latest news from the orchard

December 15, 2011

It’s been a bumper year in the Orchard…

Filed under: Events, Orchard, PR — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 3:42 pm

So – that was 2011. With just a couple of short weeks to the end of another hectic year in PR it’s time to step back and take stock of 2011; the highs, lows and downright crazies; and give you a hint at the biggest events of the year in Orchard’s world.

First up the team have been thinking about their personal experiences, and we’ll be finishing off the year with more posts on our PR industry highlights (and lowlights) and a look forward to 2012.

So what have the best bits of 2011 been for Orchard PR?

Brooke: The Waitrose branch openings, all five of them, were a PR highlight for me.  The stakeholder parties that we organised were hard work but brilliant fun – seeing The Farmhouse and La Mare Vineyards transformed and hundreds of eager guests arriving to find bespoke Guernsey and Jersey themed cocktails and Heston and Delia inspired food creations was amazing.

Steve: I’ve enjoyed working with some well-known grandmasters of the media such as Alastair Stewart and Robert Peston, but also some relatively unknown, yet impressive, journalists in the trade press and local media.

Chloe: I can’t believe I have only been at Orchard nine months, so many great things have happened. The one day that particularly stands out is the one I just could not stop grinning – I was so excited when I got to type “Conde Nast” into my contacts.

Pieter: Filming and editing the videos for the Foster Care Campaign was the highlight for me. It is such a worthwhile project and I was pleased to be able to use my skills to be help young people in Guernsey find a foster family.

Harry: Meeting Judge Jules at Fusion Nightclub! I co-ordinated all of his media interviews and he was really friendly, even letting Chloe and I have a photo taken with him. His set was amazing and the Orchard PR crew partied until the Fusion house lights came on.

Catherine: Personally, achieving a distinction for my CIPR Advanced Certificate and being promoted to senior account executive were my best moments of 2011. I think they show that I’ve made some pretty big strides in my PR career this year.

Emma: The Orchard team won six new clients in the space of two months near the end of the year which just shows that, even in uncertain economic times, people recognise the need to use specialists in communications to make their voices heard by the right people.

Come back to the Orchard Blog tomorrow for our top PR industry highlights of 2011.

Posted by Chris.

November 25, 2011

Pitching a tent outside Disneyland: Everyone is using social media, so shouldn’t you be too?

Filed under: PR, Social Media — Tags: , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 5:04 pm

A smart move today by the IoD in Guernsey as they hosted a social media seminar for local businesses. A full house showed the interest locally in getting a better handle on the topic and there were good presentations from Katherine Salt, a social media consultant based in Jersey, and Nick Masters, head of digital for big four accountancy firm PWC. There was also an outing for the excellent Socialnomics video – jampacked full of great social media related stats.

Significantly however both speakers focused not on how amazing technology is, or how clever you can be with social media but rather on the people using social media. It’s part of their everyday lives, it’s useful and it’s fun. Businesses have to recognise that fact first of all before they can hope to devise a social media strategy that can bring them some benefits. The consensus (amongst the main speakers anyway) was that the key thing to recognise about social media is that it is a fundamental change in the way we communicate, not in the actual physical act of communication being online rather than in person, or through the media, but the way we act and react. Communication in a social media world is not a one way street – listening, as well as talking, is a vital skill.

Too many businesses spend too much time talking and broadcasting and not enough time listening to their customers, seeing what they are doing, seeing what they want and engaging with them on that level.

In terms of convincing Channel Island’s businesses that they should be making more concerted efforts in this area, the presence of Nick Masters will have persuaded a lot of people. To see a big four accountancy firm advocating the use of social in their business plan was great, and Nick had some very positive things to say about the benefits of a social approach to communication, both for the business and for their 150,000 employees.

