Cause UK specialise in supporting ethical businesses, good causes, festivals and the arts with award winning public relations services.
Campaigning for Culture New Writing North. Cause UK Public Relations provided support (Aug-Nov ’24) to the reading and writing development agency, New Writing North (NWN), as their Marketing and Communications…
Campaigning for Culture New Writing North.
Cause UK Public Relations provided support (Aug-Nov ’24) to the reading and writing development agency, New Writing North (NWN), as their Marketing and Communications Specialist.
The role included a portfolio of activity including corporate comms, and promoting Durham Book Festival, the New Writing North awards programme, and its wider writing development activities.
This involved engaging with multiple partners and marketing teams within the organisation, alongside key delivery partners (namely, Durham County Council, Newcastle City Council, Durham and Northumbria University, Hachette UK, and Channel 4).
Highlights include:
Ancestral Reverb: Pitching and placing a story/interview around a music commission from Threads in the Ground (which premiered at Durham Book Festival).
The story featured in the pages of the Guardian, was broadcast on BBCR4, BBCR2, ITV Tyne Tees, and ran on BBC online.
Adam Cooper, Director of Threads in the Ground, wrote a testimonial for the work:
“What would be your ideal coverage” they asked. “Um….I mean the dream would be a Guardian article, but we’d settle for some regional press” I said. A few weeks later, we’ve had a BBC Radio 4 feature, a lead article in the Guardian online climate change section, BBC news, ITV regional news, and much more. I’m blown away by the coverage. That said, sometimes you can do the best possible PR work, and it comes down to luck and timing what gets picked up…So I also want you to know that Ann and Clair, as well as getting the results, have been great to work with. Efficient, organised, and lovely. Brilliant team 🙂 Thank you for what you’ve done for us!”
‘Talent is Classless’: Launching a campaign for a new writing centre for the north to national media.
Leading a coalition of civic, industry and academic leaders, New Writing North’s CEO Claire Malcolm developed a bid for a new national centre for the writing industries to be based in the North East, to rebalance the southern-centric publishing sector.
We launched this campaign to target media to influence government (to support their funding bid), working with key stakeholders.
We placed the story on BBC Radio 4 Today programme, arranging a pre-record with arts correspondent, Colin Paterson, and a further feature on BBC Radio 4 PM with Evan Davies, alongside regional radio (BBC Newcastle, Greatest Hits North East).
It also ran on BBC online, the front page of the local newspaper, and globally via MSN, Yahoo and Euro news (with interview requests from as far as India). We also positioned trade media such as the Bookseller, with a comment piece lined-up on the back of the news story. We then secured a feature interview in The Guardian with Claire (pictured).
In October, we also positioned an open letter signed by 80+ authors, with comment from author Pat Barker, in a full-page spread in the i newspaper.
Durham Book Festival
Placing stories in hyper local magazines, arts sites, regional radio and regional magazines and newspapers to promote ticket sales.
We worked with Visit Britain/Visit England PR team, Durham council comms team, North East CA, Northumbria University press team, the Forward Prizes for Poetry, and multiple other stakeholders on marketing support and PR stories.
Work included interviewing authors for local magazines, positioning reviews of author talks, and pitching and securing interviews on BBC radio and local/regional press. We also placed it as one of Good Housekeeping’s Best Book Festivals, and liaised with Visit Britain’s media team for cultural tourism.
Writing Development Projects
We pitched and placed a feature on how to get into screenwriting for Writing Magazine to promote screenwriting workshops, and liaised with Ch4 press team to announce its Ch4 Writing for Television Awards, supporting the awards night at an event at Leeds Playhouse.
In the few months we’ve supported New Writing North, we’ve secured over 177 online pieces of meaningful coverage, with stories on BBC Online, ITV, BBC R4, BBC R2, The Guardian, The i, VisitBritain, Good Housekeeping, Writers Online, Juno magazine, trade publications and local media such as Newcastle World, the Northern Echo, Yorkshire Post and Crack Magazine.
See an overview of press reach here.