In association with

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations Northern Conference is an annual event delivered in partnership with three regional CIPR groups: North East, North West and Yorkshire & Lincolnshire who take it in turns to host the event. This year it is being hosted by the CIPR Yorkshire & Lincolnshire group and will be taking place on Tuesday 6 October 2009 at The West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds.

This one day conference, now in its eighth year, offers exceptional learning and networking opportunities and the programme features high profile keynote speakers and a choice of thought provoking and interactive master class sessions. The event is open to CIPR members and non members and will be of value to a wide range of delegates both agency and in-house from the public, private and not for profit sectors.

Keynote Speakers include:

Alastair Campbell
Alastair Campbell trained as a journalist and was a high profile political commentator when Tony Blair asked him to be his press secretary on becoming Labour leader in 1994. Campbell worked for Blair as spokesman, press secretary, and finally director of communications and strategy for almost a decade. He has huge experience of media and politics and will be giving his analysis of how relations between the two have changed, and what that means for the communications industry.

He will be emphasising the importance of strategic communications as the only way to begin to make sense of the often bewildering pace of change in the media.

Yasmin Diamond, Director of Communication, Home Office
‘Behaviour change, perception management, and the impact on reputation’
Yasmin is Director of Communication at the Home Office. She works with, and advises, the Home Secretary, Ministers and senior officials on the strategic development and daily management of all the Home Office’s external and internal communications.

She was previously Director of Communications at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. During her time there she repositioned the communications function, established a new campaigning arm to promote the climate change brief and helped shape messages on a range of issues where there was heightened external interest. Yasmin joined the civil service in 2000 as Head of Communications for Welfare to Work and New Deal where she led a number of large scale marketing campaigns before moving on to become Head of Marketing at the Department for Education and Skills.

Before joining the civil service, Yasmin was Publicity Commissioner for the BBC, where she publicised the launch of a new digital learning channel and promoted the BBC’s educational output - for both adults and children.

After graduating she began her career in arts marketing at The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television and then moved to Axis - Visual Arts Information Service. Changing sectors, she became Marketing Manager for Bradford Health Authority with a remit to raise public awareness of health issues. Her career in health communications progressed into national communications when she worked for the NHS Executive, the headquarters of the largest public sector organisation in Europe.

Heather McGregor, Columnist, Weekend Financial Times
‘Comment versus news: the risks and rewards of targeting columnists’
Heather McGregor, a national newspaper columnist for ten years and the writer of more than 100,000 published words a year talks about where she gets her ideas from, and how she sees the ‘commentariat’ becoming an even more important target in the future.

Heather joined Taylor Bennett, Europe’s leading communications search firm, in 2000 and is now the company’s principal shareholder. She graduated from Newcastle University in 1984 and then worked in advertising and financial pr. While working, Heather studied for her MBA at the London Business School. Upon graduation she joined ABN AMRO’s equities division as an investment analyst and worked, over an eight-year period, in London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Heather has a PhD in structural finance from the University of Hong Kong and is a visiting professor at Cass, City University Business School.

John Nielson, Director of Group Media Relations, BAE Systems
‘Flying through the flak’
John Neilson MCIPR has more than 20 years experience in international corporate communications. His background includes issues management, external, internal and marketing communications, in the retail, automotive, aerospace and defence sectors.

In his current role he has been responsible for transforming the approach and structure of the global media relations team at BAE Systems, a FTSE 50 company and one of the world’s largest defence, security and aerospace businesses, turning a team with a mixed reputation into an award winning, proactive unit, with a solid reputation for being among the sector’s best.

His work has included overseeing communications support for £ multi-billion merger and acquisition projects and managing the impact of one of the UK’s biggest investigations into allegations of corporate impropriety.

Master Class Sessions include:

Delegates select four of the following sessions to attend –

Social Media – Rob Brown, MD (UK), Staniforth
Rob graduated from York University in Economics and Politics and spent a year in radio before joining Staniforth as a PR account executive. He ran his own media PR business in the 90s, working with ITV, Granada, Channel Four and Endemol. In 1999 he joined McCann Erickson as PR Director to set up their PR operation working there for seven years with clients as diverse as Durex, Aldi, Peugeot and the Disability Rights Commission.

