Abbott Laboratories, a $30bn global health care company, sought to refine its global citizenship strategy to reinforce linkage with its business objectives and drive cross-functional collaboration.

Corporate Citizenship developed a global strategy framework helping Abbott gain a leading-edge citizenship strategy that provided clarity, differentiation and direction to internal and external stakeholders. The strategy aligned citizenship to the business’ core purpose as well as defining Abbott’s roles and responsibilities to its stakeholders.

Abbott gained a practical toolkit to help embed the strategy in the business, and the series of international workshops helped achieve alignment from global operating units. Ultimately the new strategy has helped position the company competitively among its global citizenship stakeholders as well as key opinion formers in new global markets.

Corporate Citizenship has worked with Unilever continuously since the late 1990s on developing corporate policies on issues such as human rights and the sustainable sourcing of raw materials; advising on economic impact studies; and support for its global programme of corporate community investment. In 2010, Corporate Citizenship helped to develop and launch the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, assisting with stress-testing the strategy, advising on metrics and identifying external issues for key opinion formers.

The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan has been widely acclaimed within the field of corporate responsibility and viewed as the new blueprint for corporate sustainability strategy. Unilever has topped the Food Producers sector in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) for 14 consecutive years. The company was voted by peers as the highest global leader in sustainability (Globescan 2012).

2012 was the year of the Tweetabix. Good Relations exploited the phenomenon of tweets humming through the Twittersphere about how people ate their Weetabix. Personalised packets were sent to famous Tweeters. Jessica Ennis got one, the golden girl’s name emblazoned across the box. Gary Neville got one too, McFly boys Tom Fletcher and Danny James, presenter Melanie Sykes and more. When they got them, they loved them, took a picture and, you’ve guessed, tweeted it. Millions worth of publicity that only cost packets, not a packet. Good Relations, cereal achievers.

Yeo Valley’s farmer-boyband and rapper commercials were barnstorming successes and awareness shot up the charts. But the brand needed to move on, with the help of Good Relations and a new marketing strategy, converting awareness into sales. All year they courted ‘Sallys’, Yeo Valley’s core customers, relentlessly. New yeogurts appeared in the right social media and Sally-favoured magazines. New products, promos, and recipes were launched.

Events in the valley itself – garden theatre, a catch and cook day, farm tours – were held for Sallys and the bloggers who influence them. Good Relations’ work was fruitful. The brand’s share of voice hit 52%. Media coverage rose, 67% of it in the most important titles. Sales jumped, 20%, yeor on yeor.

Airlines are pledged to halve emissions by 2050. How?
Good Relations and Airbus brainstormed hard and created Smarter Skies, five ingenious 2050 concepts as part of the Future by Airbus programme. Concepts like aeroplanes flying in drag-reducing formation, and electro-magnetic-powered take offs from moving platforms. Smarter Skies, launched at the Gherkin’s peak, to industry grandees and premier class journalists, brought 673 articles across key markets, a PR value of over €5m. Good Relations encored at the Berlin Airshow with a dazzling 4d lightshow screened on the famous Humboldt-Box building. It brought Smarter Skies to life, over 167,000 YouTube hits and 2050’s possibilities even closer.

Fujitsu creates some of the worlds most advanced IT. It runs massive technology projects. Yet it often only dealt with IT managers and CIOs. How to reach CEOs? Harvard’s solution was neat. Pave the way with an in-depth report – Fit to Change – exploring how well the public and private sector world is coping with and responding to rapid change. Downloaded over 2,000 times, the report sparked over 60 media articles from The Times to Management Today, and instigated a highly-focused marketing campaign to potential clients. The report also formed the basis for an Executive Discussion Evening for select business leaders too, hosted by Talk Talk’s Dido Harding. Now they’re listening.

UEFA created a vibrant design look for UEFA EURO 2012: traditional east European flora and fauna motifs, leaf-flags, stems flowering with images of stadia. Icon adapted these designs to fit all the branding and signage requirements and managed the installation across the 8 tournament venues. In addition to the outside of the stadiums, VIP, hospitality, media, player and spectator zones, team buses and catering concessions were also branded. Their work on UEFA EURO 2012 began in 2010, with visits to the venues and the training and guiding of local suppliers. Their last task was a special re-brand of Kiev’s Olympic Stadium for the Final, which included installing 1,650 m² of banners in only 48 hours. Quite a result.

