Absolute Communications makes new appointment

Digital, PR and events agency, Absolute Communications Group has welcomed Sonal Salvi to the role of Senior Account Manager. With over five years of experience in public relations, corporate communications and marketing, Sonal will now oversee all PR operations for the agency’s clients across the region.

“The company’s culture is exceptionally progressive and strategic,” says Sonal. “We are more thought driven than press releases and it gives us a broader scope to build a brand. I am pleased to work with such creative, dedicated and inspiring minds.”

New creative agency launches

New creative communications, production and design agency, Havoc Creative has launched in the UAE. Founded by Catalina Tapia and Acacia Stichter, who are also the Creative Directors, the agency aims to offer its clients services ranging from visual brand development and design to corporate communications as well as art direction. With over 15 years of experience in the creative and publishing industry, Catalina and Acacia have partnered together to build a business that offers its clients creative content with a personal approach.

“We’ve worked for everyone from Harper’s Bazaar and HSBC to Shangri-La Abu Dhabi and even A-list celebrities, we’re using our expertise as designers as well as dealing with clients to bring a hands-on and personal service to companies and individuals alike,” says Acacia Stichter, Founder and Creative Director, Havoc Creative. “We want our clients to feel special and know that they’re getting our undivided attention, something that can lack when dealing with large corporate organisations.”

IAA UAE elects new Board of Directors

The UAE Chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA) has appointed a new board of directors for 2016 until 2018. A mix of newly elected and returning members, the new board aims to support communication and advertising in the region for a positive impact on the UAE economy.

“I am very pleased with the outcome of the recent board elections and honoured to be a part of this distinguished team,” says Hani Ghorayeb, President, IAA UAE Chapter. “The 2016-2018 IAA UAE Board will continue to focus on inspiring and empowering the talented young professionals within our industry and building stronger collaboration between clients, media, MBUs and agencies, with the aim of advancing standards and growth prospects for the entire industry.”

House of Comms makes new appointment

Integrated communications agency, House of Comms has welcomed Katie Bawler to the role of Senior Account Manager. With experience in FCMG, entertainment and consumer brands, Katie previously worked with Shine Communications as PR Account Director and most recently with Manifest London as Senior Account Manager. In her new role, she will be part of the senior management team at House of Comms and work across their portfolio of clients across the region.

“You know when you meet someone and you just know? Well we knew,” says Abby Wilks, Managing Partner, House of Comms. “She’s passionate, dedicated and brimming with a creative spark. As we head into perhaps our biggest year yet, we are really pleased to have Katie by our side. She totally gets it and is a part of House of Comms through and through.”

insydo wins Startup of the Year

Dubai-based startup insydo has been named Startup of the Year at the Arabian Business Startup Awards on November 15, 2016 at The Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi. The event recognised insydo for its services that give users access to business reviews across different categories for recommendations as well as the release of its iOS and Android applications making it the go-to city guide in Dubai.

“I think that the success of insydo has a lot to do with the public’s growing appetite for honest, engaging content and reliable recommendations that will come from a friend,” says Tanaz Dizadji, Founder and CEO, insydo. “This has always been the core of what we offer and it’s incredibly gratifying to know that our fans and fellow startups have responded with appreciation for the platform. Being named ‘Startup of the Year’ is a real acknowledgement of the determination and handwork from my team – we’re on a mission, so expect much more to come.”

Three obvious reasons your press release got ignored

Fida Chaaban, Chief Communications Officer, KBW Investments offers her thoughts on the reasons why press releases get ignored and gives easy to follow rules on how to avoid this…

Communications professionals, your client’s worthwhile news is being sidelined because your overall messaging – whether or not the client has imposed this on your conceptual development – is often convoluted or incomplete.”

Having spent a decade and a half as a Journalist and as someone who’s still actively engaged in the media space, here are three of my no-brainer aspects to avoid when dealing with the press.

Although this piece is very opinion-based and has no established metric to draw on, I am able to confirm that many of my journalist friends and former colleagues agree with me on the following points.

Communications professionals, your client’s worthwhile news is being sidelined because your overall messaging – whether or not the client has imposed this on your conceptual development – is often convoluted or incomplete.

