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In late October second year Public Relations students at Leeds Metropolitan University were offered a chance to become the very first Ptarmigan Bell Pottinger “Student Agency”.  It was clear from the outset that this was unlike any other guest lecture we had been given before and  ears soon pricked up when Nathan Lane from Ptarmigan mentioned that not only would the placement involve working on “real” clients, but the winning team would also be paid for their efforts.

The brief was to deliver a competitive pitch based on a campaign for Nestle.  Nathan advised that we work in groups of five and that he was looking for us to create a deliverable campaign which pushed the key messages across national and regional broadcast, print, lifestyle and online media raising awareness of the Easter range amongst the target audience.

Here is the background information we were given

• Nestlé is reducing the packaging on their Easter egg range by removing the plastic packaging from 80% of their chocolate eggs.
• The plastic inserts will be replaced with 100% recyclable card baskets to secure the egg.
• Every egg in the range will have its packaging reduced meaning a 30% (700 tonnes) overall reduction in Nestlé Confectionery’s Easter packaging.
• A fun and informative recycling guide is included on the back of all Easter egg packs.
• Despite reducing the packaging Nestle has maintained the size of their chocolate eggs.
• Nestlé is launching the new Milky Bar Cow.

After forming a group of five and naming ourselves Paws Communications with the rather cheesy strap line of “Putting our print on your campaign” we had a very intense ideas meeting. With creativity flowing we came up with some initial ideas which we planned to market test on the good people of Leeds. We headed on to the streets of Leeds full of enthusiasm and armed with a questionnaire that we hoped would prove our ideas were simply genius. Between the five of us we surveyed 140 people, providing us with qualitative and quantitative research that helped us understand our target publics and refine our campaign ideas.

Our campaign consisted of three main tactics.

The first was called “Sing a song for Bluebell” in which we encouraged children to come up with a jingle about Bluebell the cow with the winning jingle featured in Nestle’s Easter advert. To communicate our message we planned to create Bluebell a powerful online presence, harnessing platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as well as creating our own website we aimed to create a social media campaign that would be both far reaching and cheap.

Our second tactic was called “Where’s Bluebell?” (see picture) a play on the successful children’s book “Where’s Wally?” We planned for Bluebell to appear in prominent tourist areas, in fields with other cows, at sporting events and at environmental events. We would then encourage people to take a photo of Bluebell or to simply tell us where they saw her and they would win a Nestle Egg. We hoped that this would create a strong word of mouth campaign amongst all age groups.

Our final tactic was a recycling road show featuring Bluebell in an open top bus. This would form the centrepiece to our corporate social responsibility campaign, as Bluebell would visit schools, community groups and shopping centres providing fun ways for children to recycle.

The whole process form initial idea to finally pitching the campaign took us around two weeks. We were all juggling university and other work commitments but managed to meet three times a week. As a group we were most proud of our depth of research and think this formed the basis for a believable campaign.

We had been told by Nathan before the pitch exactly what he was looking for, this included:

• Did you answer the brief?
• Creativity
• Professionalism in the presentation
• Rigour in response
• Is you plan on budget?
• How will you evaluate success?
• Can we work with you?

The pitch itself was at the Ptarmigan Bell Pottinger offices on Calls Wharf. Dressed in our Sunday best and walking like they do on the opening credits of The Apprentice, we made our way down to the office intent on becoming the very first Ptarmigan Academy. The pitch lasted for about fifty minutes, although it seemed like five.  We did not need to put on a performance as we had genuinely enjoyed the whole process and genuinely believed in our ideas. We pitched to Nathan and his colleague Marie O’Connor. The feedback we received was glowing and after a quick photograph for our blogs and a firm handshake, we headed up back to university, this time skipping, full of joy and a little relief.

We received the news that we had won the pitch the following week. We had fought off competition from five other groups. The story gained some nice coverage for us on the Leeds Met website, The Drum and Behind the Spin.

Nathan Lane said: “This is a really talented and motivated group of young people. They shone during the competition and we are confident that they will prove a valuable addition to any PR campaign. They bring great insight into the youth market and bags of enthusiasm. We believe this provides a great opportunity for large organisations to work with students and get involved with the employability and skills agenda.”

As the Ptarmigan Academy we are all busy working on our online presence, which we hope to launch before Christmas. We have been given another brief from our new employees, but this time for a real client and a real campaign.

Nathan added: “It demonstrates our continued support for the Leeds Metropolitan University PR course and commitment to developing regional PR talent. The five students will benefit by working closely with experienced PR consultants.”

As a team we would like to say a huge thank you to Nathan and Marie for choosing us and hope that with their guidance we can become a success.

Ptarmigan Academy consists of Adam Burns, Steph Hoy, Lois Ackerley, Katherine Hasselby and Clare Callery

View the presentation below:

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