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Our 2023 Charity Retrospective

This year, along with the launch of our new B2B Tech division, we relaunched our agency values.

Bold, Open, Real – and Give a Damn: our values illustrate our drive to create innovative and fresh work, in an open and supportive environment, surrounded by people who really care.

As part of our ‘Give a Damn’ value, we take the opportunity throughout the year to direct our passion towards causes we care about. Here’s a look back at what we achieved in 2023:

MIND – The importance of workplace support

In celebration of Mental Health Awareness Week 2023, Nelson Bostock’s ‘Winning Minds Matter’ Group ran an array of activities designed to help join people together, get talking, and raise money for mental health charity MIND.

Our team of designers created a bespoke A0 ‘Paint by numbers’ – what better way to get people away from their desks and allow them to unwind by getting creative?

Over 35 individual tiles were completed, with both NB and our friends at TMW Business taking part. The collated final piece is a great example of team work and support.

Read more about our Winning Minds ethos.

Tour Unlimited – Making sport accessible

In May, 60 cyclists from across UNLIMITED’s agencies pedalled 160 miles through the south of England to raise money for Access Sport.

Their route took them from Winchester to Bournemouth, through Glastonbury to Bristol. Featuring over 10,000 ft of climbing hills, baby horses, beaches, beautiful villages and the – literally – breath-taking hills of Cheddar Gorge.

 Access Sport believes that no-one should be excluded from community sport, helping transform the lives of millions of children across the UK. 

Macmillan – More than a coffee break

Macmillan offers free, confidential support to people living with cancer and their loved ones.

We brought the office together during one of our ‘Divisional Days’ to drink coffee and eat cake – raising money for a good cause close to our team’s hearts (and getting the chance to sample some of the best brownies around).

DOGO – A football match with impact

In September, the B2B Tech division entered a team for a 5-a-side football tournament to support DOGO – a charity delivering free healthcare for those in need.

We may not have come out at the top of the tournament, but we succeeded in raising money for a good cause. Find out more about DOGO here.

Organ Donation UK – Starting the conversation

The aim of Organ Donation Week is to address the shortage of organ donors by encouraging people to confirm their decision on the NHS Organ Donor Register.

These days, the UK operates an ‘opt-out’ system, which means everyone is automatically considered to be on the register – but without having conversations with family and loved ones about your wishes, even potential donors can find the decision taken out of their hands after they’ve died.

Along with our friends and colleagues at TMW Business, we ran an open session in the office to encourage people to come along and find out more, with pink themed snacks and sign-up sheets ready to go.

Find out more about why Organ Donation Week is so important.

Movember – Why it’s about more than just facial hair

December has now arrived, and with it, you can expect to hear the sound of thousands of moustaches being shaved off across the land. Movember has come to an end.

While many of the health issues that the charity focuses on primarily affect men, it’s never just men that feel the effects. And definitely not only men that want to see an end to them. 

That’s why we decided the best way to mark Movember this year was to get everybody involved. Whether you were growing a moustache, didn’t want to grow a moustache, or were physically incapable of doing so, it was all about awareness. 

We gathered together in the office to talk about some of the key issues faced, raised money through various means (including some questionable fake moustaches), along with a few other things. We were happy to play a small part in what is a massive issue. You can bet we’ll be back to do it again next year too.

To learn more about Movember, visit uk.movember.com

Papyrus – Spreading comfort & joy this holiday season

PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide is the UK charity dedicated to the prevention of suicide and the promotion of positive mental health and emotional wellbeing in young people. 

It’s also our choice of charity to support over the holiday period – because we believe there’s no better gift than the ability to provide help to someone at their lowest.  

If you’d like to join us in spreading some festive spirit, you can make a donation here. 

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Winning Minds Awards: November 2023

Another month, another amazing performance from the brilliant B2B team! 

This month, we’re celebrating top designers, and PR teams with impact.

PR Minds – Kirby, Emily, Sophie and Caroline 

“This team has been incredible in such a short space of time. Naturally, given the short timeframes, it was a bit of a scramble to the finish and meant outreach in particular was done at a rapid rate. But we absolutely smashed our KPIs! As of Friday last week, we were on 3 spokespeople briefings with Reuters, the Drum and TechRadar and 32 pieces of coverage (and counting!) across a broad spread of media including business, adtech, fleet, consumer tech and local. Everyone pitched in and played a key role in a successful launch. Emily secured a briefing with the Drum, Kirby secured some great hits in fleet and local media, while Steph kept us all on track, uploading releases to the wire in record time and bashing out excellent coverage wraps.”

Marketing Minds – Bella, Sean, Ed, Mike 

“They delivered such a huge volume of work in such a short time, giving us lots of options to pick from. Everything was thought through, well-considered, and delivered to such a high standard. It was seriously impressive and so great to see everyone so engaged with the design work.”

Kaleidoscope Minds – Stephanie 

“To quote someone today… ‘she is just such a great person to chat things through with.’”

Greatest of All Time – Pip

“Pip’s great, creative work and ‘no nonsense’ approach have been fantastic … she’s been a superstar!”

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Humans vs. Robots: How B2B brands can bring AI into their day-to-day

The second instalment of our ‘Humans vs. Robots’ event series revealed one clear reality – organisations are on their way to establishing generative AI within their day-to-day work. 

And is it any wonder? Generative AI has accelerated far beyond the hype we discussed in our first event. We’ve all heard the claims – it helps you create more great stuff with the same resources, and can even improve the quality of your work – if only by enabling people to focus on the areas where human ingenuity brings the greatest value.

