So when running a scenario to test its preparedness for handling a 'flu pandemic, the Service turned to Unique to play the part of the media and test out the organisation's media handling and the interview skills of their senior personnel.

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Sometimes it has been quite challenging to get the parties to recognise that their apparently very different agendas can contribute to the achievement of a common aim or aims. It’s not always easy, but when it works it’s good for a number of reasons.

Even in times when finance isn’t such a major issue it makes sense as it makes for better relationships and use of resources. At times like this when budgets are ever-tighter, and organisations are being asked to do more with less, collaborative working is often the only way that serious issues can be effectively tackled.

At this stage I can’t mention specific parties involved but I can give you a couple of examples relating to public health and social disorder.

While smoking rates are down the hard-core of smokers left – about one in four of the population – are often reliant on smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes as a cheap supply of their tobacco. The trade means kids also have a supply as it gets tougher for them to buy in shops; it brings crime into local communities; it’s even linked to serious organised crime and terrorism. All the agencies involved – from the NHS to local authorities to Government departments – want to tackle the problem for different reasons. How they engage and jointly communicate with numerous different audiences is complex and needs time, patience and effort to work through. They’re getting there, but they recognise that skilled and professional help is essential and it has been terrific to be one of those involved.

It’s a similar story with alcohol. We all know that it is an ever-growing problem in a number of ways. For the police it stretches them to the limit in our binge drinking hot spots; the NHS is hit hard short-term in A & E departments and longer-term on the wards and GP surgeries; employers lose millions of days’ work; it fuels domestic violence and chip pan fires after a session in the pub or at home; local communities stay away from no-go areas at night; the list goes on.

So it was great to be able to help to bring together a room full of the agencies involved and work with them for just a day to agree that joint solutions are possible through a new alliance. Most people, when you talk to them one-to-one, agree that collaborative working makes sense. Turning that into reality can be tricky, though, and having an independent voice to act as facilitator can make all the difference. If you need help you know where we are!

David Wiggins, Associate Account Director

Not only are small and medium enterprises looking for a better deal when it comes to marketing and PR, but increasingly, some very large agencies are introducing ‘budget propositions’, presumably in an attempt to supplement dwindling revenues from their traditional client base and to give their junior account handlers something to do.

Unique is far from the most expensive agency when it comes to day rates. We don’t deliberately undercut the bigger agencies, we just have lower overheads and we like to make sure we stay competitive. But nor are we the Ryanair of PR and we would really question whether the new, emerging ‘budget PR’ is really worthwhile.

To us, true budget PR is about good client relationships. It’s about understanding the client and helping them to formulate the messages and the media they’re going to use to reach the right stakeholders at the right time, in line with their objectives.

This can’t be done within the confines of a £99 press release. Budget PR is a false economy. For all the effect an identikit press release sent to local newspapers has, you might as well book some advertising space.

Whatever it is, it isn’t PR.

By Stephen Bray, Senior Account Manager.

Fry demonstrated the apparent rising power of Twitter perfectly last year as he dealt an unwitting hammerblow to the Blackberry Storm, a much touted rival to the all-conquering Apple iPhone. His review said:

"Been playing with the BB Storm. Shockingly bad. I mean embarrassingly awful. Such a disappointment. Rushed out unfinished. What a pity."

Fry's large following and reputation among the initiated as a gadget enthusiast meant that the Storm’s future was cast into doubt in a mere 135 characters.

Many just ‘don’t get it’. Many others can’t understand ‘what’s not to get’. What’s indisputable is that Twitter is taking off, in a big way. So much so, that people writing about having only just discovered Twitter are now largely sneered at.

We need a Twitter, yeah?
As a social networking enthusiast, I’m often asked what the heck Twitter is all about and how I think it can be used.

It’s a good tool, but that’s all it is. One ‘new’ brand making a bit of a splash using Twitter is Woolworths, which is due to make a comeback online this summer. Team_Woolies has built up a modest following and the very fact that Twitter is playing a role in this has the retail trade press and even the national press interested. It’s caused a stir so far, backed up by a full blog and a lot of interest from people fondly remembering the Woolies of old. You get the sense though that Team_Woolies may just have run out of new things to say before it finally unveils its shiny new online emergence. There’s only so much that can be Tweeted about ‘pic n’ mix’.

