The Rory Peck Trust is a charity that supports freelance news gatherers and their families worldwide. Annually, the Rory Peck Awards honour freelance cameramen and women who bring stories to life in dangerous or difficult situations.

To promote its ongoing work, the organisation wanted to reach out to and connect with professionals in broadcasting, videography, video journalism and beyond through its awards scheme. It also wanted to generate long-term support, against a difficult economic backdrop, in a way that would be easy to maintain.  Bite needed to build a community of professional cameramen and encourage long-term engagement, raise awareness of the cause among potential advocates and sympathizers, and promote the charity and awards.

Prior to the campaign, the charity’s digital content was concentrated solely around its website. To generate long-term social engagement on a small budget, Bite developed:

• A video distribution system (with a consistent SEO tagging system)
• A Facebook page was personalised with a custom landing page and fan-only tab to host exclusive content and incentivise people to like the page
• A highly targeted Facebook advertising campaign
• The Facebook page was used as a central repository of content – videos, images and discussions were added to the page daily
• An exclusive, fan-only video was created
• A clickable awards ‘entrant’ badge was created and its embed code was given to entrants to use on their own web properties
• A Twitter hashtag was used on the day and evening of the awards and a Twitter handle was set up to enable the Trust to engage with influencers discussing the event
• Video reportage of the event was created by Bite, and then distributed alongside the other video content that underpinned the campaign
• Finally, Bite delivered a half day of digital and social media training to the Trust, to ensure the digital strategy could be sustained in the long term

The campaign achieved more than 30,000 video views of awards content on YouTube alone.  6,000 fans on Facebook, and 5,000 unique visitors to the Rory Peck Trust website during the awards period (more than 20,000 page views) – more than double its visitors in the same period of 2009.  Global interest was created and improved quality of editorial coverage achieved through high discoverability of content and availability of video content online. Coverage was achieved across target influencers including the BBC, CNN, Press Gazette, journalism.co.uk and Video Reporter.

This digital campaign has been both a reputational and financial success. Through Bite’s targeted campaign for the Rory Peck Trust, the charity has been able to increase its awareness through digital channels by creating a sustainable and engaged community of professionals and sympathisers and by making relevant content discoverable and available to those who want to find it.

“We worked with Bite’s digital team to promote the Rory Peck Awards online and build up an engaged international community for the future. The team was proactive, creative and knowledgeable – and really opened our eyes to the possibilities of social media.”

Molly Clarke, Head of Communications, Rory Peck Trust

Stride Rite is the market leading premium children’s shoe brands in the US, with over 90 years of history. While Stride Rite in the US is a household name, in Hong Kong and Asia Pacific it’s a different story.

In advance of the opening of its first Asia Pacific stores, Stride Rite needed to build buzz in the region and highlight the importance of shoes to the healthy development of children’s feet. Additionally, with the peak purchasing period of Chinese New Year taking place just a month after the Stride Rite store opening, Stride Rite sought to establish a strong emotional connection with parents before the New Year.

To meet these objectives, Bite developed a targeted, integrated PR and online campaign designed to move audiences rapidly from education, to interaction, to store traffic and sales. The campaign was kicked off with a consumer survey in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, to generate newsworthy content locally. Once the survey results were in, local experts were engaged to discuss the findings, lending them greater credibility.

Bite then held Stride Rite grand opening events in Singapore and Hong Kong. Celebrity mothers were invited to take part to draw attention in the region’s celebrity-centric media environment. The Hong Kong event also featured a “Journey of Childhood” catwalk show with children modelling Stride Rite shoes to attract parenting media.

Running parallel to these activities was a Facebook campaign created to engage directly with Hong Kong parents and spread the Stride Rite brand through word of mouth on social media. Word of mouth was then maximised through the establishment of a “Rite Mums Panel” in which Hong Kong mothers were engaged to become long-term, informal Stride Rite ambassadors.

As a result of this campaign, awareness of the Stride Rite brand was markedly increased with blanket coverage obtained in a wide range of Hong Kong media. The Stride Rite Hong Kong Facebook page is growing significantly, with regular responses to Stride Rite status updates and activity on the Stride Rite Facebook wall, while the Rite Mums Panel lays the groundwork for ongoing community engagement.

China Telecom is the largest fixed line service provider in China and the country’s third largest mobile operator. China Telecom is also a leader and quality standard setter in China’s Internet Data Centre (IDC) industry, able to offer IDC clients a reliable one-stop service platform that complies with China’s stringent internet policies yet has international reach.

Bite’s Hong Kong team was engaged by China Telecom to leverage the launch of its new IDCs in Hong Kong and Singapore to reposition the company as an international enterprise among a range of audiences including Chief Technology Officers (CTO), technology and business media, and potential clients.

Bite created a highly targeted, three pronged campaign encompassing speaking opportunities, media engagement, and a gala launch. With this approach, the team achieved coverage from tier one international, regional, and local media, gave China Telecom the opportunity reach CTOs through a keynote speaking opportunity, and connected China Telecom directly to many prospective clients.