My favourite comment of the day came from Nick who said having a static website with no social integration and no strategy for engaging communities was like pitching a tent outside Disneyland and expecting people to just come out and play with you. Social media is about jumping in and getting involved, communicating with your peers and listening to what they have to say. If you understand them better, understand their motivations and expectations better, you can provide a better service to them in the long run.

Posted by Chris.

November 4, 2011

The benefits of studying public relations

Filed under: Orchard, PR — Tags: , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 11:56 am

We’re big advocates of training and development at Orchard, so today’s post is from Cat, our senior account executive, and her experiences studying for the CIPR’s Advanced Certificate in Public Relations. We also can’t let this opportunity pass by without congratulating Cat on her distinction, a grade that only seven people in the UK achieved on the course this year.

Having graduated from Portsmouth University in summer 2009 with a degree in media studies I had already made peace with the fact that I would probably never end up with a job in the fiercely competitive media industry and that my degree would be the last qualification on my CV.

Thanks to a combination of good timing and persistence however I managed to get a couple of key breaks and, after a brief stint working as a broadcast journalist, Orchard PR welcomed me with open arms in March 2010.

I soon found out that whilst my studies gave me some of the right skills to succeed, my first six months at Orchard as an account executive were a real eye opener as I learnt very quickly how a busy PR consultancy operates. My organisation and time management skills improved a lot and my confidence was quickly given a boost by the supportive team who pushed me to stretch myself in the early days.

Alongside the frantic pace of on-the-job learning it was made clear from day one that I would be undertaking professional qualifications in PR. Everyone at Orchard is a member of the CIPR, we even have a Fellow in the office. Those of us newbies in the industry start with the Advanced Certificate, and I began mine in October 2010.

The course aims to give a solid grounding in all the key concepts, techniques and skills needed to develop effectively as a PR practitioner. I studied the course online through the PR Academy which consisted of live webinars and two training days in London.  It provided a great opportunity to meet likeminded professionals and share experiences of working in the industry.

Assessment is based on two essays which require students to get to grips with PR theory and then pull it apart and analyse and critique it and a planning assignment which is probably the most practical part of the course. It calls on students to write their own PR campaign based on a case study thinking about aims and objectives, strategy and tactics and evaluation. It is safe to say that after completing that assignment I would never want the task to manage a real life PR campaign for bottled tap water!

As the course is online it requires a certain amount of discipline as much of the study is independent. Therefore after a full day in the office I would often have to go home and hit the books if I wanted to keep up with the curriculum. However the teams at the PR Academy and at Orchard were very supportive; my tutors were very responsive and Orchard gave me study leave time to complete important assignments and attend the workshops in London.

The course certainly lived up to its billing and I have come away a much more confident PR professional. I have learnt to think much more strategically when approaching client matters because I know about the different models available to practitioners when planning. I feel I now have a deeper understanding of the industry as a whole and I’m aware of the opportunities and challenges it faces.

Overall it was a great experience and I would recommend to anyone that is offered the chance to study PR to go for it.

Posted by Cat.

October 28, 2011

Where are they now? (part one…)

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 4:20 pm

Last week we heard from our current crop of account executives about working in PR, and of course, working at Orchard. We promised to bring you news of some Orchard apples that have moved on in their PR careers, having been lured away to other parts of the UK and indeed the world. Today we have guest blogs from Martyn and Emily, now forging PR careers in Nottingham and London respectively.

Orchard is still recruiting for an account executive, so if a career in PR sounds like the thing for you, please get in touch.

Martyn Gettings

In 2009 I left Guernsey for Nottingham in the Midlands. Thanks to my experience at Orchard I landed a job working for one of the largest agencies in the area with household names on its books. Gaining employment amid the worst recession in living memory was in no small part thanks to the skills I learned from my OPR mentors and the compulsory CIPR training I undertook whilst there.  As an AE in Nottingham I worked on campaigns for Pirelli, the National Apprenticeship Service and Kidney Research UK. I was involved with the new F1 sponsorship announcement and supported the Pirelli Calendar on its annual release.

