Welcome to
Grayling Leeds

The bi-annual IAA Hannover event in Germany – widely seen as the world’s premiere platform for the future of the commercial transportation industry – is a competitive show with thousands of brands competing to stand out.

If we were going to make a bang and keep Cummins at the forefront of media and minds we needed a content-first approach, visual appeal and a hook to put us front and centre.

Our three-phased approach across pre-event warm up, show week and post-event wrap involved staggering our stories to achieve an effective drumbeat of coverage, landing our key messages, including Cummins’ ‘Net Zero by 2050’ commitments, throughout.

We worked with Cummins to identify stories we could use to hook the media, grab the attention of our audience and develop stories and thought leadership for key European titles, further strengthening the bond between Cummins and future-proofed solutions in the automotive space.

Thanks to our innovation messaging and brand positioning, our results went around the world – with the unprecedented volume and geographical breadth of stories secured leading Cummins to describe the event as one of their ‘most successful ever’.

YPO launched an Apprenticeship Framework and required PR support to amplify it to public sector organisations and related media. The first of its kind, the framework was developed to support public sector organisations in accruing funds following the introduction of the apprenticeship levy.

The introduction of the levy, and some of the updates to the legislation had meant that there wasn’t a clear pathway which was impacting the use of levy funds. We identified an opportunity for YPO to become the industry commentator and position the apprenticeship framework as a solution.

We created a campaign over the course of nine months that combined a hardworking national proactive and reactive press office designed to deliver repeat opportunities to see with consistent key messaging across identified media.

We were challenged to put M&S product front-of-mind during THE key seasonal moment in retail and we devised a campaign that utilised the the unveiling of the advert with an always-on Christmas press office running throughout the campaign. This brought to life the product through media relations, influencer partnerships, in-store events, and positioning spokespeople from suppliers to store managers as the local retail ‘barometer’ at Christmas.

Alongside product-focused elements, by bringing to life M&S’s commitment to the communities they serve, we were able to take the M&S story at Christmas beyond retail, and into local news outlets, highlighting opportunities to join the team, and how the brand supports local causes.

We heroed visual content to enable us to drive strong, image-led coverage that highlighted the product and people of M&S. By mapping the channels our audiences consume we were able to deliver a campaign that cut through the noise of Christmas.

First Bus tasked Grayling with getting more bums on seats on its off-peak services in and around Leeds during the summer months.

Grayling identified key audience groups as young people and families, which comprises the future generations for bus usage, but the challenge was to dispel negative connotations we all associate with the bus. We needed a campaign that helped people to fall in love with bus travel again and to Discover What’s Possible by using the bus.

We set about utilising the desitnations along the routes as the drive to use mechanisms and brought those to life with a series of influencer challenges, making stars of local youngsters with live performances on buses and partnerships with local festivals and creating a raft of video content to flip the percption of the bus on its head.

Exemplar Healthcare provides specialist care homes for adults with complex health needs. The business was growing rapidly and Grayling’s role was to support with the launches of new homes in order to integrate them into local communities.

The brief included a number of complexities, including tackling fear and myths around users of the care facilities within the immediate community and building relationships with key local stakeholders within an already established health system.

We provided a full community and stakeholder relations programme, which prioritised integration and relationships with key audiences. Usinglocal on the ground insight and detailed mapping of key stakeholders and organisations, we recommended a bespoke plan for each launch. Tactics included private briefings, home tours, school competitions, sponsorship of local initiatives and media and social activity designed to eduate.

The launch of a new restaurant usually means one thing – make a lot of noise, drive intrigue and get bums on seats. In an increasingly conscious world, it’s simply not enough for a big brand name to pop up in a community and expect the locals to flock.

We needed to launch YO!’s Speke restaurant in a way that shared the pro-environment values and community spirit of our immediate Liverpudlian audience but that was also true to the brand, ownable and unique. This led to a simple strategy to launch YO! Speke by speaking sustainably.

Tapping into local scouse sentiment, YO! brokered a value-exchange partnership with local up-and-coming organisation ChopValue who upcycle single-use chopsticks into beautifully designed products.

Working with ChopValue and Everton’s maned midfield maestro Tom Davies, we launched YO! in Speke with a unique dish – Scouse Sushi- with chopsticks and our ChopValue recycling stations front and centre of the campaign.

Media results went beyond expectations – landing nationally and regionally with key messaging aplenty, images and video used extensively and a sustained pipeline of influencer content created throughout.

Physical ChopValue recycling stations now feature throughout the branch, making Speke the first YO! location in the UK to be actively recycling its chopsticks.