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Wednesday 24 April 2013

Bikini-Clad Myleene Klass Stops Traffic in Glasgow

PRESS RELEASE
Bikini-Clad Myleene Klass Stops Traffic in Glasgow
Giant Poster revealed in City Centre

Today Glasgow City Centre was treated to a super-size image of Myleene Klass… dressed only in a bikini.

The 472m sq image, which is set to be seen by nearly 750,000 people over the next couple of weeks, will be on show opposite Glasgow Central train station on Union Street, one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares.

The iconic giant poster, which launches the first swimwear collection designed by Littlewoods’ brand ambassador Myleene Klass, is the biggest in Scotland and is owned by London agency, blowUP media.
blowUP media MD, Katrin Robertson explained ‘This is a stunning image of Myleene and is certainly set to stop traffic – after all, who can miss it!’

Retail Director for Littlewoods, Gary Kibble agreed ‘Myleene is a beautiful woman and this is a beautiful shot. We hope the giant poster brightens the day of shoppers in Glasgow’.

ENDS

For more information please contact Rebecca Hopkins or Angharad Evans at ENS on 020 7934 9030 / Rebecca@ensltd.com / Angharad@ensltd.com

Editor’s Note:  Image attached. blowUP media invented the giant poster 20 years ago and has 35 sites around the UK. For more information visit www.blowup-media.co.uk   

Tuesday 23 April 2013

The Football Business Awards Kicks Off Its Second Season
Entries Now Open For This Year’s Awards
Following the huge success of last year’s Football Business Awards, entries are now open.
Various categories recognizing the different endeavours within the business of football are available and will be judged by some of the biggest names in the industry including Karren Brady, Vice-Chairman of West Ham United FC, and Bruce Buck, Chairman of Chelsea FC.
Simon Burton, co-founder of the FBA, said ‘We are very excited to announce that entries are now open for the second year of the Football Business Awards. Last year’s awards were an astounding success and we’re hoping to build on that with so many great sponsors and partners on board. This year’s categories span elements of the sector from best use of technology to best community scheme, which we hope will inspire an array of entries from as many different clubs and organizations as we saw last year. The awards provide a great platform for those working within football to be recognized by their peers and establish themselves as true industry leaders. ’
After the first ever FBA ceremony was held at Chelsea FC’s Stamford Bridge last November, the event will now return to the same venue on 7th November 2013. This year’s event will be sponsored by Sports Revolution, International Foreign UK, Stream UK, Peachy Productions and Agilysys; whilst also being supported by iSportConnect.
This year’s nominated charity is the Willow Foundation, which provides special days for seriously ill 16 to 40 year olds; Bob Wilson, Founder and Life President of the Foundation, is a member of this year’s judging panel.
All entries for this year’s awards must be submitted before 17.00 p.m. on 15th July 2013.
The categories for this year’s Football Business Awards are as follows:
Best UK Club Marketing Campaign
Best Overseas Club Marketing Campaign
Best Business Serving Football - up to £2m turnover (non professional service)
Best Business Serving Football - over £2m turnover (non professional service)
Best use of Social Media in Football
Best Football Club Hospitality
Best / Most Innovative use of Technology by Clubs
Best/Most Innovative use of Technology in Football
Best Football Community Scheme
Best Corporate Social Responsibility Scheme
Best Non-match Day use of Venue
Football Brand of the Year
Best Professional Service Business Serving Football
Best Retail / Merchandise Initiative
Club Sponsorship / Partnership of the Year
Football Sponsorship / Partnership of the Year
Football Business Writer of the Year
Innovation Award

For more information, please contact ENS at 020 7934 9030.

Big Advertising Leads to Big Results

From our television screens to public transport, consumer advertising is everywhere these days and companies realise the difference a strong and innovative campaign can make to their product or service. The advertising industry is getting bigger and bigger, quite literally, and giant posters can be seen throughout the UK’s larger cities these days. From Ford in Fulham to Bacardi in Birmingham, these huge advertising platforms are a familiar sight to busy urbanites all over the UK and beyond.