In March 2011 I moved to Proactive PR – an international multimedia PR agency with clients all over the world. I am now an account manager with a portfolio of clients spanning the telecoms and satellite sectors. I also act as an interviewer for international trade-show television channels. In the last two months I have interviewed chiefs from Google, Microsoft, IBM, the UK government and even News International. On a day to day basis I connect with and advise top-level execs around the world from Canada to Japan and in September I am off to Amsterdam and Paris for two of the biggest telecoms and broadcasting exhibitions in the world.

The attention and guidance I received thanks to the ethos and the encouragement of the personnel at Orchard gave me the best possible grounding and a foundation for success. It is very appropriate to say that Orchard PR launched my career.

Emily Falla

Having embarked on a degree in Public Relations it wasn’t until I had stepped into Orchard Towers on my placement year that my learning truly began. Working with some of the most skilled practitioners in the Channel Islands, it was their dedication, hard work and encouragement, towards both clients and staff, that truly engendered a passion for what it is that we ‘PR people’ do. Orchard created opportunities for me to gain great experience, enabling me to work on communications programmes across all industry sectors, from accountancy to recruitment to health.

Three years on and I am now working in London for Lansons Communications, one of the top 25 PR Consultancies. As Lansons is integrated agency, I now support clients both offline and online, developing and implementing consumer campaigns for big brands as well as staying true to my financial services roots. Not dissimilar from Orchard, at the heart of Lansons is its people and while I hope my career continues to blossom in the Big Smoke, a little piece of me will always remain in the Orchard.

Stay tuned to the Orchard blog to hear from more of our ‘alumni’.

Posted by Chris.

October 25, 2011

What a difference a decade makes….

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , , — orchardnews @ 1:34 pm

Last week I spoke to about 100 students and managers at the IOD Guernsey Management Shadowing Awards – the reason I was chosen as the guest speaker was that I was the winner of the Management Shadowing programme way back in 2001. For you mathematicians out there you will have worked out that was 10 years ago. My presentation therefore was appropriately titled ‘what a difference a decade makes’….

I was lucky enough to do my placement with someone working in PR – those few fun but hectic days and then winning the Management Shadowing Award gave me a keen interest in the industry, some confidence in my ability and most importantly a direction.

It was a funny old process writing down and then talking about all the things I have (and haven’t) done in my PR life during the last ten years, from the early days at CMA PR and Event Management to my four years spent studying PR at Bournemouth University – hopefully a useful tale for the students to hear about.

Oddly it only took me about 10 minutes to whizz through the highlights of the last decade which included: PR theory study, running a host of client events, many many press drops to London’s finest beauty journalists, a PR dissertation, my first stint at Orchard PR as an account executive, my time at Clarion Communications and then back to the Orchard family as a consultant in 2008.

The main point I hope I passed onto the students, six of whom also stood and made excellent presentations about their shadowing experiences, was that whilst a bit of luck and good timing can help you build a career at the end of the day no matter what industry you go into it is mostly about hard work.

I may have needed to go between the Guernsey and London PR worlds a couple of times to work out I would finally end up on the little rock rather than in the big smoke but my industry experience is certainly richer because of these moves.

That hard work thing I mentioned to the students doesn’t just happen at the start of your career: as we all know it still happens every day so when the evening was brought to a close with the following quote from Steve Jobs, I realised that I am very lucky to love what I do:

‘Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.’

Best get on with some of that hard work…

Posted by Brooke.

October 21, 2011

Want to work in PR?

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 2:25 pm


You might have already heard – Orchard is hiring…

We have a vacancy for an account executive, often the first step onto the PR ladder for many people. It’s a position that comes with fantastic opportunities for learning and experiencing new things and developing skills and meeting very useful people. So, rather than writing out another job ad, we thought who better to tell you why you want to be a PR account executive at Orchard than our awesomely talented team themselves. So we asked them a few questions to see what they think.

