Job Ad: Senior Account Executive

Based in London Bridge

Competitive salary

Please apply to jobs@journalista.co.uk

Journalista is a communications agency specialising in providing sector-specific marketing, PR and strategic communications advice and delivery to a range of clients across the health, social care and community sectors.

Our client roster includes many of the most innovative and industry-leading health and social care companies and organisations both inside and outside of the public sector.

We are currently seeking a consultant at Senior Account Executive level to join our London team to work on exciting communications programmes across a range of different challenges, managing strategic outreach to the media, third party organisations, healthcare professionals and consumers.

The successful new hire must possess strong writing skills, good knowledge of the healthcare and UK policy environment as well as experience in translating complex issues into consumer-friendly messages and materials.

Responsibilities:

• Provide proactive media counsel and creative recommendations.
• Lead proactive media relations campaigns.
• Devise and implement social media campaigns.
• Support the development of client proposals and media materials: plans, presentations, reports, communications documents.
• Develop media recommendations targeting trade, general media and online media channels.
• Build and maintain strong client and media relationships at all levels.
• Keep account director fully briefed on account status and issues that may affect the business.
• Manage multiple client projects and deliverables in a fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrate an exemplary standard of professionalism in all communications.
• Contribute to the management of client budgets; oversee the client budget development, tracking, billing and communications.
• Supervise and train junior account staff; provide quality control and oversee team assignments.

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Candidates should posses the following:

• Over two years of PR experience in a communications agency or in-house with proven success in delivering great results in media relations and other engagement channels.
• An understanding of the basic policy issues across healthcare, NHS, public sector and local government.
• Excellent writing and editing skills, including the ability to develop press materials and contribute creative ideas to communications plans.
• Strong media relations skills, with the ability to develop effective media pitch angles and successfully pitch story ideas to reporters.
• Ability to develop relationships with third party organisations, including health and social care professionals, and to attend external meetings and events representing the agency and clients (medical conferences, third party events, etc.).
• Keen understanding of the role of digital media in integrated communications strategies.
• Experience pitching data and promoting research and studies.
• Strong organisational and project management abilities; ability to juggle, think quickly and make independent decisions.
• Be skilled at applied strategic thinking; anticipating issues, trends, and connections, and translating those insights into actionable ideas for the client.
• Results-focused approach and commitment to go the extra mile for clients and colleagues.
• Candidates should be comfortable supporting the agency’s ideals of delivering a superb client experience and demonstrating dedication, persistence and integrity in everything that you do.

Please send cover letter and CV to jobs@journalista.co.uk

Selection and interviews to take place from 2nd April 2013

This watershed moment for the health service may have been reported as breaking news but for those in health PR it had been a long time coming. For months we have pondered what key lessons would emerge from the horrific accounts of patients left in urine-soaked sheets, mortality rates that were explained away and a hospital board more concerned with cutting costs than providing good care. During numerous delays from the initial October publication date, the sector has been rife with speculation about what Francis might be honing his focus on – greater transparency, less lenience towards under-performing hospitals, a shakeup of training, an overhaul of regulation, an end to the culture of fear that emanates downwards from the Department of Health or the culture of targets that distracts managers from the most basic principles of compassionate care.

But as the findings were revealed it soon transpired that almost every prediction about what the report might suggest was correct. This was not because health experts and commentators possess some kind of sixth sense. Nor was it due to a deluge of leaks – the inquiry was remarkably watertight. It was because within the report’s 1782 pages lay 290 recommendations covering almost every area of the NHS imaginable.

This is, of course, testament to both the thoroughness of the inquiry and the magnitude of the trust’s failures that were shown to be widespread in origin and devastating in consequence. Francis left few avenues unexplored, from the corridors of Whitehall to the infamous wards 10 and 11 where patients’ needs and dignities were most callously ignored. But where to begin? With so much scope for improvement, has the inquiry called for too much? Making 290 recommendations, no matter how valid each may be, could bring about less change than a more focussed and definitive 20.