Carlsberg were a global partner for Euro 2012. Fast Track kitted out global media with PR packs, oversaw a media engagement at the brewer’s HQ 100 days before kick-off, hosted trips to the tournament and helped Carlsberg ambassador Peter Schmeichel cover every angle from video content to Twitter and Q&As. There was also something for the fans. 10,000 people entered their Fan Challenge search for Europe’s greatest supporter. 17,000 played in Carlsberg UK’s five-a-side tournament (the biggest of its kind). And 3 million downloaded the fact-packed, Man of the Match-voting Carlsberg app. That calls for a Carlsberg.

CSM Sport & Entertainment toiled hard on London 2012 projects. Here are four of many.
Fast Track united G4S's 657,000 global employees with the G4S 4teen programme: expert coaching and support for 14 Olympic hopefuls from 14 countries. The agency also handled communications for Team 2012, bringing sport and companies like Visa together to raise millions for GB athletes. iLUKA managed Olympic and Paralympic programmes for 11 sponsors welcoming over 96,000 showcase visitors, 33,000 hospitality guests, 900 torch bearers and operating 26 venues. Finally, Icon handled the look, branding and way-finding for every venue town and city, helping millions literally find their Olympic dream.

BT was the official communications services partner for London 2012. Fast Track worked with BT in the four-year build-up. In 2008, BT began developing its ambassador roster. In 2009, BT became title sponsor of the Paralympic World Cup and launched its Sunday Telegraph partnership to deliver the quarterly Sports Life supplement. BT Phone Book covers began featuring local Olympic and Paralympic athletes. From 2011, the 100 BT Storytellers gave a creative perspective on the Games. In 2012, BT and the Daily Mirror delivered a ground-breaking Games-time media partnership. By then, Nielsen found BT to have the highest public awareness of all London 2012 Tier 1 partners. Fast Track – the communicator’s communicators.

BP were a sponsor of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as well as Presenting Partner of the Cultural Olympiad. As a first time Olympic sponsor, BP wanted an experienced agency to guide them on their journey to the Games from strategy to onsite delivery of a wide range of projects supporting their sponsorship.

One major activation managed by iLUKA was ‘The Olympic Journey: The Story of the Games’, an exhibition BP and the Royal Opera House created in conjunction with The Olympic Museum as part of the London 2012 festival. The exhibition told the Olympic story through the endeavours of ancient and modern Olympians and featured Olympic Medals from all summer Games since 1896 and Olympic Torches since 1936. iLUKA were instrumental in the exhibition design, promotion and management of the exhibition. A historic achievement.

The world visited London for the Olympic Games and iLUKA were ready… iLUKA designed and delivered Kraft brand Cadbury’s hospitality programme for London 2012, managing all aspects including ticketing, accommodation, merchandise, space fit-out, hosting and transportation. Guests from 48 countries including competition winners, employees, clients and stakeholders were welcomed to London by iLUKA staff for a once-in-a-lifetime experience with Cadbury, driving brand awareness and strengthening relationships with their guests. Well Krafted hospitality.

Aviva has a complex issue: three insurance companies merged into one, 49 million-customer giant. What Chime Insight & Engagement do is bring coherence to that giant’s strategies, first
by asking questions. How satisfied are Aviva’s private and business customers? Or intermediaries and brokers? What potential products appeal to them? How effective is Aviva’s sponsorship programme? Or their literature and advertising? This is why Aviva need to work with the leading Insight group, Chime Insight and Engagement provide the answers by engaging customers. Through tracking, testing and research they gain insight into what works and what people want. Chime Insight & Engagement give strategic depth to campaigns which brings clarity to strategy, gearing it around customers’ needs, helping create the next 49 million.

A daunting task: design the 57 Olympic and Paralympic sports pictograms that will live
on as symbols of the biggest show on earth. Undaunted, SomeOne did it twice. Their monochrome, functional pictograms had movement, energy and played off the 2012 logo. Their 'dynamic' decorative set of pictograms for large scale usage such as banners and posters had fluidity, dynamism and played off the famous London Underground map. “Pushes boundaries” said Lord Coe.“Really cool” said the Princess of Jordan (President of the Equestrian Society), 'Delightful' said London Mayor, Boris Johnson. Somehow SomeOne also found time to create several sets of design systems that made much of the design of London 2012 hang together.
This was the most popular design story of 2012, SomeOne put everyone in the picture.

“Priority” is how O2 puts their customers first, by providing them with exclusive events, offers and experiences.