But if the thought of everyone racing ahead fills you with FOMO or anxiety, you are not alone. 

One thing that has remained true is the uncertainty B2B brands are feeling about how best to proceed. Though most are motivated and willing, burning questions remain on the practicalities. Where should you start? How far can you go? How worried should you be about IP, legal implications, or bias? Should we expect marketing budgets to fall? 

At our recent ‘Humans vs. Robots: The Alliance’ event, we asked an expert panel to share their practical examples of where AI is being put to work in B2B. Deftly moderated by veteran tech journalist Martin Veitch, we were proud to host Leila Hajaj, Executive Communications at Google DeepMind; Karen Quinn, Senior Director of Brand and Corporate Communications at Finastra; Liza Hicks, ex-IBM Social and Content Lead; and Unlimited Group’s own Technical Director, Tom Wilks on the panel. 

Here are five of their top tips for getting started with GenAI: 

Start Experimenting, and Fail Fast 

“It’s like driving into an empty car park. You think, ‘hey, I can park anywhere’, and the choices are overwhelming. That’s what it feels like when you start using generative AI. The hardest part is often making that first choice,” said Tom Wilks. 

Narrowing down the possibilities for AI implementation is the first step, but it’s where many B2B professionals admit to being blindsided. It’s also, according to our panellists, one of the more satisfying challenges to address. 

“Block 45 mins in your calendars,” Liza Hicks suggested, “Think about what is taking up your time, and identify the tasks you don’t enjoy doing. That’s where AI can help.” 

Tom Wilks agreed. “Start small,” he said, “with quick wins, things that are really competitive.”  

That’s the business angle – but there’s a real human benefit to turning AI tools towards your least favourite tasks – and this has great potential to make your working life more joyful. “There’s a lot of people that still have this fear that AI is going to take their jobs – but in fact, it will just take their tasks,” Karen Quinn said. “Embrace it. See what joy it can bring to your day.” 

Getting stuck in is also the best way to identify the places AI will have the biggest impact on your working life – whether that’s by taking over the tasks you dislike, or increasing overall efficiencies. It helps to be very intentional, Leila Hajaj advised. “Think about the tasks you want AI to do, and break them down into specific component parts. It’s about getting comfortable with experimentation, as well. You’re not going to get it right the first time – you’re going to need a ‘fail fast’ mentality.” 

Work On AI Literacy 

Once you start identifying use cases for generative AI, you’ll need to begin the next stage – getting it to do exactly what you want. If implemented correctly, AI can get you “70% of the way” with certain tasks, Liza Hicks said. That leaves a solid 30% still in your hands. 

The more AI literate you are, the more you can influence those percentages – but you can’t assume an AI output is 100% accurate. Human oversight is vital, and will become increasingly so as you start implementing AI into your processes – especially with brand reputation on the line. 

“There are inherent issues, especially surrounding things like DEI, within generative AI,” Leila Hajaj warned. “It’s a tool. Our success depends on how well we wield the tool. That’s why, in the future, everyone is going to want AI literate people in the workforce. You wouldn’t hire someone who refused to use the internet.” 

Panellists spoke about how their companies were approaching the issue of AI literacy. Attendees heard how some, like Finastra, had implemented dedicated training time and even organised AI expos, while others were encouraging employees to experiment by taking a gamification approach to AI use. 

“It’s not a tech skill, it’s a life skill,” Karen Quinn said. “We tell people – even if you don’t use it here, you’ll need it eventually. It’s not going away.” 

Think About (and Implement) AI Policies – Now 

“A lot of data is at play here. Get in early and set your policies.” 

That was Leila Hajaj’s advice for B2B businesses. She continued, “We’re at this really interesting inflection point where AI is not particularly regulated – but this is coming. There are going to be more and more guardrails put in place about how AI is used in a wider society – it’s imminent, and businesses are going to follow suit and bring up their own AI charters.” 

It’s a belief Karen Quinn shared. “For us, it’s about tempering enthusiasm in some areas, and encouraging it in others.” Exploration is good – but doing so safely is paramount. “We’re looking at Shutterstock AI and Adobe AI, so the ones that have commercial licensing in place, in order to protect against some of these regulatory changes. Otherwise you’re potentially opening yourself and your organisation’s reputation up to something that could harm you in the future,” she said. “It pays to be a bit cautious.” 

And if that sounds off-putting, Liza Hicks was there to remind us that it’s not so dissimilar to the ways of working we’re already familiar with within the B2B space. “We’re used to working within frameworks in our jobs. This is really no different.”

Prepare To Spend (At Least a Little) 

When ChatGPT first hit the web – and the public consciousness – it was the price tag which caused some of the biggest shockwaves: it was free. 

Of course, in the time since, AI tools have been launching from every direction, and many of them come with a considerable charge. So, with cyber security and data safety on the line, how much should B2B businesses be expecting to spend? 

“It’s important to maintain a clear view of costs,” Karen Quinn said. “Computationally, if your engineers are using generative AI, using virtual environments that can be scaled according to the task and size of the model is one way to manage costs.”

This kind of reactive approach to the business need is one Liza Hicks also recommended. She shared a process of “looking first at specific tools, and seeing what extra abilities they can offer you.” Then, only after CIOs can confirm whether these abilities don’t already exist within previous tools, should you make the purchase. “It’s about that business case for added impact.” 

