RESULTS 2020

Prudential plc demerger: creating two FTSE 100 businesses

Prudential plc

Prudential plc demerger: creating two FTSE 100 businesses and becoming an Asia-led Group.

Investec Asset Management's demerger from Investec Group, rebrand and listing as Ninety One

FTI Consulting

FTI Consulting was hired by Investec Asset Management to advise on and execute the communications of its upcoming proposed demerger from Investec Group and subsequent IPO and dual listing on the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges as a newly branded, independent business - Ninety One.The client was impressed by the team's strategic...

Royal London acquires Police Mutual

Royal London

Royal London, the UK's largest life insurance, pensions and investment mutual, this year acquired Police Mutual Group (Police Mutual), a financial services company meeting the needs of the police, military and their families. The bulk of work was carried out during UK lockdown with staff working from home. Police Mutual voted unanimous...

Best handling of an IPO

FTI and Inspecs - Best handling of an IPO

FTI Consulting

Agency: Inspecs

FTI London was appointed as Inspecs- Financial Communications adviser in May 2019, following a competitive pitching process for the global eyewear design house and manufacturer's IPO-related communications. FTI worked in conjunction with the Inspecs team to strategically heighten the Company's profile and build a compelling equity narr...

Best crisis comms around the coronavirus

Mitigating cricket's greatest ever test

England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB

This submission demonstrates the ECB's world-leading communication and public affairs strategy to mitigate what could have been the summer that ended cricket as we know it. Through effective communication with Government, stakeholders and the media, we safely staged recreational, domestic and international fixtures, for both men and wo...

Pizza Hut Team Members: Delivering for Britain

Hanover Communications

As the disruption of Covid-19 spread across the UK, Pizza Hut needed to act fast to get the buy-in and support of its team members so they could continue delivering for Britain. They needed an efficient crisis communications campaign that reassured every staff member, showed team members at every level that they were genuinely valued a...

Back Don't Block

Newsworks & Bluestripe Group

In the early stages of the pandemic the UK's news publishers faced an unprecedented demand for their journalism, with traffic on their websites up by as much as 50% compared to pre-crisis levels.However, at the same time, blocklist technologies were preventing advertising from appearing alongside Coronavirus-related content, directly i...

NatWest Group Response to COVID-19

NatWest Group Commercial Banking Corporate Affairs Team

In February 2020 NatWest Group launched its new purpose with its new CEO Alison Rose at the helm. Weeks later, the global coronavirus pandemic struck, forcing many UK businesses from entrepreneurs to large corporates - to close their doors and wait for support and advice from thier banks and the government.As one of the UK's leading ba...

The Lighthouse of Storm Covid

Cognito Media

How do you help the business who helps businesses navigate a category 7 storm? Few businesses were immune from the impact Covid-19 brought with it and our client, HW Fisher were no different. Like any business Covid-19 caused uncertainty and meant they had to baton down the hatches, cancelling or postponing all standard marcomms activi...

Best crisis comms (excluding the coronavirus)

Fire, safety and rebuilding trust

BECG

When one of the biggest residential fires since the Grenfell tragedy broke out on a major housing estate in East London, BECG was brought in as the communications agency to lead the crisis response and lead media relations, stakeholder engagement and communications to 1,200+ residents and address concerns raised about the safety of oth...

Responding to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the energy sector

Energy UK

Energy UK's response to the coronavirus crisis and approach to engaging with Government and stakeholders to deliver our key objectives.

Best corporate internal comms or employee engagement campaign

RELX Corporate Communications

RELX

This submission tells the story of how RELX developed its own digital storytelling channel to transform its internal communications during the Covid-19 pandemic. So far, we have seen a tenfold increase in average number of reads for our published stories, a significant jump in employee net promoter scores, and positive feedback from ou...