World-renowned companies from all sorts of industries have used giant posters as part of their advertising campaigns. Placing these huge campaigns bang in the centre of urban hot spots, ensuring they dominate their surrounding area, is a proven way of grabbing people’s attention and effectively getting a message across to consumers. One of the leading companies within the outdoor advertising industry is blowUP media. After establishing in the early 90s and specialising in billboard advertising at that time, the company has evolved within the industry and now provides quality giant posters, building wraps and large-scale, digital screen advertising campaigns. The company is a real frontrunner in the outdoor media industry and recognizes the importance of impact advertising in the heart of busy towns and cities. 

With competition fierce and rival companies always trying to produce bigger and better campaigns, business owners understand how important impactful advertising is to building a successful brand. Giant posters are a modern and striking medium that transform relatively simple concepts into impressive and powerful advertising campaigns that command people’s attention. Along with giant posters, other bold advertising methods such as building wraps can also be seen within larger cities. This advertising method sees at least one side or section of a building totally covered by one gigantic advertising campaign. This full-on and striking method works wonders within busier areas where people are constantly on the go and can get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of city life. Smaller-scale advertising would simply not have the same impact within this sort of hectic environment, which is why these colossal campaigns work so well to grab the attention.

Gone are the days where A4 posters glued to a wall or lamppost are seen as effective advertising campaigns - outdoor media is moving with the times.  Nowadays, it’s all about creating a huge impact and engaging effectively with your audience, ensuring that your brand’s important messages are successfully conveyed to consumers immediately. One thing’s for sure, big advertising can lead to big results.

Thursday 18 April 2013

The Three Secrets of Successful Volunteer Programmes

Organizing any event, however big or small, can be complex and consequently stressful. There are a huge number of factors to consider – from knowing who’s where and when, to allocating specialist teams with specific skill sets; all this is hard enough when you are working with people paid to be doing a job, but dealing with volunteers changes the game completely.

People usually volunteer for two reasons; either they are committed to helping a cause or they will give their free time to be part of something significant and fun. Either way you are dealing with people who are being driven by emotion, so you need to be sensitive to what has motivated them.

When managing this sort of programme, the team at GetScheduled – creators of the latest sports event management and volunteer management software – believes that there are three secrets that will make your project a greater success.

  1. Schedule intelligently: The starting point for this is to work out who you really need where and when, ie effective employee scheduling. People are happy to commit their time if they think it is being well used - don’t exploit them by expecting too much of them. However, it is almost worse if they show up with good intentions and high hopes only to find they have no worthwhile function on the project.
  2. Communicate and inform quickly: Whilst no one is ever pleased when things go wrong, they are much more forgiving if they are told promptly and kept up to date with accurate information. The onus is on you as an organizer to make sure what you are saying is correct and disseminated quickly. If you achieve this, you will maintain a happy and cooperative volunteer force.
  3. Manage more efficiently: You owe it to your volunteers to be efficient. Hit your deadlines (or say beforehand if you are going to be late), send them clear information and don’t change your mind mid-job.  On top of this, remember why they are here – so don’t forget to thank them and show them what a difference their efforts have made.

Sue Payne, GetScheduled’s Managing Director, explained ‘When our software was used by the Team London Ambassador program, we created the system with these three principles in mind. We had to – the team had to manage volunteers working on 46,445 shifts, spread across 48 sites and 8 job roles! Getting it wrong would have been a PR disaster but more than that, we would have let down a team of people who had demonstrated outstanding commitment to the project.’

GetScheduled have produced a piece of workforce management and volunteer management software to make your employee scheduling requirements simple. The team has worked on several high profile, global events in the past so have the experience to advise on your major and sports event management.

Wednesday 17 April 2013

The Things Clubs should know before 31st August 2013

The Things Clubs should know before 31st August 2013
Airton Risk Management Launches Guide to ‘Soccer’s Best Kept Secret’ at Soccerex

Whilst another TV rights windfall is pressing the issue of Financial Fair Play in football, last August saw a change in FA policy that has the power to minimize risk liabilities in clubs – but very few teams appear to know anything about it.

The ‘Bonus Insurance Schemes’ policy is a significant step for the FA as it opens the way for UK clubs to insure bonuses against positive outcomes meaning, for example, that Liverpool could protect their liability for Suarez performing beyond expectations or QPR won’t be liable for Harry Redknapp’s payday if the team avoids relegation.