But that financial impact may not be immediately visible, Tom Wilks cautioned. The immediate business case in the short-term is more about the time that AI can help you to reclaim. “It won’t always be financially tangible right away – instead, you’ll see benefits like more delivery, higher-quality execution, and more innovative thinking over a period of six, nine, twelve months.” 

And Leila Hajaj went one step further. “It’s a red herring to focus on how AI can drive ROI alone,” she said. Instead, think about how you can repurpose the time saved by AI tools into something really exceptional. “In the long term, it’s going to help you deliver bigger, more exciting, more creative programmes. The value will be in the long term, and what you can produce, not what you can save in the short term.” 

Think About What You Actually Need – and Get Tailored Tools 

The ‘buy versus build’ debate is collecting momentum as larger brands begin experimenting with generative AI, and more and more of them, (like Amazon), are announcing intentions to develop their own LLMs. 

But Leila Hajaj cautioned that this shouldn’t be the route all businesses take. In fact, she said, you shouldn’t even be worried about buying into a large AI platform unless your business is sufficiently large enough to get use from it. “When you’re a big business, platforms as a service integrate easily. But these are costly. So think – what do you really need?” 

She continued, “If you have a niche use case, just get a small, specific tool.” That’s why experimenting at first is so important – because you’ll only know what your specific needs are when you’ve given yourself an opportunity to explore potential use cases are within your day-to-day working life. 

The kind of content you need to produce should also influence the tools you choose. Some tools will have language models more suited to your end-goal than others – and so it’s worth experimenting to see which is better at addressing your specific challenge. 

Don’t Lose The Human Element 

One thing is clear: there is no battling against the robots. “Don’t fear AI. Don’t be afraid to dip your toe in the water and see where it can take you,” said Leila Hajaj. “It’s not a question of if, but of when you’ll implement AI.” In other words – avoid starting now and you’re simply risking falling behind. 

Even for the risk-averse, there’s no reason for concern – humans are still going to play a vital role in an AI-powered future. Just as our panellists predict that humans are going to grow to depend on AI tools, the AI tools in question are just as reliant on the people using them to produce good work. “Much like an understudy, they’re there to make you better,” said Karen Quinn. 

And Liza Hicks agreed, “AI can’t uncover the individuals who will bring brands to life. That’s up to us.” AI can’t come up with unique angles or compelling stories, even if it can help you craft the way you tell them. Getting the best results from the tools requires human input. Whether through prompt engineering, or quality control and fact-checking – generative AI is not perfect, and neither can it add that extra-special human touch. 

Towards the end of the session, one audience member queried how much longer we will have to babysit AI tools with human moderation and supervision. The response from the panel was almost unanimous: forever. Liza Hicks explained how, although AI is adaptable, an algorithm can’t (yet!) pick up on a cultural moment. That means it will potentially miss out on creative opportunities, and issues of bias will likely remain for as long as the data AI draws from is itself imperfect. “We should never take our eye off the ball,” agreed Leila Hajaj. 

“Until AI tools are able to purchase and check other AI tools, there will be space for the human element,” said Tom Wilks. 

So, at least until then, let’s keep working together – in an alliance that promises to revolutionise the way B2B professionals work. 

Interested in hearing more? Join our ‘Humans vs. Robots’ LinkedIn community, created to bring like-minded B2B professionals together, to learn, share and progress with GenAI. It is an open forum to support us all in putting AI into practice. Please follow the group at this link, and we’ll see you there. 

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What Wagatha Christie taught me about B2B PR

It’s probably fairly safe to assume that everyone’s heard of the so-called Wagatha Christie case by now. Unless, of course, you’ve been living under a rock. Or you have a far healthier relationship to reality TV than I do. 

The 2019 drama, which began when Colleen Rooney outed her fellow-WAG Rebekah Vardy for selling her private Instagram stories to The Sun newspaper, quickly became a trending topic and somewhat of a cultural phenomenon. It culminated in a libel case last year, which itself became the subject of a West End musical, multiple deep-dives, and (most recently) a documentary on Disney+. 

It was while watching this recent documentary that it occurred to me that the whole case – while ostensibly about fake friends, the seedy underside of celebrity, online drama, and why you can never believe everything you see on social media, can actually teach us a lot about PR… 

(Yes, even the B2B stuff.) 

‘It’s… Rebekah Vardy’s account’

Where were you when Colleen Rooney posted her now-infamous Instagram story? 

The footballer’s wife revealed she had been conducting a top-secret sting operation to try and weed out who had been feeding her private Instagram stories to the press in October of 2019. Her method involved a series of fake posts and an account invisible to nobody except her prime suspect. 

The explosive reveal post accused Rebekah Vardy of being the only person with the means to be the leak, and the press immediately ran with the dramatic story, buoyed by the emotive statements issued by the two women at the centre of the case. 

Of course, most of the time when we talk about the use of PR in this case, we’re talking about showbiz, but I think that even for us B2B folk, it can teach us a lot about launching a campaign. 

The PR Takeaway: 

If nothing else, Colleen Rooney’s Instagram accusation highlights the importance of launching a story in the right way. 

With just one post, she created a media buzz that swamped Twitter for days and led the public to christen her with a new brand – Wagatha Christie – which skyrocketed her popularity. 

It’s a lesson which can be applied to any PR campaign. The language we use and the way we present a story can have a huge effect on the way it’s received. Say something bold and worth listening to – the best campaigns shift our perception and give people insight they wouldn’t find elsewhere.