Pizza Hut Team Members: Delivering for Britain

Hanover Communications

Throughout the Coronavirus pandemic, the Government has been clear that food delivery services have a vital role to play in helping to feed the nation.But with team members concerned about their health and safety as well as seeing comments from confused customers about why they were staying open, Pizza Hut needed to reassure its employ...

Delivering for the country: Then. Now. Always.

Royal Mail

When the UK went into lockdown, Royal Mail provided a much-needed lifeline to its customers, delivering rapidly increasing volumes of parcels - medication, Government letters, Covid-19 test kits and protective equipment - to more than 30 million addresses across the UK, including care homes, GP surgeries and schools.Royal Mail�s �Deliv...

Internal Comms Takes Centre Stage During a Global Pandemic

Upfield

Upfield's focus for 2020 internal comms was to increase the number of engaged Upfielders who advocate our purpose. Covid-19 meant adapting our strategy with employees working from home and in our factories.We engaged our Associates through campaigns and events, such as our Factory Workers Thank You campaign, Upfield Day, and virtual Le...

Best pro-active lobbying campaign on an issue or cause

#LetTheMusicPlay

Blakeney

During COVID the UK's world-famous live music sector needed government to understand that without support the UK live music industry could disappear.They needed to rapidly reach a political audience DCMS, No10, the Treasury. But the only sure-fire way of doing that would require mobilising huge numbers of the public to show the weight ...

Planet Positive

Brands2Life

The global food system accounts for 26% of green-house gas emissions. Tetra Pak is keen to play its part in tackling this in a positive way whilst providing nutrition to a growing global population. The �Planet Positive� campaign was all about galvanizing stakeholders, getting involved in UK government initiatives, increasing carton ad...

Axe The Reading Tax

PPA

The Professional Publishers Association (PPA), which represents consumer magazine and business media companies in the UK, led a sustained cross-industry campaign to correct this damaging anomaly by calling on the government to Axe The Reading Tax, supporting investment in journalism and helping promote greater levels of literacy.

Get HS2 Done

FIELD CONSULTING

HS2 is the biggest infrastructure project in Europe and will create a high speed rail link connecting London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. The project is designed to meet the long-term growth in demand for rail services, improve the reliability of the network, lower carbon emissions, boost connectivity by making journeys faster ...

Best campaign to actively form or shift Government policy

Home and Dry - The Commercial Fishing Safety Campaign

Mindfully Wired Communications

A landmark campaign for the UK's commercial fishing industry, Home and Dry is a nationwide fishing safety campaign developed in partnership with fishermen, for fishermen. The campaign set out to target the low levels of compliance with the International Labour Organisation's work in fishing convention (ILO 188), a new law which makes w...

#LetTheMusicPlay

Blakeney

Axe the Reading Tax

Publishers Association & PPA

The Publishers Association's strategic and impactful Axe the Reading Tax campaign resulted in VAT on ebooks and journals being removed in this year's Spring Budget.The Chancellor's choice to echo the campaign's messaging, both in his speech and on his social media, speaks to the effectiveness of the Axe the Reading Tax campaign.

Kickstarting Employment Support from Government

BECG

BECG helped client Communities that Work to secure some of the largest Covid-19 commitments from Government through the campaign for an Opportunity Guarantee, which delivered nearly 900m from Government to double the number of work coaches in Jobcentres to 27,000, 2bn for a new Kickstart Scheme to support the young and unemployed, and ...

Best use of media relations in a campaign

Save Pub Life

3 Monkeys Zeno

Due to Covid-19, the UK government ordered all pubs to close from 20 March 2020, crippling an industry in one directive. Within a week, Budweiser Brewing Group UK&I had launched Save Pub Life, a new scheme, which encouraged consumers to buy gift cards to use at their local pub once it re-opened.The brewer pledged to match the value of ...

Farting Cows Make Dairy Butter More Harmful to Planet than Margarine

APCO Worldwide & 72 Point

Upfield challenged APCO and 72 Point to come up with a media campaign that would demonstrate the positive impact on the environment of switching from dairy butter to a plant-based margarine. Leveraging a study commissioned for Upfield that burping and farting cows make butter production three times more damaging to the environment than...

