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Digital marketing agency & PR specialist DTW add talented trio to the team

The team at North East public relations and digital marketing agency DTW is expanding with the addition of three new members of staff to kick-off 2020.

Anthony Doyle, Rebecca Dew and Richard Johnston have all joined the team here at DTW. Based in the Tees Valley, DTW has over 30 years of experience specialising in public relations and digital marketing campaigns.

This expansion comes on the back of a series of successes in securing new clients. There has also been significant growth throughout existing projects across the UK and further afield. We are currently working for organisations like the Law Society of England and Wales, the Financial Conduct Authority and multi-national tolling and mobility solutions provider emovis. We are also proud to be working with several well known local organisations. These include Road Safety GB North East, Middlesbrough & Stockton Mind and Middlesbrough Council.

Anthony Doyle

Anthony joins the team as a Senior Strategist specialising in digital marketing, data analysis, SEO and website development. Anthony is a Teesside native who has worked around the world on a diverse range of projects. He brings a combination of strategic, technical and development expertise to DTW. Anthony will be leading on the development of the DTW’s growing digital offering to clients.

He has 20 years’ experience of working in digital marketing, having led enterprise marketing teams for major multi-national organisations. These include companies such as Frog Education and QS Unisolution, in the software and education sectors.

Rebecca Dew

Rebecca joins us as a Public Relations and Digital Engagement Specialist. Rebecca will be providing media relations, copywriting and social media content services to clients. She has a National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) in Multimedia Journalism and a BA (Hons) in English Language and Linguistics from York St John University.

Richard Johnston

Richard joins us as the lead creative in our growing film and digital content team. Richard previously worked at the prestigious Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity in Canada. He is responsible for all aspects of filming – from storyboarding and planning, to working behind the camera and editing. Richard graduated in 2016 with a BA (Hons) First Class in Film and Television Production from Teesside University.

Strengthening our hugely talented team

Chris Taylor, Managing Director of DTW, said: “Our vision is very simple. It is about creating meaningful campaigns that are world-class, make a difference and help our clients succeed. I’m delighted to welcome Anthony, Rebecca and Richard because they will strengthen our hugely talented team. They are already making a difference to the work we are delivering for our clients.”

He added: “We’ve started 2020 with a bang. It’s important for us to invest in quality staff to ensure that we can continue to meet the growing demand from different sectors of the economy.”

DTW is ranked by PR Week as one of the top ten public sector specialist PR agencies in the UK. With these latest additions to the team, we now employ 15 people based in Guisborough, North East England. DTW is an expert digital marketing agency and public relations consultancy alongside film, social media, animation and design.

If you are interested in hearing more about how DTW can help your organisation succeed, get in touch with our team today.

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#ShopLocal film encouraging people to support the high street is a hit this Christmas

The team at North East marketing agency DTW is backing local independent traders this Christmas with a touching seasonal short film encouraging people to #ShopLocal.

People have welcomed the #ShopLocal film on social media, which features a range of small retailers and businesses in Guisborough, highlighting the huge difference local customers make to small retailers in our towns and villages.

The short festive film was produced by Guisborough-based DTW’s film and digital content specialists Richard Johnston and Katie Mitchell as part of an online advent calendar the agency produced in the run up to Christmas.

They decided to go out into Guisborough to speak to businesses about why people should shop local, filming some of the town’s business owners, showing the vital contribution they make to the town’s economy.

Richard, who lives in Guisborough, said: “I’m incredibly proud of Guisborough and feel passionate about the people and businesses who make this town what it is.

“We have so many quirky shops and cafes here and I wanted to showcase the difference small independent retailers and businesses make to the town.

“They work incredibly hard all year to make a living and offer unique goods and a personal service that cannot be matched by bigger chains and superstores.

“We met so many amazing people while filming. I hope this encourages people to shop local, not just at Christmas, but throughout the year.”

Katie said she hoped the film captured the atmosphere of the high street and the genuine difference small businesses make.

“Shopping local is personal, you get to know the business owner and they get to know you,” said Katie.

“Money spent in local shops stays in the local community, it supports local jobs and local families. At DTW, we shop in Guisborough all the time. Not only is it handy, but we have a great mix of shops and services. We wouldn’t want to lose them.

“If we want to keep vibrant local high streets, we all must do our bit and hopefully this video captures that.”

The film, which has been provided to local retailers and released on social media, is picking up attention from across the region, particularly among the community in Guisborough.

DTW Managing Director Chris Taylor said: “We produce films for clients all year, but this was a great opportunity to do something for independent retailers in Guisborough, and across the region, who we feel passionately about and who provide a fabulous service throughout the year.

