RatedPeople the UK’s largest online trade recommendation service, has selected Diffusion as its retained consumer PR agency as part of an on-going strategy to build brand-awareness among its core homeowner audience.

The campaign will focus on introducing the RatedPeople.com platform as the place to find trusted, quality, local tradespeople for a range of home improvement jobs. The campaign will also highlight the importance of the site’s ratings system, which allows people to provide honest feedback on the tradesmen they hire, which is a key differentiator for RatedPeople.com, and has helped it grow to become the UK’s largest online trade recommendation service.

A key campaign objective will be elevating the RatedPeople.com brand, so that it becomes the first choice for homeowners searching for a local tradesman, but also the destination for quality tradesmen to find jobs instead of relying on directory services.

RatedPeople.com was founded in 2005. Homeowners who are in need of a tradesman can post jobs for free on RatedPeople.com and receive quotes from up to three interested tradesmen. This makes the site a two-way platform, connecting over a million homeowners with over 30,000 local tradesmen each month.

Tariq Dag Khan, CMO RatedPeople.com commented: “Online trade recommendation is the future for homeowners looking to find quality tradesmen they can trust. The industry is still in its nascent phase and there is a level of education needed to make homeowners aware of the ease and benefits of using the service. We want to raise awareness of our company, and the advantages for tradesmen and homeowners of using us, so Diffusion’s creative ideas and payment by results model meant the decision to work with them was an easy one to make.”

Tom Malcolm, Diffusion’s Head of Consumer said: “RatedPeople.com is perfectly placed to fill the increasing demand from consumers to get online recommendations when making decisions about their home. Diffusion’s expertise in harnessing the power of word of mouth recommendation, gained from our work on our other home-based consumer clients such as Dunelm Mill, will help to shape the campaign. Though a series of integrated creative campaigns we’re confident that we can continue to strengthen RatedPeople.com’s number one position in the home improvement market.”

Hotels.com, the world’s leading hotel booking website has appointed integrated agency Diffusion to raise consumer awareness of its mobile offering through a content seeding campaign to drive visibility and downloads of the Hotels.com’s mobile and tablet apps. The brief will be driven by examining trends on how mobile technology is changing the travel industry, positioning Hotels.com as a pioneer in this space.

A central objective of the campaign will be to drive downloads by combining strategic placement and product reviews in consumer tech media with the generation of consumer news stories. Supplementary to this, the campaign will also communicate the advantages of exclusive app hotel deals and the unique Welcome Rewards loyalty programme to personal finance media.

Alison Couper from Hotels.com commented:  “Since the app launched early last year, we have already achieved several million downloads but now want to take it to the next level. We want to drive downloads to a point where everyone who uses the website will use the app so all our customers have the advantage of booking with speed, security and convenience – whenever and wherever suits them best. We also want to underline the exclusive mobile late deals we offer through the app. We’re keen to get the app the exposure it deserves which is why we appointed Diffusion’s specialist Mobile team with their proven track record for delivering successful app awareness campaigns.”

Ivana Farthing, Head of Mobile Practice, at Diffusion continued: “The Hotels.com app offers the spontaneity that travelling consumers need, whether they are caught out and need to find somewhere to stay quickly, or are simply browsing hotels for their next holiday on their way home. This app in particular is the perfect embodiment of what the best travel apps should deliver: spontaneity, ease and help on the go and we’re excited to be working with Hotels.com, using our expertise in strategic app promotion to raise awareness and drive downloads.”

Taking place on September 8th during Mobile Marketing Week, organised by Mobile Marketer, Women In Wireless will be holding a multi-city speed networking event, with similar parties organised in San Francisco, New York, Toronto, Calgary and, for the first time, London.

Women In Wireless was established to help empower and develop female leaders in the mobile and digital media industries. The organisation first formalised its efforts in 2009 by forming the Women In Wireless committee within the Mobile Marketing Association. Since then, the group has grown rapidly and today has over 1,000 members from companies including Google, mBlox, Apple, Cisco, American Express, Coca Cola and Disney.

Commenting on the launch of the UK’s first Women In Wireless event, Charlotte Fors, founder and co-chair of Women In Wireless said, “On September 8th,  women in New York, San Francisco, London, Toronto and Calgary will be getting together to ‘speed network’ with other people in the industry. We are very thankful to Diffusion Mobile & the GSMA for sponsoring the London event and helping us take the first step in becoming an international organization.”

Ivana Farthing, Head of Mobile practice at Diffusion added, “At Diffusion we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of innovation and are committed to supporting new initiatives and diversity across the sector. We have seen how successful Women In Wireless has been in the US and are looking forward to bringing it to the UK as the industry continues to grow.”

The Women In Wireless speed networking event will be held on Thursday 8th September from 6.30pm at the GSMA Member’s Lounge in London. For further information and registration, please visit  http://mobilemarketingweekuk.eventbrite.com

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Motors.co.uk, one of the UK’s leading used car search websites, has appointed Diffusion as its retained consumer PR agency.  Diffusion has been selected to develop and implement an integrated communications strategy using both traditional media and social media channels.  Key objectives of the campaign will include building brand awareness, amplifying a new TV advertising campaign and creating an online community around the Motors.co.uk brand.