Not only do too few clubs know about and understand the power of the policy but fewer still appreciate that it carries a deadline; any indemnities pertaining to player bonuses need to be put in place by clubs in time for the August transfer deadline.

Airton Risk Management, one of sports’ leading risk management services and part of Paddy Power PLC, has created an impartial guide to help clubs understand just what the policy could mean for them and will be launching it at Soccerex’s European Forum in Manchester on 10th April.

Rod O’Callaghan, Director of Airton Risk Management, explained ‘Football clubs across Europe are facing tougher margins in an extremely hostile economic environment, so we find it amazing that a move as significant and helpful as the Bonus Insurance Scheme should go so far under the radar. The FA has put something of real value in place that clubs would probably take advantage of, if only they knew about it. There is value indemnifying against bonuses as low as £50,000 but to take full advantage of the new policy, clubs should be thinking about what they can do now. The August transfer deadline sounds a distant prospect but clubs need to get their act together to take full advantage of benefits the new policy brings.’

Airton Risk Management will be available for interview and comment at Soccerex on Stand 177


For more information please contact Rebecca Hopkins at ENS (Rebecca@ensltd.com / 020 7934 9032) or Rod O’Callaghan and David Lyons at Airton Risk Management (00 959 1902 1309 / 3)
Editor’s Note: The FA issued the new Bonus Insurance Scheme policy in August 2012, too late for the 2012 transfer window. Despite the FA’s efforts with the Financial Fair Play scheme and the Salary Cost Protocol, the Bonus Insurance Scheme has gone largely unnoticed.  Clubs face an increasingly difficult balancing act with the Premier League’s wages to revenue ration now standing at 70%, operating margins of 3% and a decrease of 26% in TV rights income expected by 2014/5 (source: Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance 2012). Additionally, clubs hoping to qualify on-pitch for UEFA tournaments will be expected to comply with its Financial Fair Play scheme.

Why Workforce Management Software is Vital for Event Managers

In the highly-competitive events industry, organizations are always looking for something that gives them an edge and which makes their event seamless.

Organizers know that hardworking and dedicated staff members or volunteers are often the invisible difference between an event being good or great – but managing this workforce, especially a large one, is a very big job. This is where good software can make all the difference.

One example of good software recently launched specifically for workforce management in the event market is GetScheduled. This is an online tool that uses a cloud-based system to give administrators scheduling capabilities, options to communicate directly with individual staff members as well as the ability to import or export data. In addition this particular software package is scalable, since it takes into consideration the size of the workforce and their specific tasks / needs – the upshot is you lease a system that suits your event.

The GetScheduled team has developed its employee scheduling and volunteer management software following years of experience in the events industry, so they know exactly what organizers need to be able to do. Consequently their system has been built to ensure easy access to vital resources including scheduling, messaging and creating online reports.

GetScheduled’s Managing Director, Sue Payne, explained ‘We are experienced event managers as well as software engineers. Having worked on some of the world’s biggest events, including several Olympic Games and World Cups, we were looking for a solution that worked for us as well as our clients. These varied from a fairly straightforward system to ensure volunteers were in the right place at the right time, to highly complex briefs that saw us look after everything. When we discovered that there wasn’t anything on the market that was good enough, we built our own! We soon realized what we had would work very well for other companies in sports event management.’

Whilst good software has enormous benefits for management, it is fair to say that volunteers and staff also appreciate an efficient system. Features such as accessing information remotely can greatly reduce the number of calls or emails to the project team. In addition, the ability for management to generate automated notifications or specific correspondence to individuals (or groups) results in employees only receiving the information relevant to them. This makes it easier for them to understand exactly what they should be doing, where and when.

Clearly staging an event is seldom inexpensive so it could be difficult to persuade your boss to spend on workforce management software, but whilst a pen and paper may be cheaper, ultimately good software is a better investment.

Five of the Biggest Mistakes to Avoid With Staffing at Major Events

Anyone who has been part of a major event knows how easy it is for staffing issues to trip you up (remember G4S at the London Olympics?).

