But as I’ve found my feet having a month ago switched from being a journalist, I’ve noticed something which gives me an early notion of what I would advise clients still adapting to making PR a serious part of their business strategy.

One key thing, I would tentatively suggest, is that there are periods when the media and corporate worlds operate on entirely different timescales and priorities. As a reporter I was used to distilling complicated ideas and events within a day into a bite-size, easily digestible offering for the reader.

As deputy news editor I used to advise reporters to write their stories with paragraphs like a series of information-rich shots of “news-booze” – and not a weak, everlasting shandy which no one wants to finish.

To a company eager to get their messages across in detail, highlight their opinions and forestall any offence, that can sound a risky prospect; the pace and intensity of news production can jar with the necessary analysis, cooperation and planning that can help form strong businesses strategy.

And I’m not saying for a second that there isn’t a place for PR agencies contributing with their clients to considered, detailed coverage – there is. In some ways, it’s regretful that the growth of 24-hour coverage has made the soundbite king and made it harder for good, but complicated, news to be heard.

Yet sometimes, to get your company noticed, you have to trim the fat from your message and jump into the fast lane to get it delivered on time to make the news deadline, raise your profile and have people listen to your brand.

The companies with the best reputations understand this at all levels: from the chief executive promoting its record-breaking annual results that very morning on Sky News, down to the shopfloor worker whose charity run on Saturday gets the firm’s name into an attention-grabbing picture story at the top of a page in the local daily on the Monday.

And to achieve that sometimes means running with the news pack, getting that information back, returning those calls and having faith in your PR agency to understand the needs of the media to get you, your business and your shareholders top quality coverage that hits the deadlines – and make the headlines.

On behalf of everyone here at the Remarkable Group, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your ongoing support. We are all extremely proud to be representing your organisation, and hope to continue our relationship for many years to come.

You may not be aware of the annual PR Week Top 150 PR agencies league table that was released this week. Every agency across the country wants to get onto this prestigious list, and for the third year running Remarkable has managed to do just this.

In fact, we have been placed at number 78 in the table this year, jumping over 20 places from 2011.

This has been an incredible effort from everyone at Remarkable. For the second year running we also ranked on the list as the top agency in our region, and the 13th largest firm outside London.

Last year was certainly another tough one for everyone involved in business, and this year will also be challenging, so we were delighted with our performance. We couldn’t have done it without your continued support.

Stephen Pomeroy, Chief Executive

The website has been created using an Open Source Content Management System; which has access to a wide support community of developers. Working with existing brand guidelines the design of the website makes use of strong, colourful images to promote the key services they offer and demonstrates the team’s expertise.

The personal touch is important to Portcullis Public Affairs; Remarkable developed a team area that allows each team member to have their own profile, demonstrating their experience and allowing users to the website to get in touch directly.

Dynamic content is key to keeping your visitor engaged so the new website features a news and events area where Portcullis Public Affairs can keep their visitors up-to-date with the latest industry news.

This was the statement I first read months ago and thought, this should be quite simple to solve, if not fairly intrusive to the normal browsing experience. Since reading into the privacy law, however, it has become more and more vague about what is required for specific cookies.

What is a cookie?

I know some of you are thinking it is a biscuit with chocolate bits in, however, this is not the case when it comes to web terms. A cookie is a small piece of information created by a website and then stored on your computer. The next time you go to the same website, it can access that cookie and the data inside it.

Where are cookies used?

There are many features within websites which require cookies, and these are outlined below:

Analytics

Analytics is a software package which can be used to track a users journey throughout your site, where they came from and what they do. The most common example of this would be Google Analytics.

Unfortunately the new law means that users have to opt-in before we can start tracking this data.

Advertising

Nearly all web adverts are now tailored towards you based on the sites you have visited and the products you have looked at. All this information is stored in cookies which gets analysed to give you the most targeted advertising possible.

As with Analytics, users will now have to opt-in to allow this data to be stored.

Conversion tracking

This is when you sign up for an affiliated account with, for example, Amazon. A user goes to Amazon with a unique URL which tells Amazon to store a cookie on their computer with this information. If the user chooses to opt-out then you will not receive your percentage of sales which you are sending to Amazon.

Add to basket

When you add items to a shopping basket, a cookie is stored. This however falls under the “strictly necessary” section of the cookie law:

“This exception is a narrow one but might apply, for example, to a cookie you use to ensure that when a user of your site has chosen the goods they wish to buy and clicks the ‘add to basket’ or ‘proceed to checkout’ button, your site ‘remembers’ what they chose on a previous page. You would not need to get consent for this type of activity.”