To date, broad business media coverage has been generated from across Asia Pacific with stories in Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones and the South China Morning Post. China Telecom has received many positive responses from existing and potential clients, and the company’s international image has been expanded and enhanced. Bite is now working with China Telecom on the next phase of its international expansion plan.

In April 2010, Guinness World Records (GWR) made a play in the digital arena by launching its first iPad App, Guinness World Records: At Your Fingertips. Bite’s London team was brought on board to help GWR take the brand from traditional publishing into the digital age. The team was tasked with launching the app, generating online buzz and, most importantly, driving downloads.

Because the iPad was heavily covered in the press and apps for the new device were being produced rapidly, the team’s main challenge was to make Guinness World Records: At Your Fingertips stand out in an already saturated marketplace.

Using a blended, multi-channel, trade and consumer approach, the team achieved outstanding results that translated into a 700% increase in downloads. The focal point of the campaign was the iPad UK launch day where the Bite team organized a photo opportunity using the Guinness World Records world’s tallest married couple who were placed in the queue at the Apple store dressed in their wedding clothes. The tallest married couple captured the attending media’s attention and ensured that the Guinness World Records brand and app were referenced in over 15 pieces of tier-one coverage on the launch day. To support this, the Bite team also worked with Guinness World Records to set a new world record live from the iPad queue for the ‘Fastest time to type the alphabet on the iPad’. Further coverage was secured around the winner of the record and the fact that all iPad queue members were eligible to take part.

iPad owners across a wide array of audiences learned about the app through coverage in multiple consumer and trade outlets, including Zoo, Shortlist and Digital Arts and in the UK national newspapers and online outlets such as The Daily Telegraph, The Metro, The Sun, BBC.co.uk, Aljazeera, Pocket-lint and Wired.com.

The campaign achieved a clean sweep of target publications, generating international interest, stimulating widespread online conversations and buzz and reaching an audience of over 80m. The guerrilla street and queue promotion activity reached approximately 5,000 consumers, and 3,678 new contacts through Twitter.

Guinness World Records has seen a rapid increase in the downloads of its app, pushing it into the top 10 free apps chart, and is now well-positioned for the launch of its paid-for app which coincides with the release of the 2011 traditional print book.

Bite works with HP to drive awareness around the company’s “Changing the Energy Equation” campaign – a thought leadership platform that raises awareness around HP’s efforts to create more sustainable ecosystems for businesses and communities. A proof point to the sustainable IT research driven through HP Labs, the company’s central research arm, HP presented a new research paper at the ASME International Conference on Energy Sustainability in May 2010, showing how the manure output of cows and the heat output of data centers can be combined to create an economically and environmentally sustainable operation.

Leveraging the HP Labs research paper, Bite created a multi-faceted international communications strategy to position HP as a thought leader and innovator in sustainable IT, translating the highly technical research into concepts that every-day consumers could relate to – cow farms and computers. Bite worked with HP researchers to develop a concise storyline explaining the human interest element behind the research, and then conducted select advance interviews with high level mainstream and technology publications in the U.S., EMEA and APJ regions, including BBC News, CNET, Newsweek, New York Times, The Economist, and The Sunday Times.

Click image for graphics and coverage

To supplement these meetings, Bite’s design team created a set of creative images to visually depict the symbiotic relationship between dairy farms and the IT ecosystem. Bite then worked with HP to create a social media release incorporating links to these images, a video interview of the Labs Director, an HP.com story, and the full research paper, to tell the story in a visual and content-rich manner.

A broader media push followed the release, generating more than 135 articles worldwide including a feature story on the front page of the New York Times Business Day section that included our graphic. Coverage spanned major news, technology and blog outlets, many of which republished HP’s images and video content. Following our promotion on the HP Labs Twitter handle, the story received more than 1000 Tweets and 1,600 YouTube views.

Coverage was overwhelmingly positive, highlighting HP’s forward-thinking approach to creating more sustainable data centers. The PR push also resulted in business development inquiries from large investment firms and other companies interested in partnering with HP on implementing the research concept into real-world systems.

WhipCar, the world’s first neighbour-to-neighbour car rental service, launched on London’s streets in April 2010. The service enables private car owners to rent out their cars for money to safe, eligible drivers looking for a close, convenient and affordable way to rent them, using an easy-to-use simple online booking facility (www.whipcar.com).

Bite’s London team was brought on board by WhipCar’s founders, Vinay Gupta and Tom Wright, to launch the service, generate buzz, and most importantly to drive registrations on the site. Because this service was a world’s first, one of the challenges was to educate the media and consumers on a new user behavior around car use and excess capacity.

Using a blended, multi-channel corporate and consumer approach, the team achieved outstanding results that translated into strong registrations on WhipCar’s site. Consumers across a wide array of audiences learned about WhipCar through coverage in multiple national newspaper and business publications, including The Economist and Financial Times, Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer and broadcast outlets, such as BBC Working Lunch, BBC London News and BBC Radio 4. WhipCar also secured awareness through a range of technology, consumer lifestyle and personal finance outlets, including WIRED, Marie Claire and Moneysavingexpert.co.uk.

The campaign achieved a clean sweep of the UK national publications, generating international interest and stimulating widespread online conversations. WhipCar has seen rapid uptake in its service from both car owners and drivers alike and is well-positioned to redefine the notion of car ownership in the UK.