Whilst recruitment of staff was the issue in that instance, there are plenty of other potholes awaiting the ill-prepared or inexperienced. The team at GetScheduled, creators of the sector’s latest software package, have put together some pointers to help event managers deliver their projects and undertake workforce management more smoothly (and with a lot less stress).

  1. Major events can be very overwhelming for people the first time they are involved in one – and the more complex the event you are delivering, the more overwhelming it risks being. This isn’t just true for those managing the project, it is true for staff too. Consequently employee scheduling is key; you need to be very clear with your staff as to where you expect them to be and when. Whilst this is somewhat achievable with a well-managed database, email system and lots of phone calls, the right software will make your sports event management much easier.

  1. Treat volunteers with respectful authority; it is true that volunteers have given up their time to help out at an event but they need to understand that the job they are doing needs a professional approach. Clearly you want people to have fun and enjoy the experience but not at the cost of doing the job well. Hold briefing sessions with volunteers where you can make them aware of this – albeit nicely – and use this chance to weed out anyone who may not be onside with what is required of them.

  1. Walk in the shoes of your workforce. Most people access data on-the-go these days and so will your staff. The majority of staff at major events tend to be students or overseas workers, meaning they are mobile phone-dependant for most of their data, including emails. You may view it as their responsibility to communicate with you but you will find the team easier to manage if you are more adaptable. Communicate in a way that is easy and convenient for them. It may sound like Mohammed going to the Mountain, but your reward will be that they have no excuses not to be in the right place at the right time.

  1. Persuade your boss that relying on excel is an under-investment. Whilst you want to be cautious about budget allocation, especially if you are considering volunteer management software, it is all very well serving good wine or booking a celebrity to appear, but if your staff aren’t there that is what people will remember.

  1. A little praise goes a long way. In the heat of an event, management often forgets to tell the team that they are doing well so, especially after a long or difficult day, be sure to say ‘thank you’ to those who deserve it.

Tuesday 16 April 2013

What’s on in Wembley

The weekend before last saw another thrilling final at Wembley - it went down to the wire in the FA Trophy final with Wrexham eventually beating Grimsby on penalties, taking the trophy back home to North Wales. This came only a few weeks after another exciting final in which Swansea City thrashed Bradford City 5-0, clinching the Capital One Cup in style. After such an exciting start to the year, what’s next in the Wembley calendar? 2013 is an historic year for the FA as it celebrates its 150th anniversary. To mark this occasion, the ‘Home of Football’ is set to be jam-packed with an array of huge sporting events over the next few months, doing wonders for sports public relations within the UK and beyond. The Football League Trophy Final will be fought out next weekend. Southend United will take on Crewe Alexandra in their first ever Wembley final after beating Leyton Orient in the southern area final. With both clubs already having sold around 40,000 tickets between them, it will be a huge occasion for both sides. The following weekend sees a busy two days of FA Cup semi-final ties, with Wigan Athletic playing Millwall on the Saturday and current Premier League champions Manchester City taking on current FA Cup holders Chelsea on the Sunday. It should be an exciting weekend ahead of the big final on May 11th. The end of May sees an array of finals at Wembley, kicking off with the League One and Two play-off finals over one busy weekend of football. Saturday May 25th sees one of the biggest competitions in world football, the UEFA Champions League, return to play its final at this majestic stadium once more. With this much-anticipated final being held at Wembley for the second time in three years, sports PR is currently thriving. Two days later, on Spring bank holiday, there’ll be a fierce battle between the two Championship sides that narrowly missed out on automatic promotion, as they compete for a chance to play in one of Europe’s best leagues, the Premier League. With Cardiff City and Hull currently on course for automatic promotion and four big sides still in with a chance of clinching the third spot - Watford, Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest and Brighton - it should be an exciting finale to the Championship season. Football PR companies will most certainly be busy in the next few months as Wembley hosts one big final after another and, just like Wembley, there won’t be a London sports PR agency without a jam-packed diary. It promises to be a sensational spring full of huge matches to mark a very special year for the FA! Bio ENS Ltd is a sports PR agency based in central London, tasked with promoting and protecting brands in sport. It is one of the best connected sports PR company globally.