Sinead O'Connor, Author at Nelson Bostock

Winning Minds Matter, this week and every week

‘Winning Minds’ is Nelson Bostock’s company ethos. It guides us to deliver the best work we can for our clients. It means we are bold and ambitious, experiment with different tactics, and explore diverse and new ideas.

It helps shape our agency culture, so we can all be the best we can be. It means we focus on training and coaching so our people can learn and develop new skills. It gives us a North Star to come back to when celebrating successes.

It also means we prioritise mental well-being. Our team of Winning Minds are smart, creative, collaborative, and emotionally intelligent people. And their Winning Minds matter to us. So much so, we’ve got a working group – appropriately named Winning Minds Matter – dedicated to ensuring we continue to prioritise well-being at work. The team is made up of people from across the agency, in different disciplines and levels of seniority.

Ahead of Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW), I asked the group how we should honour it this year. Set up by the Mental Health Foundation, MHAW takes place every May to encourage people to think about mental health, tackle stigma, and find ways to protect our mental well-being.

In 2021, the theme was nature, so we ran a photography competition to get our people enjoying outside spaces. Last year, we switched to the written word and created a poetry e-zine against the theme of loneliness.

This year the theme is anxiety, something that impacts millions of people in the UK every year, yet still holds a huge amount of stigma. We brainstormed as a team what we might do to increase people’s awareness and understanding of the topic.

There are lots of studies that identify a connection between colouring and relieving anxiety. So we took a bit of time out of our week to create a collage which will now sit proudly in our office as a reminder of the importance of prioritising mental health. We also held a quiz which raised money for Mind so others can get the help they need.

But perhaps even more important was our #AnxietyStories initiative.

Through opening up the conversation, we quickly realised how many of us have experienced anxiety, in different forms, in our lives.

So this week, some brave people across our business have been sharing their stories of living with anxiety. The aim was to break down barriers, trade coping mechanisms, and create a safe space where we can be honest and open with each other.

The impact has been far greater than we had expected. It’s not only raised awareness of a mental health issue, but also brought us closer together as a team.

I’m proud of the individuals who have shared their experiences, and proud to work in a business that cultivates a culture of belonging all year round.

After all, Winning Minds matter, this week and every week.

3 ways brands are using PR & Comms to deliver on sustainability targets ahead of COP26

At the start of 2021, we saw a seismic shift towards sustainability which has gained momentum as we’ve emerged from the pandemic and edge closer to COP26.

Public awareness of climate change has never been greater and the role of communications has been a key driver in achieving this.

Here are three things happening right now in sustainability that will continue to drive the value of purpose-driven communication.

1. Say goodbye to greenwashing

As consumer demand for environmentally friendly products and services continue to rise, there is increasing pressure on brands to communicate their sustainability credentials. In fact, The Shelton Group 90 percent of millennials say they will buy from brands whose social and environmental practices they truly trust and 95% will recommend your brand to their friends.

Yet recent international analysis of websites found that 40% of green claims made online could be misleading. As a result, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently announced plans to investigate environmental and sustainability claims made by brands in an attempt to combat greenwashing.

The new Green Claims Code sets 6 points for all businesses who purport to have environmental credentials, to check they are genuinely green. These include: claims must be truthful and accurate; clear and unambiguous; substantiated; and consider the full life cycle of the product or service. They must also not omit or obscure important relevant information, and comparisons must be fair and meaningful.

For communications professionals, the CMA’s announcement is very much welcomed as it supports the backbone of what purpose-driven communications is about. Brands need to be transparent to ensure what they are saying is authentic and meaningful to their audience.

2. The drive to net zero

The UK has committed to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Subsequently, over the last few years we have seen companies increase their efforts towards publicly setting goals to reduce their emissions. Most recently, The Independent has promised ‘more climate-focused news’ as it targets net zero by 2030.

We are also seeing businesses work together to hold the government accountable to its commitments, with the likes of Tesco and BT publicly calling on the government to impose mandatory net zero reporting on firms.

This in particular has escalated the role businesses need to have in driving change and achieving true progress, and communications will be the tool that ensures they will be held accountable.

3. COP26

COP26 kicks off from 1 November and will bring together world leaders to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

With the UK under increasing pressure in the lead up to COP26, the media has been saturated with news stories focused on holding the Government accountable to meeting its climate goals.

So what does this mean for PR and comms? According to Sir David Attenborough, “Saving our planet is now a communications challenge“, as he signed up to Instagram last year to spread his environmental messages. This is an opportunity for businesses to communicate the progress they are making against the climate crisis in an authentic way.

Achieving cut-through for clients will be challenging through the noise, but we will be providing a run down and analysis of the key stories from COP26 and how this will impact brands and importantly, their communication strategies. Stay tuned…