Raising hygiene standards during the Coronavirus pandemic

Brands2life

The coronavirus pandemic brought hand hygiene and specialist cleaning to the centre of the public's attention. It also spawned new competitors to a field that was traditionally quite niche. For business services company Rentokil Initial, cementing its expertise in the media wasn't just about brand awareness, it was vital for business s...

Best use of social media and/or influencers in a campaign

#ABetterPlantBasedFuture

APCO Worldwide & Automated Creative

Upfield challenged APCO to develop a documentary series, A Better Plant-Based Future, to promote plant-based eating, including plant margarine.Informed by research, we came up with a campaign strategy focused on working with micro-influencers to tell unexpected stories about the "unsung heroes" of the plant-based movement.Following a p...

Go Carton

Brands2Life

There's often a misconception amongst consumers that cartons can't be recycled. Tetra Pak, the world's leading packaging solutions company, wanted to debunk the myths, encourage people to choose cartons over other packaging choices, and crucially, to recycle them.To raise awareness of Tetra Pak's environmental credentials, Brands2Life ...

Celebrate the Single

Grayling

Grayling and Lloyds Bank would be worthy winners of this award as it brought together highly effective influencer relations, with one of Britain's best loved financial services brands to create a campaign that told a very different corporate story for Lloyds Bank.

Team or Agency Categories

Best agency for corporate and/or financial comms

Blurred

We've come a long way this last year, building on our vision for a radical ESGP focused business for a radical new world. Little did we know quite how radical!We're built for a world where old distinctions no longer apply. Where corporate is consumer, internal is external and communications consulting is management consulting.In the la...

Hanover Corporate

HANOVER COMMUNICATIONS

Despite the challenging circumstances experienced across the industry in 2020, Hanover's Corporate and Financial offering building on significant growth in 2019 continued to thrive. Thanks to a raft of new clients, a continued focus on delivering brilliant work that has a genuine impact (as one client told us, we literally kept the bus...

Houston...You solved our problem

Houston

We challenge ourselves to be a company that provides a fresh perspective on financial and corporate communications. In the past year we've added our first FTSE 250 client Biffa, doubled our retained client list, increased our revenue by 41% and grown our team so much we've moved offices to a larger space. We've looked after our team th...

Lansons

Formed in 1989, Lansons is a 31-year-old agency with the energy of a start-up that leads the industry on gender equality, ethical behavior, employee ownership and staff welfare.Our purpose is clear: to do great work for clients that we believe in, strive to be a great place to work for our people, and to make a positive contribution to...

Our strongest work, when it was needed most

Headland Consultancy

This year has seen Headland do its boldest work, at a time when businesses really needed brave advice. After eight years, and 130% income growth over the past three, we have hit (and passed) the 100 person milestone. We've continued to hire, promote and invest in our people. We're winning new clients, broadening our remit for existing ...

Portland Communications

At a time when the challenges to companies reputation and valuations come from a more diverse number of sources than ever, Portland has grown a truly integrated corporate and financial offer under one roof. We've eliminated unhelpful market constructs that have mitigated giving clients the best expertise and counsel. Our diverse team o...

Best agency for public affairs

Delivering the right advice, in uncertain times

Headland Consultancy

This year has seen Headland's PA team do its boldest work, at a time when businesses really needed brave advice. We have helped businesses engage at the very heart of Government, both to shape policy necessary for their survival and to play their part in the national effort against Covid-19. Throughout we have continued to grow, hire, ...

Blakeney

Blakeney was formed to bring creativity to Public Affairs, and our work in 2019/20 has exemplified that approach. Our work included: supporting Andrew Lloyd Webber to save British theatre during COVID; securing political support to get planning permission for a new arena in Manchester; getting Cher and The Rolling Stones involved in Pu...