‘Trending topics’ within Twitter offers something rather different. Rather than just following a few of your friends, some celebrities or a brand, Twitter allows you to dip into real-time public opinion on a particular topic. To get a flavour of this, check the most popular real-time ‘trending topics’ listed on your Twitter home page. Twitter counts up the mentions of certain terms (often deliberately preceded with a ‘hash’ character by authors) and presents these suggested popular topics on your home page for you to access easily.

You can find your own though, quite easily by searching on a term. Usually, you will see the issues of the day, popular campaigns and references to popular TV programmes (Question Time - #qtime, Britain’s Got Talent - #bgt, etc) that are currently on air.

Ok, so how can this be used?
Well, remembering that you will have no control over what is tweeted, you can ask your audience to tweet their feedback, using a particular, unique term in their tweet (e.g. #steveexampletopic).

You can imagine the possibility for a live conference event, Tweeting on mobile devices has reached a reasonable mass, and your delegates can contribute to the unfolding event, live. Beware though, much like other social networking tools, Twitter is live, honest and cannot be moderated. You might need to be prepared for some very ‘honest’ feedback which is broadcast to your entire audience. I’m sure this is a lesson Blackberry has learned.

Stephen Bray, Senior Account Manager.

Arguments and counter-arguments riddled with percentages and accusations that “efficiencies means cuts” or “stated cash increases are not real increases” leaves most people cold. The simple truth is, though, that whoever’s in charge of the NHS over the next few years will need steady nerves because cash will be tight and the demand isn’t going to go away.

Take, for example, the study this week that showed the annual cost to the NHS of smoking-related illness is over £5bn, or 5%+ of the NHS budget. That’s far more than previously estimated, and is despite smoking rates falling to fewer than one in four of the adult population compared to double that number a few decades ago. Quite rightly the Department of Health has been pro-actively targeting health issues like smoking with communications and social marketing campaigns and the results have been good.

When budgets are ever-tighter, though, the easy way to go is to cut the spend which is perceived to be “nice to have” or non-essential. For the NHS that would shift the focus away from helping people to stop getting sick in the first place to providing immediate care when they need it. Those of us who have worked around the NHS for a long time would see this as a move away from a true National Health Service to the old days of it being mainly a National Sickness Service.

For professional communicators such moves would almost certainly be accompanied by a shift from good-quality and strategic pro-active marketing communications to the bad old days of reactive work – a depressing thought.

Yes, the economists need to crunch the numbers and weigh up what makes financial sense. But let’s hope that the debate about how we maintain NHS spending is based on rational and longer-term thinking rather than short-term expediency. After years of fantastic investment in the NHS which has seen far more help for people to manage their own health – and well-financed communication campaigns to support the changes – it would be tragic if it all started going into reverse.

David Wiggins, Associate Account Director

But when it comes to Europe I’ve always thought ‘what’s that got to do with me?’ Isn’t the European parliament all about ‘junkets’, misshaped bananas and metric martyrs?

All of a sudden though, the Euro elections have been brought into sharp focus. I think I’m pretty typical in that I saw them as a way of making my views about recent events, particularly MP's expenses and dirty tactics, heard.

The economy is in peril, the country’s in recession and all I can see is media witch-hunts, political posturing and naked ambition from certain individuals who’ve spotted the main chance.

Let’s face it, ambling along in the sunshine to a school hall (in fact, my daughter’s school hall, and I was going to collect her anyway!) to cast a vote wasn’t exactly difficult.

Although being confronted with the long list of candidates was. I was genuinely phased. Never once have I entered a polling station not knowing who I was going to vote for. This time, all I knew was who I wasn’t going to be voting for.

After much umming, I did put an X in a box. In all reality it was a protest vote, and it’s clear from the results on Sunday that I wasn’t the only one thinking that way. Maybe now we’ve made our feelings clear to the politicians, things can only get better!

Nicola Appleby, Client Services Director.