“At a time when people are shopping more and more online and visiting huge superstores, at DTW we appreciate what independent businesses offer and the difference they make to the local economy.

“It’s nice to give something back, and I’d like to thank Richard and Katie for a great little film. We hope it helps make a difference for a few local retailers this Christmas.”

DTW is a marketing, communications and public relations agency that works for clients including the Law Society, emovis, the Financial Conduct Authority, RSGB NE, Middlesbrough & Stockton Mind, and others across the UK and around the world by providing expert marketing and public relations consultancy alongside film, social media, animation and design.

For more information, call 01287 610404.

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Shop local this Christmas

There is always excitement at DTW when the office Christmas lights switch on and we trade our usual playlist for something a little more festive. So, what better way to celebrate the season than to create a Christmas video celebrating our fabulous local high street.

Those who have visited DTW will know we are lucky enough to be based on the beautiful Guisborough high street, adorned with many quirky cafes and independent retailers. Inspired by this, we decided to pop into a few shops with our cameras and find out why it’s so important to shop local this Christmas.

When it comes to shopping local, we learnt that:

  • Local businesses are unique and will provide unique gifts
  • Shopping local is personal, you get to know the business owner and they get to know you
  • Money spent in local shops stays in the local community, it supports local jobs and local families

It was great to talk to other businesses local to us, getting to know the shop owners and building further connections. However, my favourite part of the project was definitely window shopping during the film days and picking out the Christmas music when we returned to the office and began the edit!

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and remember to check out the unique gifts your local, independent retailers have to offer you.

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Vote for Northern Spire

It’s common knowledge that we love a good bridge here at DTW Towers.

So, we’re delighted that Sunderland’s Northern Spire bridge has been nominated in the Institution of Civil Engineers’ (ICE) international People’s Choice Award.

The People’s Choice Award is decided by public votes, so it’s time to get involved and cast your vote today. Voting closes on September 27.

The awards celebrate the best civil engineering projects of the year from across the globe that have made a positive impact for their local communities.

Northern Spire is competing against a range of impressive projects, including the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the Shed cultural centre in New York City, the Colwyn Bay Waterfront in Wales, and a children’s surgery facility in Leeds.

We know we are biased, but we believe Northern Spire, which has dominated the Sunderland skyline since opening in August of last year, has what it takes to win.

Having provided communications and PR support to Sunderland City Council on this magnificent new bridge for three years, we appreciate the planning, effort and dedication that went into bringing this impressive structure to life by a team of more than 2,000 people.

Not only does Northern Spire look good, but innovative engineering methods were used to construct it, from building the deck in two sections on the riverbank and launching them out across the River Wear, to fabricating the massive 105m A-frame centerpiece in Belgium and sailing it to site.

We were privileged to work with such a team of skilled, experienced people on such a great project right here in the north east. We should all feel extremely proud of Northern Spire.

You can read and watch more about our wider infrastructure work here.

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Emma and Ellie scoop DTW Public Relations Student of the Year award at Teesside University

We’ve been doing our bit to recognise talented communicators of the future this month. We’ve sponsored the Public Relations prize at Teesside University’s annual Journalism Awards.

The joint winners of the Public Relations Student of the Year prize – Emma Morton and Ellie Dalton – will each spend a week on work experience at DTW over the next year to give them an insight into working life at a public relations and communications agency in 2019.

It was a pleasure to be invited to the awards evening at the Uni’s Love it Lounge and present Emma and Ellie with their prize. We’re looking forward to seeing them over the next few months and welcoming them to #teamDTW.

It’s important organisations in our industry are involved with initiatives like this. It gives students a chance to shine and learn and helps keep us businesses on our toes as well. In our experience, the ideas, creativity and passion that young graduates bring when working with us is a huge asset to DTW.

And we should know, we’re proud to say we have six Teesside graduates as part of our team. They are specialists in everything from animation and video to marketing strategy, and we’re regularly in and out of the University to chat to students and lecturers about various industry issues and opportunities.

Emma Morton (left) and Ellie Dalton (right) with their certificates and DTW Director Lorna McAteer-Bingham

Huge congrats to Emma and Ellie!!

Thanks for reading.

Lorna

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2019 PR Week ranking success for DTW

We’re proud to say that DTW has again been ranked in the top ten specialist public sector public relations agencies in the UK by leading industry publication PR Week.

We have retained our position of 8th in the 2019 league table, which was published in May 2019. It means we’ve been in the top 10 for the past five years now.

As an agency that is highly skilled and experienced in working with the public sector over a long period of time, this continues to be important recognition for the work we deliver. The public sector – in the UK and elsewhere – has changed phenomenally, but the principles of good communications and PR remain the same.