So this functionality is unaffected by the cookie law.

There are many other ways in which cookies are used, some of which will be affected by this new law.

How will this affect UK-based companies?

 As of May 26th 2012, it will be a legal requirement for users to opt-in to third party cookies which are set on a UK based website. Although the fine can be up to £500,000 the actual risk of prosecution is extremely low. Tens of thousands of organisations websites will be affected, and if we look at the statistics for similar laws which have been enforced in the past we can see how unlikely prosecution will be:

Data Protection Act
Cases received: 33,234
Cases closed: 32,714
Prosecutions: 9
Enforcement notices: 15

Freedom of Information Act
Cases received: 3,734
Cases closed: 4,196
Regulatory and enforcement actions: 3

How will this affect EU-based companies?

At the moment the UK is the only country which has provided firm guidance on what is required. All other EU countries will probably begin to adopt the same laws in the future.

Conclusion

Whether many companies enforce this law for their own website is going to be a question we can ask for the early months after the law has been enforced. Where the likelihood of being prosecuted is quite low I don’t think we will see much change in the smaller organisations.

The ICO (who are enforcing the law) have obviously implemented a solution to their website, http://www.ico.gov.uk/, but frankly it is an ugly and clunky solution. If they are setting the trends to enforce this law I think they should be considering a more graceful solution, as they will find that not many people will want to have an ugly notification appear at the top of every page on their website.

Here I was, making my way down the second biggest mountain in the UK; ready to jump a good few feet from one rock to another having never done any sort of climbing before. I couldn’t even get up the rock wall in PE at school.

But, I made it – just.

My Snowdon climb came about for two reasons. Initially, as I’m fast approaching my 30th birthday I wanted to set myself a challenge. Secondly, and more importantly, after my Nan passed away at Christmas I wanted to raise some much-needed money for Macmillan – a charity close to my family’s heart.

And so, with my sister and closest friends packed into two cars we set off for North Wales looking forward to a few drinks when we arrived.

There was no need to worry about tomorrow – it’s just a walk right?

Well no, it’s not. Do not be fooled by the path which greets you at the start of the Miner’s Track; it doesn’t last long.

Within an hour-and-a-half our designated leader had decided to take us off-piste and we were scrambling up the side of Snowdon.

Every time we asked how much further he shouted “one more mile.” Did he think we were stupid?

Eventually, after three tiresome hours, we reached the point of no return. We really were within a mile of the summit.  Standing there at the top of Snowdon – 3,560ft above the ground was the most surreal and amazing experience.

However, the scaredy cat in me quickly took over and all I could think was how the hell were we going to get down.

Negotiating blizzard conditions, my drama queen reaction to the sheet ice was justified.  I skidded into my friend, almost pushing him over the edge of a cliff. Luckily the rugby playing paid off and he managed to hold us both up. Phew!

I’ve looked up the “easy track” since getting home and it most definitely was not what we were on.

But, we all survived, had an incredible experience, took in some breathtaking sights, and raised well over £1,000 for a brilliant cause.

Apparently we’re going to tackle Ben Nevis next year – I can’t wait!

But having had a little time to switch the lights on and have a poke around, it turns out the dark side is brighter than I’d been led to believe. It’s different, the aims aren’t the same, and its processes unfamiliar, but essentially it’s still about communicating and adding to the discussions which shape our newspapers, conversations down the pub and what we see in the wider media.

Working a newsdesk is about editing and collating the different views and facts of a newsworthy item into a clear, entertaining and attractive package of information and pictures. Having made the jump, as a beginner I’ve found PR a vital part of that; putting forward views and arguments to give your clients a fair say and giving them credit for good works.

As a journalist you’re more likely to be retelling bad news, complaints and arguments than the good, positive stories – which are often ignored but are nevertheless the flip side of every report, issue and controversy. And it’s now up to me to help make sure those don’t get forgotten among the everyday soup of negative reporting.

However, it didn’t take long to grasp that the final product of all that hard work is actually – somewhat counter-intuitively – not the finished press release, which will only rarely appear in the media in the form you’ve sent it.

In PR the ultimate target is good coverage, getting your clients’ key messages and information across – a far cry from seeing my stories and headlines running off the presses week-in week-out with only minor alterations. But the switch feels like going from chairing the debate to actually being part of it.