Currently, as the Chief Communications Officer at KBW Investments, I deal with a wide range of our portfolio companies and I can assure you that despite the very huge difference between heavy machinery (Raimondi Cranes) and hospitality (Novotel Expo Sharjah), these three rules have held true for all our messaging efforts.

I’m going to use some examples from press releases that people have sent me in the past as good benchmarks to land the right type of press attention. (And for those wondering why I’m not using bad examples as the “don’t” list, it’s because I don’t think naming and shaming is productive.)

Jargon and fluff

If I open up a press release and I can’t figure out what it really means in the first four lines, I’m gearing up to hit delete. Remember that an editor’s job is to process the information you’re sharing and regurgitate things of interest with some decent rounding out of the material. Your client’s “vision” followed by a whole slew of industry-specific descriptors is often very alienating. Take it down a notch! The journalists who specialise in this specific type of reporting will use the jargon (if and when) it’s appropriate in the generated coverage. Don’t alienate the rest of your mailing list by imposing it on the already-overextended media in the actual release. CompareIt4Me avoids inaccessible language and chatter particularly well. Despite being a startup that works in the financial space, the company uses very accessible language that journalists with elementary financial literacy can process.

Images

It doesn’t matter if you are trying to get coverage in a B2B or a mass title, print, web or both. Images are always appreciated by editors who have neither the time (and often lack the resources) to source a visual for your piece. Try as hard as you possibly can to ensure you are providing the media with proper resolution images in landscape and in portrait formats. Another quick tip, don’t send the extreme high resolution set in an email, instead offer the Editor a clean download link for larger shots. But your “client doesn’t like pictures”? Then your client doesn’t like big glossy coverage. You are more likely to get nice placement if you supply relevant, solid imagery. Mojo PR once pitched a businessperson to me during my time as EIC of Entrepreneur MENA. They supplied stellar bio images that ultimately landed the client the cover of Entrepreneur Qatar. This was a cold-call pitch from an account executive I had never dealt with and she really delivered in spades.

Self-serving spam

An ongoing barrage of press releases about your client’s social calendar and public appearances is both ridiculous and ineffectual. Let me be clear, no one cares. Let me be even more clear, such memos start to give the media the idea that your client is desperate for attention and increasingly irrelevant – quite the opposite of what your objectives are, I’m sure. While I know that some clients just won’t take no for an answer, save yourself from the spam folder by pushing back as much as you can. As a Journalist and Editor, some PR people were marked spam by me after the third time I received nonsense of this sort. Your client visiting their own offices in Bangkok, for example, is not press-worthy (even if you have high resolution imagery and even if a whole list of dignitaries was present). Your client presenting an award internally to one of the company employees also qualifies as an immediate delete, so do all the do-gooder press releases like ‘We donated X amount of money to the worker’s association’ – you get the idea. In this regard, I have numerous good examples. Based on my experience, the Four Seasons never communicates unless they have a pretty relevant announcement, although hospitality editors might have a different view of this. Similarly, financial institutions like banks – except for one that I know of – by and large, communicate with restraint and relevance as well.

Editors reading this may be thinking that I forgot to mention frequency, length and coherence, in addition to a slew of other unattractive communication “don’ts”. For the purposes of length, I restricted this list to three easy to avoid rules of thumb. Feel free to tweet your opinions at me @Fida and I look forward to hearing from you.

Shimmering Sands launches

PR professional Francesca Hales has launched new lifestyle website Shimmering Sands for expat women living in the Middle East. With over nine years of experience in PR – in London and Dubai – Francesca has worked across luxury lifestyle brands. Her new digital platform aims to serve as a forum for expat women living in the region to help them understand the local community by providing local content on lifestyle, health and fitness, fashion and beauty, as well as feature a section for mothers and interviews with leading female personalities in the region.

“Moving to Dubai nearly three years ago, I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I really needed a friend,” says Francesca Hales. “Shimmering Sands is that friend. It is a digital girl gang for the hidden Dubai secrets from real girls, to real girls. It tells you where to shop, where to get beauty pool essentials and for those Dubai mummy moments.”