Getting the basics right

Firstly, you have to understand the communications objectives, make sure you know who your audience is and do the insight and research work. Importantly, this makes sure you understand how your audience feels about the issue you are engaging with them on.

Then it is all about clear, authentic and honest communications – whether you are seeking to generate behaviour change, inform people about new initiatives or seek the views of residents and stakeholders on a new proposal.

Once you have those elements clear, you can think about the tactics, channels and creative themes you need to use for maximum impact.

This approach is relevant for so much more than public sector bodies, and the private sector increasingly needs to adopt it where it is delivering public services.

With the majority of our work focusing on that for membership organisations and private sector led infrastructure and construction developments, our skills and knowledge of the public sector market are proving valuable to our private sector clients.

So if you’ve got a challenging project coming up that you think would benefit from our public sector approach, we’d love you to get in touch.

Thanks for reading

Chris

 

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Membership Excellence 2019 – key takeaways

Tips, insight, inspiration and enthusiasm – that’s what I came away with after attending the Membership Excellence 2019 conference yesterday.

With 700 delegates genuinely eager to learn – and a programme jam packed with speakers just as eager to share their knowledge and experience – the MemberWise event was an opportunity to take some time out and learn from forward-thinking membership organisations across many different sectors.

Organisations who face the same daily challenges as many of our clients, who are looking for solutions to the same problems and genuinely want to deliver value to their members.

Being on the agency side, the Membership Excellence conference really helped me think about things from our clients’ perspective. Enabling me to take a step back and appreciate the part our communications work plays in the overall member journey.

Building stronger relationships with members is key. But how do we do this? It’s all about understanding the motivations of our audience and communicating our value to different audiences in different ways. For some it’s about tangible benefits, while for others it’s the benefit to the overall cause they are supporting – capturing hearts and minds. Emma Day, Director of Membership at the British Horse Society illustrated this perfectly through some thought-provoking and powerful video.

It’s also about doing the right things at the right time in a member’s journey. Turning things up a notch and reinforcing member value at key points before renewals and saying thank you for member support at every opportunity.

Sian Hoggett, Head of membership and CRM at The British Museum and James Beardsworth-Shaw, Head of Commercial Services at the National Gallery brought this to life, sharing insights from each of their organisations through a fun and engaging joint presentation.

(MEMX highlights captured by Chapple Cartoons)

Another thing that resonated with me is how the enthusiasm of membership services teams has a direct impact on the members you’re trying to attract or retain. Success starts from the inside – get this right and you’re halfway there. If the team is empowered and enthused this shines through at member events, creating a buzz that gives members a more enjoyable experience.

Events like Membership Excellence really reinforce the value of knowledge sharing and networking with likeminded professionals. We’re all doing a lot of good stuff but through sharing our experiences, we can all do that little bit better.

So thank you MemberWise for an insightful day!

Thanks for reading,
Hayley.

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Distance based road user charging – it’s the future

That was the conclusion of the expert panel at a great Centre for London event last night to launch its new report on the future of the transport network and road user charging in London.

I was there with our client emovis, whose Chief Exec Anthony Alicastro was on the panel to give an industry perspective in front of a packed ‘standing room only’ crowd of around 200 delegates including London Mayoral candidates, campaigners and assembly members.

So, what might happen in London?

The Centre for London report titledGreen Light: Next generation road user charging for a healthier, more liveable London”, calls for London to move towards an innovative new road user charging scheme which charges drivers on a per-mile basis. Costs would vary by vehicle emissions, local levels of congestion and pollution and availability of public transport alternatives – and prices would be set before the journey begins.

The scheme would be integrated with London’s wider transport system via a new app and digital platform, which the report proposes would be run by Transport for London. The scheme, which the report calls City Move would provide Londoners with more choice about how they travel around the city.

City Move would utilise the latest technology to give Londoners all their travel information in one place, allowing them to compare, plan and pay for journeys. Drivers, for example, would be presented with costs and impacts of using their vehicle versus alternative modes of transport.

It’s not policy yet – but the report’s authors are calling on all Mayoral candidates in the capital’s 2020 election to make a commitment to tackle the issue, and momentum is gathering, so watch this space

What’s the role for communications, PR and marketing?

Where do you start. It’s all about good communications. There are challenges around public acceptance of the introduction of road user charging or tolling, but in cities like London the debate has moved on – it is no longer about whether to charge people – it is about how to do it.