The challenge for me is to use the journalistic skills and instincts I’ve learned to shape and power the message so that it will pass through the lines of news editor, reporter, sub and editor and reach the other side still flying the flag.

I had my first success this week when a press release I’d written appeared on a website virtually unscathed. My job then is to try to repeat that, get our clients’ viewpoints out there, and continue to contribute to the debate – be it about a planning application, new business scheme or policy drive.

Watch this space…

After being taken on a tour around the building and being welcomed into the team, I was soon thrust into my first meeting, discussing one of the many clients that the company aims to help. From the results of that meeting came my first task, to research potential sponsorship opportunities for that company and how to best market the service that they were trying to offer. Google was my friend and I began drawing up a list of potential venues, events and other opportunities for which the company could be effectively marketed to the right demographic.

Day 2 brought a new challenge where I turned into a data analyst. By looking at a number of companies’ websites and mobile sites, I wrote a brief report containing statistics on the length of time people viewed the sites, where they were from, how many pages they viewed etc. as well as a few ways on how their mobile sites could be improved to provide a better user experience. Through the rest of the week I also drew up an idea for an article for the Mindsnacks section on the website as well as a few other bits of research. The week ended on a high, with boxes upon boxes of pizza making way into reception for us all to delve in to. Mmmmm…

Week 2 began on the following Tuesday and my main task for this week was to create a DM for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in June. I set about coming up with a few ideas and once I had chosen the one, began looking into the costs and overall design of how it would look. I ended my stint at Remarkable pretty much in the same manner as I started, in the infamous Meeting Room 1. With a captive audience of Julian, Nick, Georgia and Emily, I presented my idea and heard their feedback on what they thought and what could be added to it.

Overall, Remarkable has some fantastic people working for them, all dedicated to making the business the best it can be and enjoying themselves as well; all of which made my two weeks at Remarkable a fun and enjoyable experience from which I learned a lot about the company and the industry that it is in.

James May

Welcomed with smiles, bright faces and a book about directing films, I set to work learning about what goes into producing a film from a director’s point of view. Armed with a media studies A Level that briefly touched on cinematography, my first task provided me with the opportunity to do some in-depth learning about something new; by lunchtime I had attempted to absorb the basics of directorial production.

The next task involved switching my research brain on, looking into a prestigious Hampshire family to write a summary of their history for an internal presentation. Feeling like a historian, I established the main points and went about cutting them down into a summary. Being near the end of a design degree and not having studied history for six years, the number of blokes called John with sons called John made things slightly confusing, but I got there in the end.

Other tasks have involved stock music searching, video research and learning about filming equipment, meaning I could get involved with different projects, different briefs and different people, finding out how the busy Winchester based PR, marketing and creative agency works.

A great group of people make up Remarkable, all friendly and welcoming, providing an inside perspective on how they work and how they came to be working in a beautiful building on the outskirts of this ancient city.

Graham Read

The guys and girls at Remarkable Group, made a huge effort for International Women’s Day.

Throughout the week teams in every department held a number of fundraising activities. Cake sales took place, and on the official day itself, a tea party was enjoyed by all, as well as the official ‘Raffle of the Century’!

Through the fundraising activities, Remarkable has managed to raise valuable funds which will be donated to Oxfam’s International Women’s Day fund. The money will support Oxfam’s ongoing activities which are changing the lives of women in poverty and danger around the world.

Remarkable’s chief executive, Stephen Pomeroy said: “Our fundraising activities for International Women’s Day have been a great success, and we’re extremely pleased to be able to support such a worthy cause.”

Operating throughout the UK and Europe the agency has welcomed new recruits with outstanding skills across its PR, digital and marketing divisions, ranging from account executives to account directors.

Working on public consultation, the engagement team has been joined by Carlene Leonard, Paul Beauchamp, Stephen Jolly, Tom Hewitt and Owen Hind. Samantha Clough and Nick Hart are the newest additions to the digital team while the PR team is strengthened by the appointment of Sam Nickerson.

Stephen Pomeroy, chief executive at Remarkable, said: “The recruitment drive is on the back of some significant new business wins. Appointing this number of staff is an investment into the future of Remarkable, which given the difficult economic climate we are optimistic going forward.

“This is a significant step for us as the business continues to grow and develop. With such new talent, 2012 is promising to be a successful year ahead.”