In 2008 Rob returned to Staniforth, now part of the TBWA group, as its UK Managing Director responsible for its offices in Manchester and London. He works with companies and brands that include M&S, Nissan, Haagen Dazs and the NHS. He was named ‘outstanding PR Professional’ by the North West CIPR last November and is the author of 'Public Relations and the Social Web' published by Kogan Page in April 2009.

Twitter – Stuart Bruce, MD, Wolfstar
Twitter is probably the hottest social networking tool since Facebook and offers users an easy way to post short messages in real time via their desktops or mobile phones. These messages or ‘tweets’ were successfully used by the Obama presidential campaign to update and encourage voters and are being increasingly used by journalists and major brands to share thoughts and information.

Stuart is a founder and managing director of Wolfstar, a specialist public relations, social media and word of mouth marketing and communications consultancy that was the winner of the CIPR's Outstanding Small Consultancy 2009 award. He is listed in PR Week's PowerBook of the UK's most influential public relations practitioners which describes him as a "comms wunderkind trying to make his mark on the consultancy side. Seriously web savvy, his CV reads like a top ten of all things tech". Stuart has run UK and global social media campaigns and provided strategic counsel to clients as varied as Sony Ericcson, Philips, energywatch, Ministry of Defence and Health Secretary Alan Johnson.

Stuart is one of the UK’s most influential PR bloggers and his presentation will examine how this micro-blogging service works, who’s using it and, most importantly, how Twitter can be used to reach audiences and create dialogues.

Creativity - Andy Green, Partner, GREEN Communications
Meme Judo + ‘Spin is Innocent, OK’
PR practitioners have failed to understand the DNA of communications – memes. As a result, they face missing out on the potential to create memorable, creative, messages whose word of mouth lives on and on.Sharing examples from the work of Edward Bernays to the latest cutting edge campaigns, Andy explains how to create your own memes and how to use them effectively.

Understanding memes provides the platform for challenging how we define public relations. It asks: ‘Does PR need a Brand overhaul? Are PR people just ‘propagandists’ who use spin every day? This is a talk to improve your performance, gain greater understanding of how communications works, and your role within it – and most importantly, to get you thinking. Pass it on.

The talk is previewing new material from the 4th edition of Andy’s book ‘Creativity in Public Relations’ (due out in November)

Radio PR – Shahid Hussain, BBC Radio Leeds
BBC local radio offers a huge opportunity for PR’s and the companies and organisations they serve. The BBC are always keen to hear PR generated local stories if they are of genuine public interest. Unfortunately PR practitioners often make mistakes or squander good opportunities when pitching, which is a shame when there is potentially a great story that BBC listeners would have enjoyed.

Shahid Hussain, producer of BBC Radio Leeds’ popular week day show The Big Drive Home, will explain how PRs can work effectively with the BBC so everyone benefits and he’ll also explode some myths about the corporation and offer practical do’s and don’ts. As an interactive session he’ll be very happy to take questions and hear ideas.

Social Marketing - Sarah Knight, Engagement and PR Director, BJL
Changing behaviour through engagement
Sarah is a senior marketer with over 15 years experience gained from Manchester’s leading agencies and her workshop explores the design, implementation and measurement of social marketing programmes drawing on best practice in alcohol misuse, domestic violence, maternity and obesity interventions.

Sarah has worked on award winning social marketing campaigns including the
European first for Hull PCT, ‘Strength to Change’ targeting perpetrators of domestic violence and ‘BeCotsafe’ for Manchester PCT which was a finalist at this year’s CIPR Excellence Awards and achieved an IPA Best of Health Award.

BJL have delivered social marketing campaigns for North Kirklees PCT, CHAMPS, Manchester PCT, Hull PCT and Versus Cancer.

Relationship Management - Victoria Tomlinson, CEO, Northern Lights
Building relationships at board level – internally and with clients

Victoria will look at building relationships to win and retain clients over 15 years or more, as well as winning the respect of colleagues from boardroom to peer departments. She will cover wide aspects of the relationship from getting paid on time to handling mistakes; following clients to their next job and recognising when the client relationship is not working.

A former director of Ernst & Young in London, Victoria set up Northern Lights nearly 20 years ago. The agency has always focused on achieving measurable business results for clients and has been recognised with national and regional awards for its successes.

Victoria started her career as a graduate trainee with Plessey Aerospace, sold banknotes in Africa and the Middle East for Bradbury Wilkinson (now De la Rue) before joining the start-up marketing team at Arthur Young, later Ernst & Young. She is on the advisory board of Northern Lights’ client, Bradford University School of Management and recently joined the board of Northern Ballet Theatre. Victoria plays an active part in the local community and is a Prince’s Trust mentor.

