2014 in a Snapshot – Life of a London PR Agency
The chestnuts are roasting on an open fire, we have a bottle of fizz doing the rounds and we’re all stuffed with mince pies. It can only mean one thing… it’s Christmas!! As a London PR agency, we can’t let the year come to an end without reflecting on the year – the highs, the lows and the fun times…
It’s the culmination of a wonderful year here at Cherish. 2014 is the year we launched ‘The Chatsfield’ with Mills & Boon, an immersive digital storytelling world that really worked to change perceptions of the brand. Even the likes of Wired were delighted to write about the project.
Big Fish launched Fairway Solitaire Blast, one of their most successful games to date and a big hit with the app gaming media.
SmugMug launched SmugMug Films; an all-new, behind-the-lens look at the world’s most exciting photographers and their work. Extraordinary people who follow their passions to create amazing shots that stop us in our tracks. Some of our favorites were Arctic Swell – Surfing the Ends of the Earth about photographer Chris Burkhard, who travels to Scandinavia to photograph surfers braving icy waters. More recently we worked on the fascinating film From Above – Astronaut Photography with Don Pettit, The BBC and The Mail were big fans too.
Before Christmas we surveyed the British public on the books that were most significant to humanity for The Folio Society. Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Bible came out on top but closely followed by Darwin’s The Origin of Species. Move over Kim Kardashian, because The Folio Society seriously broke the internet on 13th November, with mountains of coverage.
2014 was the year that Indiegogo launched Go Crowdfund Britain, a million pound mission to get Britain’s best ideas, coolest inventions, brightest young businesses and the most creative music and arts projects crowdfunded on Indiegogo before the end of the year. Indiegogo’s UK Head of Hardware, Design and Technology , Anastasia Emmanuel, embarked on a nationwide crowdfunding tour in the summer, visiting 10 UK cities over three weeks, to gather individuals, groups and companies with big ambitions and show them how to crowdfund successfully on Indiegogo. We exhausted poor Anastasia in that time, introducing her to 26 journalists from around the country and landing her a spot on BBC Radio 2.
HotelTonight re-designed their award winning app for those of us that are not quite impulsive enough to book our hotel.. tonight. The new app enables customers to book hotel rooms up to seven days in advance in over 500 destinations across the globe. All the hotels on HotelTonight are hand selected by the team, ensuring you get a great deal at a bespoke hotel. So if you haven’t made plans this New Year, check out HotelTonight. From Boxing Day there’s a sale, for anyone to book quick enough there’s rooms at top hotels in London, Dublin, Barcelona, Madrid and Rome – check it out to find deals at £99.
We’ve also put Styloko.com on the PR map, introducing the new dynamic CEO, Shannon Edwards and with the frenzy of Black Friday, we secured Shannon interviews with BBC London news, Sky Sunrise and CNBC to name a few…
The Cherish team has grown significantly this year, Claire and Khristina joined us in January followed by Paula in June and Nicola in September.
The annual Cherish summer party took place in the beautiful countryside of Kent in July 2014. We ‘glamped’ in yurts and tee-pees, had BBQs, rode electric bikes, recorded a single (The B-52’s ‘Love Shack’) and sipped Prosecco in a hot tub! All in all, it was pretty glorious and we were blessed, thank God, with stunning weather.
We moved into our brand spanking new office in August, expertly steered by Anita, or Aunty as we call her, what would we do without her. We now have lots of space for books from Harlequin and Folio and swag from SmugMug but also space to grow the team in 2015 and grow our portfolio of, truly, amazing clients.
We were lucky enough to celebrate Christmas together this year skiing and snowboarding, not in Verbier but Hemel Hempstead! There was a lot of falling over, but some surprising and seriously impressive levels of skill employed by Cherish staff. Kudos team! After an exhausting afternoon being big kids we all squeezed into a cosy Chiswick pub for some delicious festive fayre.
What more to say other than thanks for a great 2014 to our wonderful clients, our favourite journalists and to our fellow team members at Cherish. Happy New Year and here’s to 2015!
From everyone at Cherish x