Tree’s data expertise was used to produce highly engaging and targeted customer communications,
that met all O2’s objectives in 2012, including
the following success:

• Over 50 million “Priority” messages sent,
  by Email, SMS and MMS
• Gaining a 42% penetration of their active
  customer base that were registered for “Priority”
• A 40% active user rate amongst
  Priority customers
• Boosted take up of Priority Moments offers
  by 200% from comms
• Beyonce was their most successful pre-sale
  message ever with all shows sold out within
  3 hours, growing their Priority Ticket base by 13%

This year VCCP launched Macmillan’s new campaign - ‘No one should face cancer alone.’ Despite the fact that cancer will touch almost all of us at some point in our lives, it is still terribly isolating. Whether it’s the physical effects of treatment, loss of income restricting how much you can go out and see friends, or the emotional difficulties we have talking to our loved ones - Macmillan can help you find ways through these causes of isolation.

The TV ad brings to life the moment at which a cancer diagnosis hits people. It uses the metaphor of falling-and-catching to dramatise the impact of cancer and the support that Macmillan – together with the support of the public – can provide. The TV ad is supported by extensive radio, online and outdoor activity, and early indications are very positive.

Coors Light was getting washed away by the resurgence of ales and ciders, as well as the growth of in-drinking, where it was not a major player.

The core driver of the lager market is refreshment. It’s the predominant consumer motivation and the most popular message in lager advertising.

Coors needed to stand out; they needed to avoid the traditional refreshment clichés. Borrowing from its strong North American heritage VCCP created Coors’ own particular refreshment, with the strategic thought: ‘Rocky Mountain cold refreshment’. Who better to bring this new take on refreshment the fanfare it needed than 90’s action hero Jean-Claude Van Damme and his enhanced mullet.

Coors Light made a huge step-change: gaining a personality and relevance that was lacking before.

VCCP built the Hiscox brand around a single consistent strategy – to be ‘As Good As Our Word’.

The objective was to build brand affinity. As a premium brand buffeted by a prolonged economic downturn and the aggressive price-led assault of competitors, increasing brand affinity is critical in order to leave the audience convinced that Hiscox is a brand that is worthy of their commitment and investment.

The campaign expresses Hiscox’s core belief in the importance of being there when needed. In a market in which one might expect the honouring of promises to be nothing more than a category pre-requisite, it is a thought that actually sets the brand apart as no ordinary insurer.

More

In 2008 brands in the price aggregator category had little differentiation. They all said much the same thing in the same way.

VCCP radically changed the nature of the category by creating the first comparison site with personality. The brand’s new celebrity - Aleksandr Orlov - allowed it to change and sustain the conversation, without continual investment in above-the-line.

Alongside Hello spreads and Red Nose Day appearances, Aleksandr has amassed 800,000 friends on Facebook 53,000 followers on Twitter. He holds the record for fastest selling iPhone app and his autobiography “A Simple’s Life” was the Sunday Times bestseller in 2010. In 2011 Aleksandr started giving away 6 beautifully crafted cuddly meerkats with each insurance purchase. This was followed by a credit card comparison offering in 2012 and some ‘top secret’ books of each meerkat character that launched at Christmas.

Competition in the short-haul flight market has never been more intense, with soaring fuel costs and fierce price-cutting from both the top-end flag carriers and the budget airlines.

easyJet realised that this could be an opportunity, not a threat, by outsmarting the big national airlines, in picking up savvy customers. There was a middle ground waiting to be taken.

But with this new audience having a core attitude that easyJet has poor customer service it meant breaking away from their heavily functional advertising. Therefore “Europe by easyJet” was launched. It spoke to the deeper emotional reasons for why we travel, but never descended into fluffy brand speak. Not only did it continue to drive clear orange water between us and the national carriers on price, crucially, it improved brand perceptions externally, and among our people.

Heard about those Swedish teenagers tanning at night? They use a cream, Sunny 3, that even works in moonlight. The story was everywhere, The Sun, facebook, youtube. In six days, almost 20,000 people ordered free samples from Sunny3.co.uk. Then came Reynolds MacKenzie’s press release for Skcin (the Karen Clifford Skin Cancer Charity): it was all a hoax.
Coverage was perfect: The Sun (in on the joke), The Daily Mail, Twitter, Radio5, Fox News. Global OTS hit almost 100 million. Sceptical 18-34s learnt of binge-tanning’s dangers. The 20,000 free samplers received graphic e-mails about skin cancer. Skcin was over the moon.