Budget PR – Beverley Tricker, Founder, Tricker PR
Beverley heads up one of Scotland’s most successful PR consultancies based in Aberdeen in the north east of Scotland – winner of the UK’s Most Outstanding Consultancy award in 2008 to add to another 17 industry awards.
The company was started by Beverley as a one woman business in 2001 following her career as a primary school teacher and a PR/Marketing manager and has grown to a team of 12 who now work on consumer and business to business accounts across the UK from work for VisitScotland to the Country Living Magazine Spring and Christmas Fairs in London and Glasgow. The agency specialises in dynamic and highly creative campaigns – and many of the award winning campaigns have been low budget campaigns or for not for profit organisations such as relief charity World Vision and the Scottish Women’s Rural Institute. Beverley also gained entry in 2009 to the PR Week Powerbook, considered to be the definitive guide to the most influential communication professionals in the UK.

Beverley will present case studies of several Tricker PR campaigns which have won national awards as low budget or not for profit projects. From the Portsoy Whistling Ban for the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival in 2008, which scooped a CIPR President’s Award, to the Scottish Women’s Rural Institute profile-raising project and several UK wide campaigns for World Vision’s child sponsorship and the alternative gift catalogue, Beverley will inspire you to look to your creative side for ideas which can be delivered in a spirit of fun … and for little budget. She’ll also emphasise the importance of photography in getting your point across whether you have something inspiring to show or just suited business people.

PR Survival in the Credit Crunch – Paul Willis, Director of the Centre for Public Relations Studies, Leeds Business School, Leeds Metropolitan University
‘Turn on, tune in and drop out: surviving the credit crunch’
How should organisations deal with a turbulent stakeholder environment? Are we living in different times? Has the mood of the public shifted? By considering these and other questions, Paul will discuss the strategic role that PR professionals can play in the post-Credit Crunch world. By sharing insights from the latest research he will highlight how practitioners can help organisations tune in more effectively to the world outside and engage in a new and effective dialogue with the people and groups that matter.

Paul Willis is Director of The Centre for Public Relations Studies (CPRS) a think-tank that delivers market leading research, consultancy and training to communication practitioners in the UK and abroad. The Centre’s research can be found in leading academic journals and publications, while its team is regularly invited to speak at conferences and seminars around the world.

The Centre’s base in Leeds Business School ensures that its work is completely independent and this academic freedom means it has developed an excellent network of relationships that includes many of the UK’s top communication professionals, other leading experts and industry analysts. Present and past clients include the Cabinet Office, NHS, Home Office, Nokia, Tesco and Microsoft.

Prior to becoming a Director of the Centre, Paul was Deputy Managing Director at Ptarmigan Consultants culminating twenty years in communication consultancy. He was part of the team that won the PR Week ‘Consultancy of the Year’ award, as well as a string of other industry accolades. During his career he has worked as a retained consultant for clients including ASDA, BT, BMW, Ernst & Young, npower, Proctor and Gamble, RBS, The Football Association, Wm. Morrison and the NHS.
Paul began his career as a political consultant and headed up a media and research unit for a group of MPs at Westminster.

Online Evaluation – Robin Wilson, Director of Digital PR and Social Media, McCann Erickson
Robin has worked in social media and technology PR and marketing for over 18 years, running campaigns for brands including Apple, MTV digital, Motorola, Facebook and Yahoo. Most recently, Robin helped launched the iPhone in the UK, headed up the UK Facebook communications team and launched the UK version of Yahoo! Answers.

Robin’s presentation will examine the importance of monitoring online coverage with an emphasis on free software tools for the job. He will also offer an insight into the issues of measuring and evaluating the ever-growing influence of social media on your brand or organisation.

Booking Information

Ticket Prices: £175 + VAT for CIPR members / £225 + VAT for non members and include lunch and refreshments.

A PDF brochure is available here

To book your place or for further information please contact Nicky, Andrew or Jay at Don’t Panic on 01706 828855 or email Nicky nicky@dontpanicprojects.com

Alternatively tickets can be booked online at - http://www.dontpanicprojects.com/ciprbooking.htm

We would like to thank our headline event sponsor Contemporary Urban Centre Liverpool


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