Awards support when it comes to the crunch

It was our pleasure to help one of the UK’s best-loved brands on to the shortlists of two sets of awards this year. (We should also mention, we said no to writing another entry too, but more on that later).

Kellogg’s has undergone a seismic shift in the last 18 months, overhauling the nutritional make-up of its products and adding traffic light labelling to its packaging.

The brand’s Corporate Affairs team had run a slick and low-budget campaign which resulted in significant (and measurable) reputational benefits, endorsements from celebrities, a health minister and NGOs.

We wrote the entries which got the campaign, Better Starts, on the Prolific North shortlist for Best B2C PR Campaign and the Corporate Affairs team itself on the shortlist for Best In-House PR Team at Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ Excellence Awards (one of the most prestigious awards in the industry).

Paul Wheeler, head of corporate affairs for Kellogg’s said: “Entering awards sounds like a great idea but it isn’t always practical to invest the time and energy in building entries.  That’s where Louise and her team came in.  They helped us to craft some top notch awards content backed up with lots of insight and advice.”

But why would we say no to such a well-respected brand?

Kellogg’s had an idea for a third award entry which we knew just wasn’t quite right for the award category they had in mind. We did our usual screening call with the subject expert and concluded that it would be better in a different set of awards as the likelihood of making the shortlist in the one they had identified was pretty low.

We regularly talk about not being afraid of saying no to writing entries we don’t think would make the grade, and this is the perfect example. We saved Kellogg’s money and time by not going ahead with an entry we suspected would never made it on to the shortlist. It helps maintain our integrity, and this approach is also reflected in our numbers – >80% of awards we write make it on to the shortlist.

We’re keeping a beady eye out for other categories more suited to their other idea and will continue to advise that, when it comes to award entries, you need to be a round peg in a round hole to stand the best chance.