‘You will have to say that you don’t speak to anyone about her’

The above quote comes directly from the trial transcript. It was the advice from Vardy’s team after the ‘Reveal Post’ was launched: deny everything. 

Vardy’s team, unlike her accuser’s, failed to do any good PR. Their position was unclear, and over the course of the court case, almost every statement made was subsequently contradicted. 

Take, for example, the story they spun about missing text messages. Vardy’s team claimed these important pieces of evidence had been lost as a phone had been dropped in the sea… but the text messages later appeared in court. 

It didn’t just damage Vardy’s story, but also her reputation. At a time when she needed to appear trustworthy and controlled, the conflicting statements gave an impression of confusion and, more importantly, guilt. 

The PR takeaway:  

Briefing is vital. Ensuring that everyone in the team has the story straight before launch minimises the likelihood of muddying the waters and damaging the overall impact of your campaign. 

If this court case had been a pure-PR campaign, Vardy’s team would have been guilty of failing to share a cohesive strategy. As a result, they would always lose out to a campaign with a more streamlined story and a clear central message. 

For brands who aim to comment reactively on big news stories, it can help to have a bank of approved statements and positions, which can then be launched when the time is right – without losing time (and the competitive advantage) to admin and approvals. This also ensures you stay clean, concise, and on-message. 

(For more on this, check out our work with cybersecurity giant Sophos!)

‘An honest and reliable witness’ 

The judge’s description of Rooney reflects not just her behaviour in court, but also her ability to manage her image – and mirrors the sentiment being shared by the public and press. 

But what allowed Rooney to succeed where Vardy had failed? If you ask me, it’s all about the narrative, and their ways of interacting with it. Vardy began on the back foot – she needed to be reactive in order to control the narrative, but wasn’t prepared and subsequently failed to act in a strategic, aligned way. 

On the other hand, Rooney could interact with key stakeholders in the case because she was confident in her position, and therefore had little to fear in the court of public opinion.  

Vitally, Rooney had the credibility needed to back herself up. 

The PR takeaway:  

More important than even your message is your integrity. 

You only need to look at the greenwashing accusations levelled at brands who promote eco-friendly products without first working on their own emissions to see that, when you’re wading into a story, you need to have your own house in order first. 

And, if your brand is dragged into a story without having prepared, doubling-down on a position you can’t substantiate with evidence is going to do far more damage to your brand reputation in the long-term. 

The people’s detective 

Whether you liked, or even knew about, Colleen Rooney before her court case, it’s likely you’ll be aware of her new, beloved (if tongue-in-cheek) status. And that’s largely down to how well-managed her image was from the time of the initial post to the final ruling. 

As PRs and brands, we can learn a lot from the way the case was handled: launch with the right angle, with a clear message, and be prepared to demonstrate authenticity and integrity. To avoid going the way of Rebekah Vardy, make sure you’re prepared if called upon to give a statement, you have a clear position, and… just don’t lie. 

Don’t forget, there’s such a thing as ‘too much’ spin. Nowadays, PR is no secret. People are aware of the industry in a way they might not have been in the advertising heyday. It means that the public is far more likely to see through it when someone is being disingenuous. 

On the other hand, there’s value in ‘setting the record straight’ and trusting the public. Public awareness, when handled the right way, can be a valuable tool. Just make sure that you’re approaching any public forum with authenticity, and be prepared to back-up your position with evidence – you have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

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Winning Minds Awards: October 2023

Another month at Unlimited B2B means another round of Winning Minds awards! 

As always our team have been working incredibly hard – read below to see the new awards and our winners!

PR Minds – Beth Anderson

“Clients are impressed with her ability to get used to their way of working so quickly, her diligence in moving projects forwards quickly and her smart consultancy when they need support.”

Marketing Minds – Nicola Coltrini

“Nic is a legend, works so very hard keeping everything she does afloat – with bells on – and never complains.  I am so very grateful to have her in my team and I want her to know she is extremely valued and very much loved.”

Creative, Content and Planning Minds – Tony Faccenda 

“I am collating feedback at my end still, but I wanted to say that although I have only read the first so far – it is absolutely excellent! So well written!!!!”
“Can I ask who the writer(s) are for these two blogs? They are excellently written and hit all the major notes too. Very happy chap here.”
“Whoever wrote the Smart Factory blog on Benefits of Digital Transformation did a superb job. Nice work.”

Greatest of All Time Award (GOAT) – Fi, Tim and Finn 

“The team had just 48 hours to create a 10 slide deck and summary document that featured insight, strategy, an incredible creative idea and how we would bring this to life if we won. The work they delivered was incredibly impressive and well thought out, despite having such short time frames to put it together AND stay across account work. For Fi and Tim they had the added pressure of also working on a Sophos media event on the first day.”

Check out some imagery from the project here! 

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Listen (and Look) Up! What neuroscience can teach us about building attention-grabbing campaigns

“Nobody reads advertising. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.” 

Howard Luck Gossage (an infamous American adman dubbed “The Socrates of San Francisco”) coined this particular phrase in the ‘50s, but you could be forgiven for thinking it comes straight from a 2020s influencer handbook. 

Interest, or attention, is – and always has been – a flimsy thing. It’s pretty hard to capture and harder still to pin down. Do that successfully, and you’ve still got to convert it into action. 

For agencies and brands alike, this is a constant challenge. And it’s one that science is determined to crack. 