Anyone in communications will know that, given the fast-paced nature of the news agenda, the window of opportunity to apply public pressure can be short. Messages must be clear and powerful if they are to achieve ‘cut through’ and live on in the public discourse. Instead, the day of publication saw a media frenzy and blanket coverage that, although intensive, inevitably ignored 285 of the recommendations.

This was not through the fault of the many dedicated health correspondents whose reporting was largely successful in balancing the ‘nuts and bolts’ of Francis’ suggestions with the top line clarity required to muster public understanding and support. I do not include in this list however, a health editor from an national daily newspaper (which shall remain nameless) who was utterly confused by my colleague’s reference to the Francis Inquiry before being prompted by ‘the one about Mid Staffs’. ‘I should have known that really…’ she admitted sheepishly.

But before she’d even had a chance to run a quick Google search, day two was underway. The recommendations were rapidly becoming chip shop fodder and, for better or worse, the witch hunt and finger-pointing had begun. Francis’ report had already been eclipsed by the search for the next Mid Staffs and calls for the head of the David Nicholson, Chief Executive of the health service (The Times led the charge on this one – another Murdoch vendetta perhaps). So where next for the individuals and organisations that will help work out how to make the proposals a reality?

The challenge facing the health communications industry now lies in ensuring that policy makers continue to be reminded of the public appetite for change. It is all of our responsibilities to keep the discussion alive so the systemic failures that led to this tragedy are not simply confined to the archive of shame that the Department of Health would rather forget, along with the Bristol and Alder Hay scandals of decades past. As the national media shifts its gaze once more, real pressure must be applied if the finer details of the report are to be debated, refined and implemented.

This will now largely play out within the health press over the coming months and years. The fact that lively debate was sustained in this arena throughout the protracted build up to last week’s report should give us hope. It suggested that the trade media is capable of maintaining the interest and pressure necessary to bring about real change.

We’ve already seen the retrospectives in last Sunday’s papers and the national hum is already dying down. This means that the hard work starts now.

My name is Emma Holman and this summer I was given the chance to work at Journalista. When there, I met the inspirational founding director of the agency Holly Sutton and she told me her story and “how I should never give up on my dreams”.

At only 16 years of age and from Yorkshire, to be given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work in an agency in London, especially such a motivational agency like Journalista, is incredible.

During my time at the agency I had the opportunity to write my own press release which turned out to be a great success. While working at Journalista the skills I learned were life-changing, as well as the fact that it gave me great confidence and belief to aspire to greater things, it also taught me many unique skills about working in the media industry.

Whilst the banks’ responses to their crises were admirable – opening branches on weekends and vowing to cover any financial losses incurred as a result of their failure – it has been completely eclipsed by the efforts of O2 and its social media team.

After its whole network failed on Wednesday a substantial number of its 23 million users in the UK turned to Twitter to vent their frustration at the @O2 account.

Faced with such an onslaught of criticism many firms would decide to batten down the hatches, play defensive and wait for the issues to be resolved, but not O2.

Rather than producing stock explanations and firing out saccharin sweet apologies, the responses played consumers at their own game by offering helpful advice and updates intertwined with humour.

For confrontational tweets the responses carefully mirrored the tone of the original message which helped diffuse any conflict and gain the support of a number of neutral bystanders like myself. For example:

The sheer number of re-tweets for the response demonstrates how it is possible to turn what could be seen as a worst-case scenario for a company into positive PR outcomes.

As you can see from the following tweets it’s not rocket science, you simply need to listen to what people are saying and respond as a human.

But an outstanding sense of humour also helps!

Here are a selection of some of the more memorable exchanges. As they replied to anything that was sent to them reader discretion is advised:

Defusing abuse

Responding to praise

Playing the users at their own game

Responding to random mentions

ENGAGING WITH MEMES (and caps lock)

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Blue Ventures is an award winning social enterprise that runs highly acclaimed conservation programmes in some of the world’s poorest coastal communities.

We are working with Blue Ventures to help promote their work with the wider aim of recruiting new volunteers, find conservation partners and source support for future projects.

