider, which led to 13 introductions and a coverage reach of over 13K.
11. BBF – Hull Christmas Light Switch On
Our client, cake manufacturer BBF, has a bakery based in Hull and wanted to give back to the local community by giving away 6,000 mince pies at this year’s Hull Christmas Light Switch On.
We worked closely with Hull City Council, who oversee the light switch on, to arrange the delivery of the mince pies, as well as BBF promotional material to help drive local recruitment.
Results included coverage in Hull Live, Hull Daily Mail, Hull What’s On and a radio interview with BBC Radio Humberside, as well as increased brand recognition within the community, and community engagement.
12. Distology – The Future of Cybersecurity
Our recently launched our campaign with cybersecurity distributor, Distology, explores the future of cybersecurity. Aims of the campaign include building brand awareness for Distology in the UK cyber security and wider tech market, raising the profile of SLT members, as well as raising the profile of the business amongst resellers.
To form the basis of the campaign, we surveyed over 250 IT decision makers, including IT managers, IT directors, CIOs, COOs/operations directors – who are responsible for purchasing IT. After identifying the core audiences Distology would like to target, the sample also comprised at least 50 respondents from the finance/banking, public sector, healthcare and legal sectors. We then created a press campaign, thought leadership articles and social and blog content.
This has so far resulted in over 25 pieces of coverage including The Times, IT Pro Portal, Business Desk and CRN to-date.