Neuroscientists have been working on understanding and measuring attention for years (with mixed success). It’s for exploring questions like these that Dr. Cristina de Balanzo, a Board Director at Walnut Unlimited, first established the ‘Brainy Bar’ in 2015. It has since covered important subjects such as emotion, memory, perception, our senses and emotional advertising – but this time around, Cristina chose to uncover the science behind what makes people truly pay attention. 

She was joined by top neuroscientists Dr. Tim Holmes, Aoife McGuiness and Dr. Andy Myers, who came together to deliver a series of lectures on the topic. They spoke about what attention means, how to measure it, how to use it to drive memorable creative – and how all of that can help to deliver effective brand campaigns. 

Here’s what we learned.  

Lesson 1: The quality of attention matters

When was the last time you gave something your full attention? I mean really, truly, fully – not just keeping your eyes-forward in a meeting while internally wondering about your dinner plans, or surreptitiously scrolling through TikTok or Twitter while you listen to a film. 

If the answer is ‘a while’, you’re hardly alone. Nowadays, we’re constantly flirting with overstimulation, and any campaign has to triumph over innumerable distractions if it’s to meaningfully reach anyone at all. 

Tools like eye-trackers are increasingly popular as brands attempt to understand which ads are having an impact, but as Dr. Tim Holmes explained in his lecture, when it comes to measuring attention, we miss a lot of nuance if we focus only on the length of time spent looking at something. 

“We tend to assume that sustained attention is always good news for an ad campaign or a package on a shelf, when in fact sustained attention is probably more likely to correlate with cognitive load. That is: with confusion,” he explained. 

For this reason, he said, time is not a good enough measure on its own. We need to understand more than whether we are drawing people’s eyes; we need to build campaigns that give them a positive reason to keep looking.

Key takeaway: Brands don’t just need to capture people’s attention, they also need to make that attention worthwhile. Focus less on the amount of time someone spends looking at your campaign and consider whether you’ve successfully routed the attention you get into meaningful action or positive brand consideration. 

Find more from Dr. Tim Holmes on LinkedIn. 

Lesson 2: It’s not just about what we see, but how we see it 

What makes a good creative campaign? 

Neuroscientists haven’t quite come up with a framework yet, but researchers like Aoife McGuiness are getting close. Her work helps us to understand why we find creativity and the arts rewarding, and therefore what elements should go into building an effective brand campaign.

What makes something fun to look at? Well, as she told attendees, “It’s not just about the object properties, it’s about the act of information processing. Enjoyment is not all about what we’re looking at, but how we’re looking at it and the things that happen in the brain when we do.” In short, people derive pleasure from their own ability to understand. “This reward can come through detection of novelty, pattern forming, violation of expectation, a puzzle to solve, a visual trick and so on.

“What differentiates this abstract type of reward is that it’s not linked to any kind of survival instinct – it’s just pleasure through the act of information processing.” 

And, if you get tricky with it, you can create that feeling of pleasure. Take this SwissLife campaign about ‘Life’s Twists and Turns’: 

The text creates a kind of “cognitive conflict” (it makes us double-take), which is “an aesthetically appealing experience” to the brain. This gives people the reward required to hold their attention, rather than just grab it. 

In short, we like it, because it challenges us – and this makes it fun to look at. 

There’s even better news, too. Researchers have found a link between the activation of the part of the brain that switches on during these moments of conflict, and memory – which suggests that there is a link between this kind of creative and brand recall. 

Key takeaway: Creativity is key. Ideas that challenge our expectations or force us to think really do engage a different part of the brain – and that can give viewers pleasure and have a positive impact on their ability to remember it. 

Aoife McGuiness is Customer Neuroscience Manager at CloudArmy. 

Lesson 3: You shouldn’t forget about audio 

Our ears are always on, and you don’t have to be actively listening to process information. In fact, passive engagement is much more common than active listening. After all, when are we ever truly actively listening in our day-to-day life? That is: doing nothing else but focusing on the input of our ears? It’s rare, that’s for sure. 

But as Dr. Andy Myers explained, the idea that passive listening is less effective than active listening is a misunderstanding of how we interact with the auditory world. 

“We don’t have to be aware to be processing information,” he explained. “And ‘active’ doesn’t always mean ‘accurate’.” In fact, Walnut research found that in an experiment, up to 16% more errors were made by active listeners than their passive counterparts. 

That same experiment highlighted that branding was also stronger in the passive condition, and that when a brand was mentioned a second time around passive listeners, the brain response was particularly boosted. (So if you’re planning a radio ad, definitely repeat your brand name…) 

“In the overstimulation age, our brains are looking for ease,” Andy explained. But the context of your programming is also important to consider. If you are listening to classical radio and a loud, metal-backed ad plays, that causes an abrupt attentional shift. “We found that congruency is key,” he said – when listeners weren’t disturbed from their flow, they took in more information. So information-heavy campaigns performed better on talk radio, and sonic ones were better suited to music radio. 

“Attention is prone to the simplest priming,” Andy said, “And our attention is affected by our expectations.” So let people hear what they’re expecting to hear, and you might just come out on top. 

Key takeaway: The context of your message is hugely important. When you’re working with audio formats, ensuring that your campaign meets expectations is the best way to attract valuable passive attention, and land your message more successfully with an audience. 

Dr. Andy Myers is a Director at Walnut. 

Hey! Down here! 

Do I still have your attention? 

You might not have considered the neuroscience behind your favourite brand campaigns before – I know I hadn’t – but since attending the Brainy Bar I’ve been spotting cognitive conflict everywhere. 