Don’t worry, we’re still sticking to our south London roots and can now be found on Tower Bridge Road, just a ten minute walk from London Bridge station.

For your records our new address is:

Journalista
Studio 2
173 Tower Bridge Road
London
SE1 2AW

Or if you prefer a map:

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All our telephone numbers remain the same and you can still reach the office number on 0207 2324 670.

If you’re in the neighbourhood please pop-in and say hi!

Questioned by Paxman about a U-turn on fuel duty, announced earlier that day by the chancellor, she committed pretty much all of the cardinal sins of a media appearance. She froze, stuttered, repeated herself and appeared completely incapable of producing anything resembling a straight answer.

Underprepared and unable to expand beyond a one line brief, she was destined to become the latest addition to a long line of politicians who have turned an innocuous topic into a major headline as a result of a car crash interview.

Here at Journalista we feel rather sorry for Ms Smith. Osbourne should have either appeared himself to defend the move or at least given his understudy enough information to suitably defend his supine approach to policy formation.

The redoubtable Mr Paxman also appeared to be in a somewhat bullish mood. Perhaps Smith was a victim of his inability to think of any more questions.

Indeed, years after the infamous interview with then home secretary, Michael Howard, Jezza admitted that his repetition of the question ‘did you threaten to overrule him?’ was a way to kill time after a producer told him to extend the interview.

Now these two were probably a bit unlucky to have come up against our most formidable broadcaster having one of those days. Nonetheless, you must be prepared for anything so here’s Journalista’s key tips to keeping bloodthirsty Paxman-types at bay:

• Send the right person. Don’t palm off a journalist with a junior representative. If they want to listen to your point of view on a topic then should show them the respect of sending someone with the authority to comment.
• Be prepared. Know the subject matter you are being interviewed on inside out. Even if, in Smith’s case, you find out the same day.
• Be direct. The more you evade a subject the more the journalist will want to know what you have to hide. If it’s something you simply can’t comment on, just say so.
• Engage with the question. Politicians have a habit of using and input from the interviewer as a cue to to spout a pre-prepared monologue, epitomised by Henry Kissinger when he said “does anyone have any questions for my answers?”.

Alternatively you could mirror the approach of a certain Dizzee Rascal. But then few of us are lucky enough to have clients that are that cool in the spotlight are we?

This eagerness was responsible for some very public examples of what not to do as companies’ attempts to seize the initiative resulted in embarrassing own goals. In one notable case in 2009 tags used by Iranian pro-democracy campaigners were ‘piggy-backed’ by the furniture store Habitat to promote a sales promotion. This serious breach of hashtag etiquette resulted in widespread condemnation and served as a valuable warning of the pitfalls that issue-hijacking can present.

After this very public error the onus shifted away from joining pre-existing trends and focused on the creation of new hashtags which would get picked up by the wider Twitter membership.

However, forcing preset tags on users doesn’t sit well within the spirit of Twitter and falls foul of the wit of the site’s users. Recently the leader of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson, who tweeted: “Welcome to Twitter homepage has a picture of a mosque,” before adding “What a joke #creepingsharia”.

These remarks sparked the online community to respond with a barrage of satirical messages that sent #creepingsharia straight to the top of the UK trends.

Some of the best send ups were: “Alcohol is not available at my children’s primary school #creepingsharia” from @Marchellrevan and “Muslamic bloke walked past on tiptoes #creepingsharia” by @knownasbowman

In an attempt to bypass these problems a number of companies have taken advantage of Twitter’s ability to create promoted tweets. For a price in the region of $100,000 a day you can have your hashtag placed at the top of a country’s trend list.

This opportunity to be seen and get people tweeting with your hashtag was too big an opportunity to miss for McDonalds who paid for #McDStories to be featured. The tag certainly succeeded in its attempts to spark a conversation. But unfortunately the global restaurant chain appeared to forget that the internet plays home to a wide range of views including a substantial number of their detractors who seized the opportunity to spread stories about poor standards and animal cruelty.

This discussion was so popular the tag #McDStories would have reached the top of the global trend charts whether it was sponsored or not.