SWIFT’s annual Sibos global conference has been a fixture in the banking and financial services industry calendar for three decades. Vienna in 2008 coincided with the failure of Lehman and the onset of the global financial crisis. For the 2009 event in Hong Kong, Sibos provided a venue for critical dialog about the recovery of the industry.

A client since 2007 across the Asia Pacific region, SWIFT turned to Bite to maximise industry awareness of and participation in the event. In less than three months the Bite team planned and executed a complex, large-scale media partnership plan.  Bite worked with SWIFT’s global communications teams and agencies to manage a media centre for more than 200 international business and trade journalists. Top tier regional, local and trade media were targeted to great effect, resulting in partnerships with Bloomberg TV, The Asian Banker, FT, SCMP, WSJA, and many more.  Media were encouraged to attend and get deeply involved with various innovative programmes offered, in order to better understand and explain the industry’s response to its greatest crisis in memory.

This marketing campaign helped support a record 5,800 participants at Sibos 2009, making it the biggest Sibos conference ever staged in the APAC region and turned it into a genuine global event.  Overall coverage extended globally with hundreds of articles and commentaries.

GenSci is a biopharmaceutical company in China that manufactures and distributes a unique treatment for Growth Hormone Deficiency (GHD), a significant problem in the country. GenSci aims to educate the market about GHD and position itself as a responsible corporate citizen by improving life quality of children with GHD as well as achieving aggressive revenue growth targets.

Yet low awareness about GHD, market misinformation, strict medical regulatory controls, wide geographic distribution of patients, and long patient decision cycles hinder GenSci from achieving its goals.

Bite’s Shanghai team supported GenSci in forming a strategic partnership with the China Red Cross to launch an online poll to reveal the gap between public understanding and reality. We also invited professional British football coaches from the Everton Foundation to hold a special football clinic for children with GHD.

The campaign generated widespread print coverage and featured in TV programs from 9 cities across China, including CCTV. The campaign not only increased awareness about GHD, but GenSci was elevated as a socially responsible citizen which in turn promoted sales.

Bite works with HTC, the Taiwan-based global smartphone manufacturer that is becoming a pioneering, global brand. While HTC has prospered in Asia, the company lacked a consistent brand positioning to captivate and convince its Australian carriers and consumers.

Bite’s Asia Pacific team has supported HTC from developing compelling messages for C-Suite executives to providing media training for the entire regional management team. We positioned HTC front and centre for milestone media interactions with CNN and other international media, and have handled marketing communications for the launch of a succession of innovative smartphones across Australia, with support in Hong Kong and Singapore.

HTC’s carrier network has increased by 125%. From an almost zero base, HTC smartphones now regularly feature in top tier lifestyle publications. Core viewpoints have been delivered in 92% of the coverage secured. By the end of Q4, 2008, HTC was within 3.1% market share of brand leaders RIM and Apple and had become regularly pitted by media as the only true “iPhone killer’. In a dramatic shift from previous management, HTC ANZ Country Manager, Anthony Petts is now perceived as a smartphone ‘voice’ in Australia.

Channel 4 asked Bite to attract new audiences in the 16-25 age group to its youth brand, T4 and to reinvigorate and broaden its appeal.

Bite implemented a highly effective seeding programme to make sure that exclusive snippets from the shows made their way to tier one online outlets.  These clips were vital in encouraging people to make an “appointment to view”. Amusing footage was packaged-up to appeal to bloggers, forum coordinators, picture editors on celebrity news sites, online video editors on national newspaper websites and traditional print media.

Once people had discovered the T4 content, we wanted to encourage viewers to declare their love by interacting with T4 directly. A dedicated social networking recruitment drive was thus implemented giving access to unseen footage. Bite concentrated on Twitter and YouTube, which both specialise in constant, short and punchy updates and can house rich media content such as videos.

The next part of Bite’s campaign was to contribute to the conversations already taking place, provoking discussion, adding transmission details and linking to the T4 website. Using an online monitoring tool, Bite was able to track which buzzwords were being mentioned in association with T4 and therefore which conversations should be targeted.

The final element was to get viewers off their sofas and into the brand. We wanted to find a way to get them intrinsically involved in the making of the programmes. Working with Princess Productions, Bite helped create and promote three new online properties exclusive to T4: The iCarpet—viewers posing questions to celebrities; The T4 Widget—a downloadable widget bringing the best of T4 to Facebook, Bebo and MySpace and Talk to T4—an online chat function with messages appearing on screen live on air. Bite promoted the assets by seeding content to key blogs, fan sites and forums.

Over six months, the campaign achieved 41 positive social media articles, 5 pieces of national print coverage and 16 pieces of consumer lifestyle coverage with a combined total reach of 167,218,947. More than 800 people subscribed to the YouTube channel and the videos were watched over 118,000 times. In excess of 100 threads and posts were infiltrated throughout the monitoring and response component of the campaign.

Overall, the campaign lead to 6.3m page views of T4.com and spikes of peak activity correlate directly to the appearance of social media articles, forum postings and activity on social networking sites.