What is the best thing about working in PR?

Chloe: Seeing coverage you have achieved for your clients. It sounds nerdy but you get a real buzz from opening a newspaper and seeing your story.

Cat:  No two days are ever the same because quite often you are reacting to stories reported by the media and participating in issues management. It is also a great chance to develop relationships with clients, journalists and photographers and sometimes you even get the chance to meet a celebrity!

What is your typical day like at Orchard?

Harry: I don’t know if there is a ‘typical’ day at Orchard PR. From media calls, where the local media all want to do interviews with our clients, to photo shoots where I need to get the perfect photo to go with the news release I just drafted, my working day varies so much. One day I’ll be in the office, liaising with journalists on the phone, drafting news releases and monitoring the media and the next I’ll be out at a client meeting, attending an event and networking with local business people.

Cat: It is important to stay on top of what is happening in the news so typically the first duty of the day is to search the morning’s stories online. Picking up the phone to our clients to find out what is happening at their end usually guides us to what we will be doing for the rest of the day.

What sort of clients do you work for and which ones do you enjoy the most?

Cat: A large proportion of Orchard’s clients are from Guernsey’s finance industry however we also work with a variety of companies from different sectors including retail, energy, regulation and even a notable night club. Each client has its own individual needs and as a consequence the work can be very different but extremely interesting and enjoyable.

Harry: A utilities company, a nightclub, a law firm and trust company are just some of the clients I work for and I enjoy dealing with all of them, because they are all so different. Some of the more enjoyable events have included meeting a famous DJ and the less enjoyable…having to wear a fluorescent jacket and helmet…but that’s PR!

Adie: I enjoy our community-based clients and the times when you can get involved with helping out on events and managing projects. I have particularly enjoyed working with designers and printers on the creative elements of campaigns but I am also gaining experience and learning a lot from working with our financial clients.

What skills have you developed working at Orchard?

Chloe: I have always loved writing, and that’s really important in this business, but I didn’t really know how to write news. Reading lots of news has really helped with that but I have also had a lot of practice in a short time.

Cat: Working for a number of different clients requires you to develop excellent organisational and time management skills. It is also essential that you have the confidence to talk to people because on a daily basis you will be communicating not only with clients but journalists from  Guernsey, Jersey and the UK trade titles.

What skills are you working hardest on at the moment?

Chloe:  I am trying to be more assertive and confident; I was very shy before I worked at Orchard but I can now talk to people on the phone without fear – massive step!

Adie: Honing my communication skills and focusing on my own time management.

Why should people want to be an account executive at Orchard?

Adie: If you are a keen writer, communicator and proactive problem solver, you will enjoy this job. There are so many aspects to your everyday work that you are constantly developing and building upon your existing skills and learning new ones.  Some would say you need to be a ‘people person’, but I think ‘an all-rounder’ would be a better description. You need to juggle a lot of clients, be on top of your workload, enjoy writing and always be happy to help. If you thrive when working with people and words, then you will go far in this industry.

Cat: The team at Orchard are really friendly and supportive and because each member of the team is so talented it is a fantastic opportunity to learn new things from them. Another factor which should appeal is the chance to undertake professional qualifications such as the Advanced Certificate and Diploma in PR which are supported by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

If you think you’d like to join the team at Orchard, head to our PR careers page to find out how to apply.

But if you’re still not convinced that you that you should be working in PR, we’ll be back next week with some another blog to hear from a few ‘Orchard Alumni’ and how Orchard helped launch their PR careers.

October 7, 2011

Directors of Tomorrow

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , , — orchardnews @ 2:53 pm

Ten sixth-form age students, who have shown an interest in business and current affairs, were selected by their teachers to attend the Guernsey Institute of Directors Annual Debate last night.

Three years ago the Orchard team were brainstorming how the sponsor of the student table, De Putron Fund Management, could add value to night for the students. Hoping to uncover the ‘Directors of Tomorrow’ we decided to ask each student to write a blog giving an account of the evening.

