Guardian Professional appoints BOTTLE to promote must-attend public sector event.
Guardian Professional, a commercial division of Guardian News & Media, has appointed BOTTLE after a competitive pitch to provide strategic and tactical PR support across three individual events. Smart Healthcare Live, SmartGov Live and The Public Procurement Show, all aimed at public sector professionals, will be taking place at ExCeL on 15th and 16th June 2010.
This is the first time that Guardian Professional has appointed a PR agency to assist with exhibition promotion, and the aim is to raise awareness of the three brands and to drive footfall through to the events.
BOTTLE will be re-positioning the new ownership of the events under The Guardian brand, which has unrivalled reach into the public sector visitor audience. Social networking will be a key platform for the campaign with BOTTLE's PR consultants looking to proactively engage with public sector professionals via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and to create networking groups to publicise these key events.
Associate Director, Karen Cooper, who is leading the Guardian Professional account for BOTTLE says: “The public sector is already using social networking in new and exciting ways with a plethora of professional online communities using it to support them on an everyday basis. They were, after all, one of the first areas to create user groups and online collaborative content.
“We will use social networking communities including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to communicate the latest show news including new speakers and exhibitors and to generate interest to a wider community that we’re unable to reach via traditional methods.”
Karen continues: “Developing the role of social media in public relations is becoming increasingly important and we must ensure social media is incorporated into all PR activity. Social media underpins everything we do and has become a fundamental element to our award-campaigns.”
Geoff Soppet, Head of Exhibitions at Guardian Professional, said of appointing BOTTLE PR: "We chose BOTTLE PR as we felt they demonstrated a truly in-depth understanding of the public sector. What's more, they developed some great ideas about how we can communicate with this target audience to help take our events to the next level. My team here very much related to their culture as an agency and we're looking forward to working together."