FTI Consulting Best Public Affairs Agency

FTI Consulting

The FTI Consulting Public Affairs team ethos is built on unrivalled expertise, sharp insights, and strong team culture. Advising clients with a clear sense of purpose on industry, policy and reputational issues, the PA mission goes beyond the core brief of advocacy & public policy communications. The team works on restructuring, busine...

Interel Consulting UK

Interel's diverse and dynamic UK team is 22 strong, including 21 brilliant executive staff members and 1 fantastic office manager.Interel works hard for our 45 clients, developing strong and lasting relationships which has helped us build our excellent reputation in the industry.We've also seen our most successful year to date with new...

Best corporate in-house comms team

Best corporate in-house comms Team / NatWest Group Corporate Affairs Team

NatWest Group

Agency: NatWest Group

The NatWest Group corporate affairs team is one of the busiest teams in the FTSE, with more than 15,000 news stories and 700 public affairs engagements each year. Over the past 12 months, the team has dealt with the departure of a CEO, the appointment of a successor, a change in branding from RBS Group to NatWest Group, the launch of a...

Best In House Team: O2 Corporate Affairs

The last year has presented challenges on a scale never seen before at O2. Despite not being in the same building together for nearly five months, O2's Corporate Affairs team has adapted to a unique situation and thrived in the face of challenge. In doing so, it has boosted its reputation through a clear narrative of how O2 is helping ...

Best In-house team - from zero to hero

Janus Henderson

As a result of a post-merger internal restructuring, the Janus Henderson global communications function was less than 2 months old in July 2019 and within 6 months our team increased from 2 to 11 members. In a year, the team managed to build a robust change communication process, reduced agency and third party vendor spend by 20%, laun...

Group Corporate Affairs

Lloyds Banking Group

Lloyds Banking Group's Corporate Affairs (GCA) team spent the best part of a decade rebuilding reputation, like many in the banking sector, following the 2008 financial crash. The appointment of Andrew Walton as Group Corporate Affairs Director in 2019 allowed GCA to re-ignite its purpose and set a new direction that would bring focus ...

Corporate and/or financial comms newcomer of the year

Molly Woodward

Grayling

Since starting at Grayling in July 2018, Molly quickly identified her ambition to deliver purpose-driven communications as a core interest area. Her early career in PR was defined by her ability to build impactful campaigns that uniquely sets her clients apart from their competitors.At Grayling, Molly has flexed across Corpsumer accoun...

shortlist

Ewan White

Grayling

Ewan is an account manager on the corporate team at Grayling who has quickly become an integral part of team working on clients across financial services, fintech and technology. He has progressed through the ranks and managed multi-market campaigns for a range of clients from the hottest fintech disruptors like Alpian and Coinbase to ...

Public affairs newcomer of the year

Amy Owens, Public Affairs Executive

PPA

Amy joined the PPA in February 2018 as graduate, new to the workplace and to her career in public affairs. Over the past two years she has grown to become a respected and trusted colleague who has been integral to the PPA's public affairs successes and invaluable to the association's membership. Amy has built her reputation on a rare b...

finalist

Sam Winter

Grayling

Corporate and/or financial comms professional of the year (agency)

Bill Myers

Liberty Global

2020 was an exceptional year for Bill Myers. The Managing Director of Liberty Global's External Communications team played a leading role in the announcement of the $31bn merger of two of the UK's biggest consumer brands as VM and O2 came together dubbed the deal of the decade by the FT. Bill also played a critical role in the creation...

Corporate and/or financial comms professional of the year (in-house)

Sarah de Lagarde

Janus Henderson

Sarah de Lagarde has built a global corporate comms function, consolidated and streamlined the PR agency and external vendor structure, as well as brought together a team of international PR professionals in record time. In less than a year she has overcome any challenge thrust at her and rapidly became a trusted adviser to our CEO, CF...

Public affairs professional of the year (agency)