Looking beyond one-sided campaigns, hashtags are starting to play a role in competitive marketing. In the build up to what has been described as the “first social Olympics”, global clothing manufacturers Adidas and Nike have been frantically vying for supremacy.

Despite Adidas’ position as the official sponsor, it has been its American rival that has taken an early lead in the digital stakes through its enthusiastic campaign #makeitcount.

Working within the strict brand guidelines of the games, #makeitcount makes no clear reference to the summer event. Instead, the campaign uses general imagery of sport and subtly hints at London 2012 by using Team GB athletes in marketing images.

In addition to these campaigns, hashtags are now used by broadcasters to develop a social element of their programmes. Typically this takes the form of encouraging television viewers to “get involved” or “join the debate”. This has now become so integral to the programmes that broadcasters are now competing for social conversation. Nowhere was this more visible than in the recent battle for Saturday night supremacy between the BBC and ITV.

Viewers of the Beeb’s offering, The Voice, are repeatedly reminded to tweet about the show through #TheVoiceUK with tagged messages being beamed onto the set itself (after careful moderation of course).

Whereas The Voice attempted to integrate these social conversations into the show, Britain’s Got Talent or #BGT takes the approach of sheer persistence, with the on-screen action frequently supplemented by chrome text directing viewers to tweet what they could see.

This didn’t stop at pushing unique tags for each contestant but for any notable development in the programme. In this notable example the tag #nowwithwings was encouraged as an eccentric performer’s costume sprouted golden wings (pictured). Within seconds this unlikely phrase was trending worldwide.

What these examples teach us is that one of the key characteristics behind social media’s success is the way the major trends and conversations are generated organically. Considering this the best way to really make an impact is to give users something interesting that they are naturally compelled to share.

Red Bull echo this opinion through a one page summary of their digital strategy:

The Leveson Inquiry moved into its third stage with former News International employees Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson presenting evidence. Part of Brooks’ testimony focused on conversations between herself and David Cameron which lead to the amusing revelation that the prime minister believed that ‘LOL’ meant lots of love rather than laugh out loud.

The State Opening of Parliament and this year’s Queen’s speech led the headlines with plans to reform the House of Lords standing out from the Government’s proposals.

For the week ending Sunday 17th May the following number of articles were written in mainstream media according to Journalisted.com.

The headlines:

• The Queen’s speech opened parliament outlining the legislative programme for the year ahead, 387 articles
• Manchester City won the Premier League for the first time in 44 years, 300 articles
• The Leveson Inquiry moved into Module 3 – ‘The Press and Politicians’, 285 articles, with Rebekah Brooks, 185 articles and Andy Coulson, 123 articles, appearing at the Royal Courts of Justice
• The political parties in Greece struggled to form a government after the general election resulted in no majority leader, 146 articles
  

  

The overlooked stories:

• 18 mutilated bodies were found in Mexico, 12 articles
• A Russian passenger jet crashed in Indonesia with all 45 deaths, 11 articles
• Algerian elections took place, with the traditionally dominant National Liberation Front increasing their share of the vote, 8 articles

Celebrity versus serious:

• Amanda Holden announced her return on Britain’s Got Talent, 60 articles versus an apparent suicide bombing in Damascus killed 55 and injured almost 400, 22 articles
• Rihanna wore a revealing dress, 73 articles versus a gang of nine men from Rochdale were jailed for sexually exploiting young girls, 65 articles
• Ashleigh Butler and Pudsey the dog won Britain’s Got Talent, 59 articles versus Israel’s PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, called off plans for early elections after forming a government with the centrist Kadima party, 25 articles

Political movers:

Tony Blair gained an seven per cent increase in headlines with after announcing his plans to ‘re-engage’ with British politics after his time working as a Middle-East peace envoy (143 articles).

His successor, Gordon Brown, recorded a nine per cent increase in coverage after records his earnings since stepping down as prime minister emerged (110 articles).

Some distance in the lead was the business secretary, Vince Cable, with an 81 per cent uplift in coverage for his role in a number of stories about executive pay.