Now we don’t expect the young folk to do something for nothing so we decided the authors of the three best blogs would get the opportunity to travel to London on an all-expenses paid trip to attend the Institute of Directors Annual Conference which takes place each Spring. Not bad eh!

This year’s debate was entitled ‘Partnering Guernsey, Are we sharing the burden together?’ and the lucky attendees were:

  • Ellie Freestone, Ladies’ College
  • Andrew Inder, Grammar School Sixth Form Centre
  • Rosie Armstrong, Grammar School Sixth Form Centre
  • Ben Batiste, Grammar School Sixth Form Centre
  • Tom Henry, Grammar School Sixth Form Centre
  • Harry Martel, Grammar School Sixth Form Centre
  • Mattias Holmes, Elizabeth College
  • Bradley Manning, College of Further Education
  • Jack Jones, College of Further Education
  • Rosie Black, Blanchelande College

It seems the students enjoyed the evening and recognised some familiar faces amongst the 400-strong business crowd.  Tom Henry bravely asked a question to the panel and the girls were rather surprised at the male/female split of the attendees in the room (hint – there were not very many of the latter).  The students even got to have a quick chat with Chief Minister Lyndon Trott before the debate kicked off who said he was ‘always very keen to hear the comments of young people on the island’.

If you too would like to know what this bunch thought of the night then come back in a couple of weeks as we will upload links to their blogs here.

Posted by Brooke.

September 23, 2011

PR is full of surprises

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , — orchardnews @ 4:16 pm

Today we have a guest blogger: Jacob Cherry, a student from Durham University, who has spent the last week at Orchard HQ on a work experience placement – we asked him to blog about his first experiences of life in PR…

My week at Orchard PR surprised me. I was expecting five days in an office, sat at a desk, staring at a computer screen. In fact, I spent comparatively little time at my desk because of the very hands-on approach to PR adopted by Orchard’s staff; they are constantly liaising with the media and orchestrating effective public relations opportunities for their clients. I have gotten through a record amount of petrol this week!

Even when conducting research for campaigns they go well beyond what I had expected. I was asked to research significant events for a campaign to promote a business that was founded in the seventies. This involved trawling through newspapers at the Priaulx Library, which actually proved to be very interesting – there were an incredible amount of natural disasters on the island and shocking gun-crime involving the farmers from the western parishes and their unlicensed shotguns.

I was kept busy at Orchard with tasks ranging from folding towels to meeting the Lieutenant Governor and my experiences have given me a much greater appreciation of what the PR industry is all about.

With such a varied portfolio of clients much is expected of the staff at Orchard. This allowed me to observe the application of PR to a number of  industries and not just the finance sector and really see the way different approaches are taken to each bit of PR activity. A one-size fits all approach is definitely not the way things are done at Orchard.

About halfway through my week I was pointed in the direction of Harry’s blog, written following her own internship with Orchard, as an example of the sort of thing that was expected of me. In it Harry (now a permanent employee) claimed to have learned a valuable lesson about the importance of flat shoes for Orchard media calls held on the beach. I began to understand what she meant as we both toured Guernsey Electricity during a media call. We scaled generators and machinery in various precarious locations, and needed to suit up in the hi-vis gear needed in a dangerous environment. Needless to say Harry had not heeded her own advice and was still wearing high heels, but it was good to see early on that PR would not just be about being in an office.

I have enjoyed my week at Orchard and have learned a great deal. I have seen behind the scenes at television interviews and attended meetings with BBC Radio. I have done some media monitoring, drafted a couple of news releases and helped out in brainstorming sessions for pitches and planning.

I will take away with me a sense of the importance of PR to all organisations and I feel that it is definitely something that I would like to gain more experience in. I will be looking out for more opportunities to work in this field as I work to complete my degree.