Our top three tips for communicating with the public and stakeholders on road user charging are:

  • Be clear on WHY you are introducing road user charging (e.g. to benefit the environment, to raise money for road improvements, to relieve congestion, to boost the economy). This doesn’t just shape what type of scheme you should deliver but it frames the public debate from day one.
  • Be clear how you are going to use the money raised. Transparency is critical for buy-in and focusing on the benefits you are delivering will be crucial.
  • Keep it simple – the great thing about the City Moveconcept is it keeps things as simple as possible for customers.

Once you get this strategic approach right you can get start being creative with the comms tactics and branding, but it is the messaging and positioning that sets the agenda and frames the discussion.

From our work on the merseyflow project and wider work with emovis over the past year on other schemes they are looking at around the world, it is clear this is something that both national governments and local authorities/major cities are looking at very closely.

In terms of maximising public acceptability, once you add in

  • the possibility of road user charging replacing road tax and maybe even fuel duty
  • an easy to use app that shows you the cheapest and quickest way to travel and gives you viable alternative public transport options
  • a scheme that can offer refunds if there are delays…..

…..then my view is this starts to become a very meaningful and realistic policy option.

For London, City Move would be healthier, fairer, simpler and greener than existing charging systems. Hard to argue against when you think about it.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

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Our simple guide to logo formats

How to be your designer’s best friend

Have you ever been bamboozled by a request for logos in a particular format or struggled to work out why that 5KB version copied from a word document can’t be made the size of the Empire State Building?

Then read on. We’ve created a simple starter guide to make your life a lot easier.

Your company logo probably exists in a whole range of formats.

The different formats can be identified by their extension, e.g. logo.jpg or logo.eps etc. But why are there so many formats? And which one should you use for different things?

The most common/useful formats and their best uses are:

EPS

These large files are the holy grail to a designer. An EPS file (known as a vector file) can be scaled to any size without losing clarity. They are perfect for print work and, as they are often the master file can be saved into other formats.

SVG

These are usually developed for web work, but these vector files will always be crisp and clear at whatever size they’re used. The small file size makes this format a good all-rounder.

PDF

You’ll recognise pdfs as being more often used as downloadable documents, but they can be used to provide a logo, as long as the logo was a vector file (not JPEG or PNG). As Acrobat Reader is free to download it is an increasingly common and accessible file format.

JPEG

This file format has different qualities like low, medium and high. Usually used to store photographs, image posts on social media, emails and websites. This format is great for digital work – although it doesn’t support a transparent background – low resolution (72dpi and small in dimensions) is not recommended for print work.

PNG

This has all the features of a JPEG file but supports a transparent background, which means no more unwanted white patches around your logo. This format is ideal for PowerPoint presentations and Word documents. Again, low resolution (72dpi and small in dimensions) is not recommended for print work.

Does it really matter? The answer is yes if you want to put your best foot forward. You can see from the different versions of the DTW logo included here what a difference it makes.

Recap

Best logo file for digital purposes – PNG files

Best logo file for print purposes –EPS files

And finally, three top tips to remember.

  1. Changing the extension manually on a file (e.g. from a .jpg to a .eps) sadly does not alter the type of file – if only!
  2. On behalf of our design team, please don’t send your company logo embedded in a word or excel document!
  3. If you haven’t got or can’t find the right format, try your marketing or design team – whether they are in-house or outsourced – they will (or they should!) know exactly what you are talking about and be happy to help.

Thanks for reading

Paula

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DTW signs up to support Tees Valley Careers scheme

DTW has signed up to a new scheme all about giving young people from across the Tees Valley a taste of working life to help them become ‘work-ready’ as they set out on their career journey.

Chris Taylor, Managing Director of DTW, said: “We’re always happy to help young people step onto the career ladder and the Tees Valley Careers approach is great. It’s genuinely one of the best and most employer friendly initiatives I have seen.”

The appeal of the Tees Valley Careers scheme is that it isn’t just about offering work experience. For a small business like ours that can be a challenge due to client commitments and logistical challenges, particularly for school age children.

The scheme gives employers options like going into schools and chat to students, take part in mock interview exercises and careers days. We think these can be hugely valuable to young people in our area. The opportunities are all co-ordinated by the Tees Valley Careers team which minimises the ‘hassle factor’. It means employers like DTW can get involved when there are opportunities that fit in with our industry and which work for us.

For young people looking to take their first step into the world of work, anything they can do to engage with employers and gain a better understanding of work situations will really help them in their early careers.

Chris added: “We’re passionate about helping young people as they start out in their career. This is a great initiative that is local to us and something we’re very much looking forward to being involved with.”

You can visit the Tees Valley Careers website to find out more about getting involved.

The Tees Valley Careers scheme is being delivered by the Tees Valley Combined Authority.