Burson-Marsteller

What makes for a winning e-campaign? A Burson Digital Breakfast event in London

by Jonathan Dinkeldein on 6th November 2009 • The Cast Blog

Our most recent Burson Digital Breakfast, entitled “What makes for a winning e-campaign?” was part of a series of events that collectively intend to demystify digital approaches to communication. The morning session, attended by representatives from organisations such as Olswang, Omnifone, Ancestry.co.uk and Oxfam proved to be a lively morning of idea sharing and discussion.

We were fortunate to have Nick Sharples, Director of Corporate Communications at Sony Europe; Ian Green, Managing Editor of Digital Communications at Number10.gov; and Niina Davis, a Digital Strategist from our London offices as the three panellists who presented compelling case studies to stimulate the debate, which was chaired by Danny Rogers, Editor of PR Week.

Ian Green presented the Number10.gov website and gave insights into the thinking that informed the recent re-launch of both the website itself as well as the creation of properties that the Government now owns on various social networks. As the official site of the Prime Minister’s Office, Number10.gov is now used to offer extensive coverage of the Prime Minister’s activities and to encourage interaction from interested online communities.

Nick Sharples of Sony Europe illustrated how the “Twilight Football” campaign was effective in building consumer awareness of Sony’s Cyber-Shot camera range, via the use of staged digital amplification. Niina Davis of Burson Marsteller London presented a selection of case studies (such as the creation of TweetElect09, an online tool developed to track conversations on Twitter during the 2009 European Elections) all of which brought to life Burson Marsteller’s digital capabilities. The presentations were then followed by a Q&A session.

We felt that the Digital Breakfast event demonstrated the principle that successful communications via this so called ‘new medium’ is achieved by applying tried and tested traditional PR skills – such as knowing your key stakeholders, as well as what you want to say to them and understanding how to engage with them in a mutually beneficial dialogue.

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