Man Bites Dog

Multi award-winning B2B PR consultancy, Man Bites Dog, has been shortlisted in three categories of the Fresh PR Awards 2012.

Man Bites Dog is a finalist for the ‘Freshest Consultancy Team’ award. In addition, the consultancy is nominated in the ‘Freshest Business to Business Campaign’ and ‘Freshest Corporate Campaign’ categories.

Claire Mason, Founder and Managing Director of Man Bites Dog, said: “We’re thrilled to be nominated for these awards which showcase the strength of our unique proposition and the outstanding work of the Man Bites Dog team.

“Being recognised in this way is incredibly important to us and we look forward to building on this success throughout 2012.”

The win follows a string of awards in 2011, including B2B Marketing’s PR Agency of the Year, PRCA’s Specialist Consultancy of the Year, and CIPR’s Outstanding Consultancy of the Year 2011.

The winners of this year’s 2012 Fresh PR Awards will be announced on 1st March at the Hilton Deansgate, Manchester.

“Seven in 10 managers working harder 10 years ago”
“UK firms face £2.2bn customer drought”
“75% of City workers believe divide between rich and poor is too big.”

The words ‘survey’ and ‘fatigue’ are increasingly heard in close proximity. But a five-minute scan of the headlines on any given day will reveal an enduring media appetite for research-based stories.

Even at a time when the news, business and political agendas are dominated by unprecedented events, surveys continue to fill column inches, as the headlines above from the past week or so demonstrate.

With so many surveys filling news pages and programmes, it is worth examining which are genuinely robust studies, aligned to an organisation’s sales proposition, and which are simply ‘noise’, providing nothing more than a name-check. For the latter, look no further than the car firm that ran a poll on Christmas gift-wrapping habits.

Showing Not Telling
Intelligently conceived and skillfully designed opinion research can be a highly effective lead generation tool in the professional services space.

Professional services firms operate in fiercely competitive markets, offering almost identical services, experience and expertise. In such a uniform environment, ideas are the only source of differentiation.

Robust research is the tool that validates these ideas. It is the difference between fact and opinion.

Demand Generation
Carefully crafted economic modeling or opinion research can prove a business hypothesis and create a direct call to action for a complex advisory proposition. Robust evidence generates demand for a service by promoting the problems it solves.

We have seen this work time and again in the professional services sphere. Thought leadership campaigns can be designed not only to achieve high impact coverage, but also drive direct business leads for firms offering complex and technical advisory services.

Success Factors
There are three critical factors to creating thought leadership that makes the phone ring: the hypothesis, the research design, and the degree of sales alignment.

• Hypothesis: Thought leadership research must set out to prove a compelling, impactful and original theme that plays to the news agenda at the time. It needs to pass three simple tests journalists instinctively apply to stories: ‘So what?’ ‘Why now?’ and ‘Have I heard this before?’

• Research design: The most critical stage. News hooks have to be designed into the research. The approach must be robust, independent and credible. The sample size needs to be representative. The methodology must be bulletproof.

• Sales alignment: Thought leadership research must be closely – but subtly – aligned with a firm’s sales proposition if it is to make the phone ring. Back to our car firm polling consumers on gift-wrapping habits. What value does that generate in terms of potential sales? How does it drive interest in the car brand in question?

A delicate balance is required. The story needs to promote the problems the firm solves, without overt selling the firm or its services. The aim is to set the news agenda, not promote your own. Another journalist filter applies here: The ‘They would say that, wouldn’t they?’ test.

Rigorous, original, thought-leading research will always provide media – and target audiences – with something new. Whether or not the media is tiring of the poll, thought leadership remains a highly effective tool for organisations to not only get noticed, but create a powerful call to action and ultimately generate demand.

Man Bites Dog has been shortlisted in two categories of the prestigious 2009 PRWeek Awards.

Man Bites Dog is a finalist in the Marketing Communications Business category for its thought leadership campaign Fight or Flight? which made management consultancy Hay Group one of the most widely quoted authorities on the recession.

Jennie Wright, Head of UK Marketing, Hay Group, said: “The Fight or Flight? campaign enabled Hay Group to punch above its weight as media commentators. Man Bites Dog took a creative approach to the recession which helped to create, and cement, our position as thought leaders on the downturn.”

The consultancy has also been nominated in the Research category for its campaign Credit – Where it’s Due? for Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. The campaign was the first to identify a new stage in the credit crunch, moving the media spotlight from the SME funding agenda to the plight of credit-starved corporates.

Klaus Kremers, Partner at Roland Berger said, “Credit – Where it’s Due? successfully established Roland Berger as a media authority on corporate liquidity and financial strategy at a critical point in the credit crisis.”