The truth is, capturing attention requires your creative to jump through a lot of hoops – and some of them aren’t possible to predict. How busy someone is, the mood they’re in, how much more cognitive load they’re able to take, whether they’re hungry, tired, or irritated by a particular song or sound… 

It makes designing attention-grabbing campaigns something of a minefield. But brains are not unhackable, and by rewarding audiences’ attention, giving them something interesting or unexpected to look at – or, otherwise, aligning with the background hum of their life – we can deliver brand campaigns that really make an impact. 

You can find out more about our eye-catching campaigns here. 

Or click here to learn more about the Walnut, the human understanding agency. 

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How we designed an awareness campaign for World Menopause Day 

When it comes to awareness campaigns, the clue’s in the name – they’re about spreading information to help enlighten people. That means they need to be several things: eye-catching, interesting, and informative. As a designer, that’s the kind of challenge I love.  

World Menopause Day 

At both Nelson Bostock and TMWB, our agencies have always prioritised culture; whether it’s through team-building socials, open forum meetings or by celebrating awareness days. We feel it’s important to provide every individual a voice and ensure they feel wholeheartedly supported by the company in which they work.  

Through our newly launched ‘Cultural Spotlight’ form, individuals can submit topics they feel we should be talking about, and we listen. One such request was for ‘World Menopause Awareness Day, which is celebrated on 18th October. It’s a particularly important topic, as menopause is something we are all aware of, but seem to know little about unless directly affected. 

Our internal DE&I working group involves a variety of people from the agency, passionate about fair representation and workplace development. During our catchups, the team brainstorm and discuss concepts suited to each topic. For World Menopause Day we combined forces with our Unlimited B2B friends at TMWB to create a campaign that would run throughout our shared office space, drawing on the talents of our design, copy, and ops teams.  

Designing the campaign  

First thing’s first, we chose an approach: an informative Guerrilla campaign. We know that spare time to pause and fully digest something new can be hard to come by in a busy office, so we decided to flood the space with information. That way, people could access it wherever they found themselves.  

Our plan was to take over our office space with a flurry of information, presented in a series of different ways to ensure people were engaged. The trio of designers in our DE&I committee set to work on an array of posters, interactive games, and table-top stands to be placed on desks, and in toilets, the kitchen and our meeting room spaces.  

These are natural hotspots where people to gather during in their day, which is vital. It’s not about forcing new behaviours – instead, we modified the usual landscape to draw attention within people’s natural workflows.  

The look and feel  

We employed a variety of graphic design and communication methods to ensure that different thought processes were accommodated, boosting the probability of long-term memory and future recall.  

Menopause is a serious topic, but we wanted our campaign to take the taboo out of the experience. The design had to feel informative but – most importantly – fun and approachable. That’s why we led with an illustrative design style, combined (of course) with a little of our internal branding magic.  

For components such as the ‘48 symptoms’ poster, simple illustrations were key in communicating relatable emotions to the reader, increasing the potential of retained information.  

We designed ‘Fortune Teller’ games (a common playground favourite of the past), which employ ‘system 2’ type thinking – where the user is more analytical, rational and considered due to participating in an experience – and even our A5 desk stands considered different comprehension preferences of our audience, with guides to useful podcasts, TV programmes, books and blogs.  

Content in action 

Creating a lasting impact  

As fun as this project was, its success depends on how much of a lasting impact it creates.  

At UNLIMITED, we have brilliant menopause support readily available, but people affected by menopause (directly and indirectly) vocalised the need to create a more visible support system. And thus, the concept of a discrete ‘internal channel’ for people to join and share experiences, advice and support was born.  

We established key figures within HR networks for people to go to when seeking further confidential advice – taking the uncertainty out of what can feel like a nerve-wracking process – and flagged these ‘next steps’ in our campaign collateral. Making this information more visible also allowed people to act without having to search themselves, and the easier the journey, the higher the potential uptake.  

Passion projects like these are a brilliant demonstration of how dedicated our vast internal network of operations, copywriters and designers are to creating a self-improving internal structure and happier workplace environment. We’re firm believers that we do our best work when everyone is seen and heard (and it’s always fun to flex the creative muscles on something new.)   

For more information about the menopause, check out these brilliant sources:  

Podcast: The Dr Louise Newson Podcast 

Blog: The Hot Resignation  

TV Programme: Davina McCall: Sex, Myths and the Menopause 

Report: GenM’s Invisibility report 

The British Menopause Society: is navigating some misinformation with Louise Minchin and ITN on October 18th: https://thebms.org.uk/news/world-menopause-day-2023/

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The Winning Minds Awards: September 2023

September 2023 was a big month for everyone. It was the warmest September ever on record, a river of wine coursed down the streets of Portugal, and Nelson Bostock launched their brand new Winning Minds Awards!

With the creation of our brand new division Unlimited B2B, which comprises both the team in Nelson Bostock and our friends over at TMW Business, a new set of awards were required so we could ensure that everyone was celebrated.

The new Winning Minds Awards are split into four sections that celebrate each facet of our incredible division, making it the biggest and best award ceremony yet! 

Our winners were nominated by their colleagues for the brilliant impact they’ve generated for the agency or their clients. Each of them have been living our values of Bold, Open, Real and Give a Damn.

Read below to see the new awards and our winners!

PR Minds – Ibby Bridges

“Ibby has been an absolute powerhouse in the weeks leading up to the event, from compiling an extensive analyst list for invites and drafting invites, to pitching post-show briefings and building briefings docs – the list goes on!”