Posted by Jacob.

September 13, 2011

Working with ‘the one and only’

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 2:25 pm

We took a call at Orchard Towers a couple of months ago about promoting a production of Joseph that was coming to Guernsey.  I thought it sounded an interesting project, and something a bit different to our core client portfolio, but I had no idea that by working on it I’d end up being a tour guide for Chesney Hawkes…

How it happened (aka. The brief):

Orchard was approached by Milton Morrissey Productions (after having helped out with last year’s  production of Buddy) and were given two months to get as many people as possible talking about their production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The show was playing in Guernsey in September it was our job to get islanders to reach for their wallets and buy tickets to see it.

How we did it (aka. The experience):

We quickly set about formulating an action plan, contacting the local media and researching and compiling editorial opportunities.

The campaign was built around the fact that the West End cast was visiting the island for just a week and that the “One and Only”, Chesney Hawkes was taking the lead role, with “Loose Women” presenter Zoe Tyler also starring.

The project evolved and we worked hard to gain media interest and momentum in the lead up to the show  by writing press releases, delivering posters, tweeting from the @JosephGsy twitter account, organising competitions with GP Ted and arranging various interviews for the cast and crew.

For the final push Chesney  himself stepped in. A local children’s choir recruited to perform in the show and a break in the West End cast rehearsal schedule meant that before I knew what was happening, I was driving to the airport in my blue VW Polo to pick up none other than the pop sensation Chesney Hawkes.

What followed was an afternoon of media interviews and entertaining Chesney with my local anecdotes (he didn’t know that Guernsey was occupied during the Second World War nor that the speed limit was only 35 mph) and generally making introductions.

Chesney was everywhere in the local media for several days with features on Channel TV and BBC spotlight, interviews on the radio stations and several spreads in the Guernsey press. It created a huge buzz around the production and it seemed everyone was talking about Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – even Guernsey FC got involved and said they may adopt ‘The One and Only’ as their anthem!

In the end… (the outcome)

This project enabled us to show that if you engage the media in the right way, with the stories they want it is possible to generate high levels of interest. With tickets sales given a boost each time an article was published or an interview went on air, organisers Paul Morrissey and James Milton said they were pleased with the media and public response.

The project introduced a nice bit of diversity to the Orchard portfolio, and gave everyone a bit of a lift when Chesney visited Orchard HQ to say hello to the team. I even allowed a bit of my own creativity to get in on the act by drawing the Technicolor Dreamcoat for the GP Ted colouring competition, so I can honestly say this is one of the most feel-good clients I have worked on to date.  I even got a sneaky pic with my mate Ches and we are now friends on Twitter!

All in all, in the two months prior to production Orchard generated around 30 pieces of coverage, three pieces on TV and a smattering of radio interviews and news bulletins, in addition to a few review pieces post-production.

Posted by Adie.

September 1, 2011

Good communication is always worth investing in

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 3:11 pm

Autumn must be approaching as an old chestnut has already appeared. That much exercised question, usually raised by a politician, about whether the public sector should pay for professional communications advice.

On this occasion it’s former long-time States of Guernsey deputy, former broadcaster and now Guernsey Press columnist Peter Roffey who is airing his view in today’s paper off the back of a States department revealing that it has a communications budget for a major project and has hired external help (not from Orchard).

Columnist Roffey concedes that good communications are important and would even allow limited use of professional PR in his comms nirvana. He says it should be an integral part of the job for politicians heading up States departments to explain their policies.

The thing is they either don’t, can’t or won’t!

And that leaves too many Guernsey islanders feeling left in the dark and inclined towards passing on misinformation or even conspiracy theories.

Perhaps I’m just being a self-interested “sophist” – the type Mr Roffey admits could make the case either way. So I’ll make my position unambiguous: Clear communication is critical to good government and where politicians find this skillset wanting they need to invest in professional support – saving time and money in the long run.

Posted by Steve.

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