Press Contact - Portfolio.
Articles & examples of work by Vikki Rimmer
info@presscontact.co.uk 01322 866293/07886673412
Examples:
Radio/TV Publicity with Keo Films
'Examples of Event Management,
Sponsorship & Publicity by Press Contact'
Example: Lullingstone Plant Fair
On Sunday 6th
May 2007 record numbers of visitors piled through
the gates of Lullingstone Castle to attend Tom Hart Dyke's first
personal plant fair. Close to 1,700 people attended the event on
the Sunday.
BBC Gardener
Tom Hart Dyke declared 'we've not received
numbers
of visitors like this since the days of the silk farm
in the 1950s! It's amazing!'
Steve Bradley
from The Sun and perennial favourites
- Andy Garland and Trevor Claringbold of BBC Radio Kent
broadcast
their popular 'Gardening Show' live from the
Castle
from 8am-11am, chronicling the setting up of the
big event.
Visitors were
keen to meet the family who are well known
to BBC2
viewers from both series; 'Save Lullingstone Castle'
and 'Return To Lullingstone Castle'.
The event was
organised by Vikki Rimmer.
The sponsorship and publicity was generated by
Vikki Rimmer/ Press Contact. Publicity ranged across
all media and included The Telegraph, all Kent media
and Radio Kent. Garden's Monthly were the events sponsors.
Example: Kent’s Premier Photography Festival
Kent’s
First Photography festival for both amateur &
professional photographers, attracts 900 visitors and
pages of publicity for the village of Eynsford.
The Photography
Festival was held over two sites
and two days in the village of Eynsford near Sevenoaks in Kent.
The festival took two parts – a Kent wide competition to find ‘Best Amateur Photographer in Kent’ and an open exhibition of photography by professional photographers. Over 300 entries were submitted for the competition.
Sponsorship was obtained by Press Contact/Vikki Rimmer from Hewlett Packard’s Snapfish, Handpicked Hotels Brands Hatch, AJ electronics (who provided cameras and prizes) and media sponsorship from Archant’s Kent Life.
BBC Radio Kent helped to promote the competition and Kent Life featured entries for three months and gave over three pages to the eventual winners.
Competition coverage on the net was vast thanks to Press Contact’s placement of the event and the web design created by Press Contact’s designer www.webdesignweb.com
It is estimated that the competition overall was read by 1 million readers in print and heard by 100,00 listeners in Kent. The Web traffic was very impressive.
Example: The World Garden Party
Tom Hart
Dyke opened his amazing ‘world garden’ to a blaze
of publicity.
Tom’s World Garden Party was devised and managed by Vikki Rimmer / Press Contact. £5,000 worth of sponsorship was sourced from sponsors in the South East including the brewers Shepherd Neame, Marks & Spencers, Best Balloons and bagofsweets.com.
Media were present on the day including: KEO Films for BBC2, The KM Group, The Courier Group, Kent Life, Today Magazine and Verve.
The subsequent publicity for sponsors (including print media, radio and TV) was substantial. Both Tom and his sponsors were pleased with the outcome of the event.
Lullingstone Castle
We follow the creation and development of Tom Hart Dyke's
inspirational World Garden.
Sweet
success by Vikki Rimmer
Tom Hark Dyke has
managed to produce another rare bloom at Lullingstone Castle's World Garden.
The garden at Lullingstone Castle has had to endure
bad frosts and then a hosepipe ban.
Things don’t get more
exciting for Tom Hart-Dyke than being given his own dinosaur!
A totem pole family
has come all the way from Bali to take pride of
place in the World Garden.
The Silver Princess
Eucalyptus Caesia flowers for the first time in the
The tale of a kidnap
survivor and his struggle to create something from his positive nightmare.
Press Contact:
Copywriting & Photography
examples.
Feature Interview: Dave Cash BBC Radio
Feature writing: The Windmill Boy Animation Series
Radiojam: Industry radio /media pieces – comment & business
There's a breakfast
revolution taking place in London - if everyone else can turn the testosterone
down, they might just learn something, says Vikki Rimmer
With the necessity of a 6.30 am call, waking up to the soft sounds of Sunderland
in my bed in Kent is proving a gentler way to start the day. Recently I've
started to favour my muesli with music and witty chat from the softer sounds
of the North East's finest -Lauren Laverne on XFM.
Aggressive politics on an empty stomach requires a stamina
I don't possess, so the Today programme and dogged newshound Humphreys are
not for me. These days I need a full hour of consciousness before I can recall
my own name let alone that of the opposition member for wherever. Music soothes
the soul, so it's to the playlists that I turn for refreshing air waves.
And while the dominant morning's output on music stations consists of lardy
lads bantering boys stuff, footie and cup sizes, Laverne's breakfast show
is firmly fixed on a different ball game - entertainment via a laid back mix
of quirky news stories, travel and a diverse mix of indie rock music. It's
not unusual to hear Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin's reworking of One followed
by The Killers' On Top.
With no posse on site, the quiet humour and fresh playlist of Laverne's breakfast
show gives its listener a chance to breath first thing in the morning.
As the first solo female breakfast show host in London, Laverne is attracting
a growing army of fans and even though recent Rajars point to her being a
minnow in comparison to the fatter fish at Radio 1, her continuing increase
in listener numbers (two books on the bounce) has given Gcap something to
celebrate in 2006.