“The client is ecstatic and it’s all down to Ibby’s hard work”. 

Marketing Minds – Stephen Hastings 

“The client is really happy with where things are at and it’s an account that looks like it’ll grow and grow – much of which is thanks to Stephen’s persistence and patience to get the job done.”

Creative, Content and Planning Minds – Bella Green 

“Flexible, fast without losing any attention to detail – and when under some tight deadlines too. Positive and prepared to go the extra mile to ensure all is ok.”

“A dream to work with and always smashes it out of the park.”

Greatest of All Time Award (GOAT) – Em Brine

“They’re absolutely living our new values (especially ‘Give a Damn’) with all the great work they’ve been doing on the DEI committee – but also in keeping our culture alive, supporting everyone with a friendly face, and making sure our divisional days are a joy to attend.”

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Is the nation really ready for the big AI takeover? Here’s what the stats say

Is AI coming for our jobs? Can we trust it? What value can it actually bring? 

These were the questions buzzing in everyone’s ears at last week’s webinar from TMW’s team of fervent future-gazers. 

What’s Moving the Nation? is our regular temperature check on how the country is feeling and behaving, and the subsequent implications for brands. This time around, because we’re mildly obsessed with the proliferation of AI tools and how they’re impacting our – well, every – industry, we wanted to see how the nation felt about the topic too. 

(If it’s something that interests you too, why not attend our Humans vs Robots event on November 9th? We’ll be talking real life generative AI use cases with experts from B2B brands. Find out more here.) 

Our What’s Moving the Nation panel comprised of Chief Strategy Officer Dan Bowers, Head of Data & Insight Tim Noblett, Executive Social Influence Director Olivia Wedderburn and Associate Planning Director Fred Brinton. In an eye-opening half-hour session, the TMW team harnessed exclusive insights from our Human Understanding Lab (HUL) to get under the skin of UK opinion. 

It all started with an overview of our collective state of mind. 

While people in general continue to be an uncertain bunch about our current situation (and understandably so), our HUL found that more positive emotions, such as calmness, relaxation and happiness are starting to shine through. And that’s even when factoring in the one in four of us who are feeling the strain of household finances.  

So, what else is inspiring feelings of uncertainty? 

Here we reach the crux of the matter: for most of us, it’s the constant forward march of new technology.  

With so much recent speculation about the big AI takeover, it’s been all too easy to get caught up in the negative hype. Our data delvers discovered that: 

  • 50% of respondents think AI is a real threat to humanity. 
  • 29% are concerned about the impact of AI on their jobs. 
  • 25% are excited about the opportunities AI provides, with this excitement being more prevalent in upper socio-economic circles. 

So, more than a few of us are worried about what AI will do next.  

But do we trust what it’s doing today? Our webinar hosts covered this issue too. Against the backdrop of a broader distrust of digital information (think: election rigging and fake news) only 26% of us trust AI to produce information that’s factual and unbiased.  

As you might expect, demographics play a key role. 

Gen Z are more likely to embrace new AI technologies and welcome its application within the workplace. Older generations, on the other hand, are less likely to invite it in, for fear of heralding in their own obsolescence.  

*Clears throat* It’s the ciiircle of life. 

Olivia Wedderburn made an important point. Quoting celebrated futurist Amy Webb, she stated that “this year, the internet as we know it is over,” and went on to detail the typical circle of life all game-changing tech developments must cycle through. Inevitably, before every mass adoption, come the years of uncertainty and scepticism.  

With the arrival of Web 1.0, people were adamant online shopping would never catch on. 

With Web 2.0, social sharing apps (and endless plates of avocado toast) were met with raised eyebrows. 

Now, with Web 3.0, developments like digital collectibles, virtual spaces and cloud technology have already gone through the hazing process and lodged themselves firmly into our online way of life. 

All of which points to AI following a similar trajectory. And, let’s face it, the use of AI is fairly ubiquitous already – from Face ID, to purchase predictions and beyond.  

Which leads us to the next section of our webinar. How can AI make life better for brands and consumers alike? 

While the nation remains uncertain about the new breed of AI tech, we believe that brands can embrace the opportunity to lead the way and embrace the new possibilities it introduces.  

We propose that the answer lies in three key territories – creativity, message and value. 

Our What’s Moving the Nation? team shared some positive use cases in each: 

Amp up the creativity 

  • Coca-Cola partnered with AI tool DALL.E to give their entire database a chance to generate weird and wonderful brand ads using digital art prompts. 
  • The WWF used Midjourney to envisage a not-too-distant future where everyday animals had become extinct. A call to arms for the climate crisis if we ever did see one. 
  • Artist Holly T made a digital twin of her voice, allowing fans to get collaboratively creative and democratising music production in one fell swoop. 

Power your message 

  • Nikon combined ethereal photography and would-be AI prompts to encourage photographers to keep seeking beauty in the real world. 
  • Heinz asked AI art tool to draw a generic bottle of ketchup… then smugly shared the very Heinz-like results, proving their category dominance. 
  • To coincide with the Women’s World Cup, Orange published a montage of male footballers performing some very fancy footwork on the pitch. Then, they revealed they’d used AI and VFX to overlay men onto the original footage of women. 

Unlock new value 

  • American Airlines successfully reduced their contrails by tweaking flight paths with AI. Results showed that if their efforts were scaled up across the globe, airlines could come together to reduce airlines’ impact on global warming by 20%. 
  • McDonald’s used ChatGPT to turn family road trips into feel-good moments with personalised audio stories based on who’s in the car and where they’re travelling. 
  • Finally, Cadbury undertook an epic feat of ‘digital charity’ by creating thousands of celebrity deepfake adverts which local businesses could use to promote themselves. 

