Wow, what a year 2020 has been! But let’s ignore the obvious, focus on the positives and take a moment to reflect on some of our highlights.
We started the year the way we always do, finalising PR plans and content calendars and looking ahead. In January, we met with all our clients to set their goals and aims for the year, finding out what they were looking to achieve and how we could make that happen.
February saw us in event mode, planning for the Garden Press Event and kicking off our campaigns for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Little did we know at this stage that only one of these would be taking place…
Then in March, we had our last outing for a long time! We headed to London for the Garden Press Event where we were looking after Vegepod and Cobra, while also helping with interviews for the Plant Based Podcast.
Then lockdown happened. While our gardening clients were kept busy with so many people discovering gardening as their new favourite hobby (our research found that Google searches for the phrase “gardening for beginners” were 184% higher this year than last), for some of our other clients April was the time to think fast and have a strong customer communication strategy. Creative Interiors sadly had to close their showroom in lockdown so we were on hand to help. We devised a new communications plan that covered crisis comms, social media updates, graphic creation, local advertising and email campaigns to keep customers in the loop.
May is usually our busiest month of the year when we’re in full flow for the Chelsea Flower Show (find out more about what we usually get up to at Chelsea here). This year, Chelsea still kept us busy – albeit in a different manner. Like so many other events this year, the show went virtual. We took over Oxenwood’s Instagram account to make sure they were still at the heart of all Chelsea conversations. Across the week we increased the brand’s Instagram following by 194%.
In June, Chelsea fever continued and we were still making headlines on behalf of Hillier announcing the new plants that had been planned to launch at the show. We secured features for the new plants in the Mail on Sunday, English Garden, Gardens Illustrated, RHS Garden magazine, Horticulture Week and the Garden Design Journal.
Plastic Free July is a huge campaign that keeps growing and growing each year. We kicked off the month by launching the Clean Living Plastic Free Challenge, inviting followers to collect their used plastic for a week and to share it using #MyPlasticWaste. We then arranged for Clean Living to partner with other eco-conscious brands to help share tips on how to reduce plastic usage in our lives.
We love it when our clients collaborate and we actively try to get as many of them to work together as possible so we were thrilled in August when our client Michael Perry, aka Mr Plant Geek and co-presenter of the Plant Based Podcast, featured another of our clients, the Original Organics Aerobin, in his gardening slot on ITV’s This Morning.
We were bowled over in September to receive news that we’d been nominated for and WON the award for the best PR agency in the Midlands. We’re used to seeing our clients in the news so it was a nice change to see Honest making headlines!
In October, it was back to winning clients instead of awards and Antiques Boutique joined the Honest family! The online antiques marketplace champions ethical consumerism and is born out of promoting sustainability and investing in antiques rather than cheaper pieces with short life spans – a perfect addition to our client roster.
We marked our second birthday in November and set the wheels in motion for our plans for 2021 by expanding not only our team but also our service offering. Fay joined the team bringing with her plenty of experience in working with horticultural brands to bolster our gardening PR expertise, and we launched our new Brand Voice service too!
After such a busy year, we could have put our feet up, cracked open the mulled wine and tucked into some mince pies to recover. But that’s not the Honest way (although the mulled wine and mince pies have definitely happened…!) In PR, December means one thing. Gift guides. Seedball’s cute little tins make perfect Christmas gifts and stocking fillers and the media agree too as we’d spent months securing features left, right and centre for Seedball! They popped up in a whole host of gift guides including The Sunday Telegraph, Amateur Gardening, Kitchen Garden, The Sun, Period Living and Style At Home to name just a few!
So, as 2020 draws to a close, we’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone that has supported Honest and our clients this year, particularly to those who have chosen Honest to represent them. We’ve loved every second of working with you and getting through this year together!
If you’re looking to raise your brand’s profile in 2021 and want creative, strategic ways to get in front of your customers then get in touch. We’d love to have a chat with you in the new year to explore how we can work together.
Happy Christmas! Now, where’s the champagne?!