Does the increase in Laverne's popularity herald the death knell for the popular
breakfast posse format? Is it time for the bantering breakfast boy posse to
leave town?
Banter centred on the difference between the sexes, is ultimately entertaining
to both male and female listeners, but the posse's male-heavy dominance often
lends an edge to the banter which ridicules the token female posse member
(weather girl, producer, hapless researcher?).
Laverne capitalises on the awareness that her audience is split down gender
lines; she knows that half the audience are girls like her, and interested
in things outside of the World Cup and boy banter. She avoids the gender trap
by emphasising surrealist content and as a musician understands the importance
of placing music at the forefront of the programme.
Once upon a time in the radio story, a female DJ had to join the lads as a
kind of 'backing vocal' ladette in order to stay in harmony (sounding suspiciously
like a tampon, the 'Ladette' is a term thankfully redundant in 2006). Zoe
Ball on XFM drive time (2004) and Sara Cox on Radio 1, made free with their
double entendres and their pints of lager, lager, lager. And as a feisty female
I'm not adverse to standing your ground and your round, but looking back there's
something a little sad about the impersonation that was required for a female
to take the lead behind the mic.
Laverne has bucked the ladette trend and indeed, in 2006 was even pitted against
the big boys of Radio at the Sony's. She did well to get her bronze after
only 5 months in the breakfast job, and her team (headed by ex-Radio 1 exec
producer Mick Meadows) managed a gold for their innovative Rock School.
Maybe it's time the breakfast posse boys went back to school and maybe took
a tip from Laverne with her laid back, non-confrontational, music heavy style.
Internet and digital now provide possibilities for the former local London radio station to increase
their reach and really compete with the big boys of breakfast on the national
stage. With internet radio access, mobile technology on the rise and DAB listening
up to 13% this year in British households, the strains of Sunderland from
the Capital are no longer an exclusive London breakfast - they're a full English.
Scott Taunton - "We've been accused of being opportunistic"
The ongoing merger discussions
between UTV and SMG are never far from the press. Yesterday, UTV Radio's MD
Scott Taunton spoke exclusively to Radiojam about the game cat and mouse going
on in the boardrooms:
Radiojam: I know that you can't talk figures or negotiations, but can
you confirm that SMG have asked UTV back to talk?
Scott Taunton: What we've said publicly is that we're always willing
to talk to anyone about any part of our business and will do that on a basis
without condition.
Radiojam: Industry analysts say that the merger makes sense for both
SMG and UTV's share holders.
Scott Taunton: Putting in an offer to SMG is clearly something we see
as a logical fit.
Radiojam: What is it about SMG's portfolio that is of most interest
to you?
Scott Taunton: Their radio business has a national analogue radio station
that targets itself at a male bias audience, and in talkSPORT we have one
that targets a male audience. There are obvious synergies at an operational
level.
Radiojam: And there's some history there with both UTV and SMG?
Scott Taunton: Yes, if you look historically, in 1997 SMG tried to
require UTV and we recently confirmed that we made an attempt in 2003 to take
over the entirety of SMG. We've been accused of being opportunistic but any
management team is paid to look at opportunities.
Radiojam: What do you think of the current output at Virgin and how
would you improve it?
Scott Taunton: If you look at our track record at acquiring - our acquisition
of the Wireless Group and on the back of that our growth in revenues, and
then you look at Virgin acquisition by SMG for £230 million, UTV's track record
is better at running stations after acquisition.
Radiojam: So how would you go about building Virgin's listening?
Scott Taunton: We would apply some of the rules we've used in UTV.
In the corporate website download the analysis shows our audience track record
of building post acquisition – it's stands up on its own.
Radiojam: What are your main thoughts on Virgin's position at the moment
?
Scott Taunton: What I've said previously prior to merger talk: where
you differ purely on music output, you're not only competing on an increasing
choice of music output but with technology too, such as iPods. This eats away
at your audience.
TalkSPORT stands alone because it's speech based radio that you can consume
instantly. On a national level, when your output is purely music led, it becomes
more difficult and you need to (as Virgin has done to date) leverage the brand
as much as you can. Digital is a positive way forward. You also have to be
talent led. Virgin are doing that with Christian O'Connell.
Radiojam: What are UTV's current plans for expansion in terms of radio?
Scott Taunton: Essentially we're getting on with building our own business.
If you look back to the start of 2000, UTV's only business was tv. We've successfully
grown our business by diversifying. For the first time radio represents more
than half the profit of the group.
But what we won't do with any acquisition is over pay for it. This is what
has taken the time – it wasn't that we weren't looking at diversifying further
into radio, it's just that other people were prepared to pay more than we
were.
Radiojam: The Wireless Group proved a good acquisition for you, do
you foresee UTV buying up any other groups?
Scott Taunton: Whether it's speculation about Virgin, about TRLC or
GMG, Chrysalis or GCap, one thing that's certain is there will be further
changes in radio over the next 12 months – we see ourselves playing a part
in that, but we won't over pay for anything.
Our experience in
Food writing: Goat’s Cheese
BBC online
All words & pictures copyright Vikki Rimmer
