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Grayling Southampton

With 50 years of local experience, Grayling Southampton combines on-the-ground insight with national expertise

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We’re the curious, connected and fearless PR and public relations experts in the south.

We build on the informed, insightful, alert and opportunistic spirit that’s driven results for our clients for more than 50 years. That’s over half a century’s experience.

We live and work in the south. From Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and Dorset, to Kent, Essex and Surrey. We get the importance of the cruise and port industries local to us. So much so that we work side-by-side with them, floating boatloads of ideas to boost the local economy.

We’re honest, direct, passionate and fast to act. It’s those ingredients which build relationships that last. We blend them together to create deep connections.

And we’re certainly connected – to colleagues, clients, partners, influencers, stakeholders and networks.

We’re hyper-local with insights on the ground.

We’re nationally recognised and deliver campaigns for our clients, country wide.

We’re part of the Grayling global network with a worldwide outlook.

And we look at the trends that can change society.

We empower the young, who in turn power change. We care about our country’s health, so we educate.

Politics, people, property. Construction, crisis, community.

You name it, we have it covered.

We’re Grayling, Southampton.

Gosport Oil Fuel Depot Redevelopment

We were tasked to support the multi million pound redevelopment of the Oil and Pipeline Agency’s Gosport facility.

Redevelopment included significant construction work within a residential area. Grayling was appointed to manage community and stakeholder engagement.

Phase one involved announcing construction plans to the local community and key stakeholders, including the local MP and Councillors.

Conscious that the construction process may cause an element of disturbance, we were keen to act as a ‘good neighbour’, engaging with communities and individuals to find ways of eliminating or reducing these effects.

Grayling coordinated a public information event to announce the plans, inviting local residents, businesses, Councillors and other interested organisations. The event provided an opportunity for OPA and the Ministry of Defence to meet with residents and discuss the plans.

100 Attendees to the public information event along with 11 key stakeholders

56 of those who attended gave positive feedback on the event

IFA2 Interconnector: Engaging Schools in Fareham

We were engaged to create and oversee the deliver of the Employment and Skills Plan; part of the Section 106 agreement for IFA2, a significant infrastructure project in Fareham.

Grayling worked closely with the various contractors to agree a commitment towards the Employment and Skills Plan. We negotiated with the local authority to create a plan to work from across the duration of the project.

There is a skills shortage in the engineering industry so we wanted to engage as many local children as possible; to tell them about the project, but more importantly, get them engaged in STEM subjects.

We built relationships with local schools, colleges and organisations such as EBP South. We developed a workshop on electricity, aimed at exciting the children. We sponsored and attended local events, reaching as many people as possible locally.

8,000 Children engaged through direct events

2,000 People engaged at the 75 D-Day at Daedalus celebrations across two days

Engaging influencers in the south

We manage media and crisis comms for Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth. The centre recently asked us to help drive footfall and target new geographical areas within their catchment. With the media landscape changing and less opportunities in traditional regional media for lifestyle content, we created and implemented an influencer engagement programme.

This involved using our relationships to introduce influencers from key catchments in the south to the centre through events, takeovers and partnerships. We created opportunities for influencers to experience the centre, inviting them to new openings, organising day trips and hosting VIP influencer events.

We also selected a small number of influencers to partner with through paid-for projects to promote certain key moments throughout the year.

Recently, we have hosted Instagram takeovers, helping Gunwharf Quays to grow their social audiences.

75 YOY increase in social media coverage

136,000 Accounts reached with one influencer partnership, resulting in 500 visits to the centre’s Instagram page

Launching M&S Ocean Retail Park

Grayling was tasked with coordinating media and opening day activity for the launch of M&S Ocean Retail Park Portsmouth, in conjunction with a store closure on Portsmouth high street during the Easter holidays.

To generate excitement in the area, the opening of M&S Ocean Retail Park, which is located in an out of town retail development, would need to dial into community messaging and create a real sense of celebration for local residents.

Grayling partnered with local media outlet The News Portsmouth to launch a Community Hero Competition, seeking a local champion to cut the ribbon on opening day. A representative from Portsmouth charity, Football for Cancer, was selected and the store pledged its support to the organisation making it its official Charity of the Year for 2018.

To generate excitement on opening day, an Easter egg hunt was held in store giving away M&S gift cards, Easter themed arts and crafts were available in the stores café and seasonal food and wine tasters were given.

45 Positive pieces of coverage achieved in key regional titles

4m Total reach of coverage

Southampton Solent University

We deliver media relations, event management, stakeholder engagement and public affairs support to the University. One of the key objectives of our work is to engage with businesses to improve reputation and level of engagement.

One of the key aims was to increase Solent’s share of the voice within Parliament. However, with their engagement they were often competing other universities, especially on issues such as Brexit.

We decided to utilise Solent’s maritime expertise and sought to engage Government, Parliament and industry through a number of different avenues.

This activity culminated in a policy roundtable that focused on maritime skills and brought together Government, MPs and key industry stakeholders in an effort to develop policy proposals on the future of the sector.

We undertook media training workshops, a media engagement plan along with developing a stakeholder engagement strategy, implementing a number of key stakeholder events including a live debate on the EU referendum and the launch of the Spark building.

200 Target audience aligned attendees at Sparks event

Grayling have supported our marketing strategy for a number of years, aligning our PR with the requirements and future direction of our shopping destination. They have established themselves as a key part of our team, showing passion and focus for our business, and a can-do attitude in delivering against our agreed KPIs.

Yvonne Clay, Senior Marketing Manager, Landsec

We simply could not believe the outstanding coverage which TRN benefitted from during it’s launch on the first anniversary. We secured significant national broadcast coverage in the mainstream news media, both TV and radio, as well as high profile national and regional press profile. Our social media presence was awesome too. It meant that the charity attracted significant interest and funding and this is in good part down to the outstanding work and support delivered to us by Grayling. From the initial planning right down to the messaging and media training, the team left no stone unturned. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Sean Gardner, Gründer, Trauma Response Network

Working with an agency as professional and dedicated as Grayling makes achieving media coverage easy. They work hard to understand our business and are proactive in thinking about new areas for coverage through their innovative approach to all communication channels. I’ve had negative experiences with PR agencies before, but how Grayling have worked with the BCA has changed my view on the value of PR agencies.

Lisa King, Director of Communications and Marketing, British Chiropractic Association