To round off the session, we took a deeper look at the ethics of brands integrating AI into people’s lives – and livelihoods. 

AI is set to fundamentally change our daily lives, and it will play a huge role in how humanity progresses. The onus is therefore on brands to replace the current undertow of uncertainty with a sense of possibility, so they can educate and inspire the nation. 

Moreover, they must prove that AI can enhance human capability, instead of merely replacing it. 

So, that’s how AI is moving the nation. You can watch the full recording here, and look out for our next event, coming soon.  

And if your AI appetite has been whetted, join us on November 9th at our Humans vs Robots: The Alliance event to hear from brands like Google DeepMind and Finastra about how they’re putting generative AI to work, with practical advice for how you can do the same.  

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Why I invite AI-braham Lincoln to all my brainstorms

credit: shutterstock (standard licence)

In recent months, we’ve heard a lot about the difficulties of applying AI within the creative industries. For every benefit it promises, there’s a counterbalancing drawback. It can summarise complex ideas, but if the data isn’t clean, you’ll end up with a biased result. It can streamline your processes, but it can’t think creatively. 

If that’s the case, are creatives doomed to never benefit from the time-saving nature of AI without compromising the quality of their work? After all, in something like a campaign brainstorm, originality is the name of the game – and if AI struggles to offer any new perspectives (and just spits out what it scrapes online), it’s never going to be useful to us. No PR campaign ever landed national coverage with yesterday’s news. 

But what if you could make AI respond in a creative manner? You’d open up a whole new realm of possible use cases. 

That’s where my experimenting began. And what I discovered was this: since AI can only follow instructions, getting it to do something unexpected can be as simple as asking it not to answer as an AI at all, and instead to do so as (for example), Abraham Lincoln.  I even employed Succession’s Kendall Roy, and PR icon Patsy Stone… 

Stick with me. 

A new perspective 

In PR – and indeed any creative role – most projects depend on your ability to build a compelling narrative. Whether that’s to pitch a feature, build a content campaign or design a brand identity – the story is always what people remember. 

And, when you’re building out that narrative, it’s important to source a range of different opinions so you can identify the most powerful approach. 

That’s why we brainstorm. It’s about bringing together a range of perspectives to address a common theme, and in the clash of all the opinions, you can stumble across an interesting or untapped point of tension. 

But when you’re not able to pull a group of minds into a room, AI can fill some of the blanks. With the right prompts, you can sit in a packed auditorium of vastly different characters every time you brainstorm. 

For this to work, the choice of character is important – it’s not random. You first need to figure out what it is you need from the responses; ask the AI to respond as Abraham Lincoln, or someone else like him, and it’s going to give you a very formal, principled reply. 

AI-braham will give you answers in polite prose, and Kendal RoyGPT will respond in a myriad of barely distinguishable metaphors. But both can be incredibly useful as a starting-point for developing campaign names. 

It’s the “tone” in which the AI responds that will be your creative springboard, rather than the actual response you get. Patsy Stone, after all, is fictional. Even if she wasn’t, the Online Safety Bill would definitely not be her area of expertise. 

But when P-AI-tsy explains things, you’ll start to see bylines and campaigns behind every line. 

Raining on Big Tech’s Parade, anyone? How about Cleaning Up the Digital Streets? 

It’s not something you would have thought of alone, necessarily. And that’s the power of AI – if you don’t want to, you never have to do a solo-brainstorm again. 

Walk in their shoes

One of the bigger failings of AI we’ve written about before is its lack of empathy. 

In PR, content, design, and advertising roles, the ability to ‘walk in someone else’s shoes’ is a vital skill. We need to be able to judge possible reactions to work in order to decide how best to approach a campaign, brief, or newsworthy story. 

Though I’m sure someone is trying to change this, somewhere, AI simply can’t develop empathy, no matter what character you ask it to be. What it can do, is give you an approximation of it by helping you to widen your understanding of a project. Insert a new character into your brainstorm, and you’ll be forced to think in a new direction. 

By using this technique, you’re essentially encouraging the AI to suggest alternative points of view, which then challenge your own conventional ways of thinking, and your own in-built biases about a project or idea – and that’s one of the most important things you can take from a brainstorm. 

The human element 

Of course, it’s about feeding the AI the right things. Whatever persona you make an AI tool take on, it will still only have access to the same information. You’ll get the same facts regardless of whether you’re asking an ex-US President, a drama-loving disaster, or a fictional sleazebag – the magic is in identifying the spark within the answer. 

There’s a big human element – you need to use your own judgement to know what will work, what won’t, and what kind of persona is going to work best for your purposes. 

When it comes to creative exercises like “Campaign the Name”, for example, where brainstorm participants are forced to create a campaign to fit a pre-decided title, Kendall RoyGPT is a great option, because you’ll find it can fire off lots of options that sound campaign-ready. 

On the topic of cyber resilience, we could pull out ‘The Bounce Back Game’, and ‘The Cyber Cracks’ from the above. Thanks, Kendall. 

So you see, the character is adding a specific slant to the answers you get. Yes, the choices can be amusing, but they ultimately fulfil a purpose. 

Some of the best ideas come from subverting expectations. Getting to a surprising place on your own is definitely possible – but AI provides a shortcut. And with some modifications, that’s a shortcut creatives can really use.