Diffusion will be embarking on a sustained issues-based national and local media campaign for Motors.co.uk, aimed at articulating its motoring expertise and appeal to mainstream consumers, rather than just car enthusiasts.  The traditional PR campaign and Motors.co.uk’s wider marketing strategy will be closely integrated with the agency’s digital work.

Diffusion will be using its extensive expertise in community building and management to make Facebook central to Motors.co.uk’s online engagement strategy.  Social media platforms including Twitter, blogs and forums will also be used to build on the site’s goals of empowering mainstream car buyers and sellers and making car buyers feel safer and reassured about purchasing a used vehicle.

Phill Jones, commercial director, Motors.co.uk commented, “We recognised that we needed to take an integrated approach to our communication strategy to make the biggest impact. Diffusion impressed with their ideas and energy for building consumer engagement around our brand, allowing consumers to share their emotions around the car buying process.  They demonstrated that rare quality among agencies of being as strong in traditional media as they are in digital and crucially, expert at bringing those multiple channels together.”

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With a new year ahead of you it’s perfectly natural to be contemplating whether you are in the right job.  Are you working for clients you love, in a culture that is constantly innovating and pushing the boundaries of PR? Is your career where you want to it to be and can you see a clear path to promotion ahead of you? Is your employer investing in you to make sure you have the integrated communication skills which are essential for effective PR today?

If the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’, perhaps now’s the time to see what fresh opportunities are out there? 2010 was another year of great growth for Diffusion, winning new clients including, Metro, Mothercare, the Conservatives and Department for Business, Innovation & Skills.

We are now recruiting at a number of levels across our practices, so if you are looking for a new opportunity or think you have skills which would be a perfect match for our innovative integrated approach at Diffusion, please see our Careers page for more details.

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Diffusion has today launched of a new Film & Entertainment practice to shake up the UK PR market.  The division will be challenging both established PR players and digital agencies specialising in film, by providing entertainment brands with integrated traditional press and social media campaigns under one roof.  At launch, the division has secured Gateway Films as its first retained client and has also won the brief to promote director Reg Traviss’ latest film project, Screwed.

Diffusion has recruited Laura Pettitt, a highly respected senior film publicist from Freud Communications as its new Head of Film and Entertainment.  Laura has worked as the lead publicist on a series of high-profile projects including Bronson, Bruno, Kick-Ass, Adulthood and Made in Dagenham and has also managed ongoing PR campaigns for cinema chain Vue Entertainment and Sky Movies.

Pettitt commented, “Clients are becoming increasingly frustrated by mainstream media and digital campaigns being conducted by the same old agencies in isolation. All too often opportunities to create powerful campaigns integrated across media channels are being missed due to a lack of expertise, coordination or misplaced rivalry between agencies.  Our vision for Diffusion Film & Entertainment is to inject some much needed fresh thinking and competition into the agency space. We have built a team which brings together exceptional relationships with film journalists with Diffusion’s proven expertise in digital and social media campaigns.”

Diffusion Film & Entertainment has been retained by Terry Stone’s Gateway Films, the producers of Shank and Doghouse, to run the offline and digital campaigns for its slate of films in 2011. The first of these will be Weighed In, which starts shooting later this month and stars Bob Hoskins.

The agency has also been selected to work on Screwed, a feature being directed by critically acclaimed director and Reg Traviss (Joy Division, Psychosis).  The film is a semi-biographical story based on the experiences of former prison guard Ronnie Thompson, who spent seven years working in some of the UK’s most dangerous prisons. Based on Thompson’s book of the same name, the project stars James D’Arcy (Master & Commander) and Noel Clarke (Kidulthood).

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As you may have read in PR Week, Diffusion Mobile has been appointed by Upstream, the international mobile marketing and technology company to leads its integrated media strategy in the UK.  Upstream develops advanced mobile marketing solutions for major brands and operators across 40 countries.

Diffusion Mobile has been briefed to develop and implement an ongoing issues-based campaign to raise Upstream’s profile among chief marketing officers, global operators and analyst communities using online, trade and national media.

A central objective for us will be to raise and manage Upstream’s profile ahead of Mobile World Congress, taking place in Barcelona in February 2010. The campaign will focus on themes relating to consumer response rates and ROI from mobile marketing.

Alexandra Chong, Head of Marketing and PR for Upstream, described the rationale behind the appointment: “Mobile marketing is a young but crowded market, and to achieve penetration it’s vital to engage multiple audiences with very clearly defined messages. Diffusion Mobile was selected on the basis of their experience of executing successful campaigns in the mobile and marketing industries, borne out by the agency’s payment-by-results approach.”

Diffusion’s 2011 PR Graduate Scheme is now open and we’re looking for the brightest and the best to join our award winning team in September 2011.  For more information about our scheme, what we’re looking for in new recruits and to download an application form, please visit our Graduate Careers page here. Remember, the closing date is 31 January 2011.

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As reported by PR Week, La Senza, the global lingerie brand and retailer has appointed Diffusion to develop and implement its social media strategy in the UK and Ireland. This latest win builds on the agency’s expertise working with leading retailers including Primark, Mothercare and Early Learning Centre.

Diffusion has been tasked with increasing awareness and understanding of the La Senza brand, generating quality traffic to boost online sales and driving footfall in La Senza’s 190 stores across the UK and Ireland.  A central objective will be to use social media to emphasise La Senza’s affordable luxury values, the range and quality of product available in store and online and in-store expertise and service. This will be achieved through Diffusion building and managing a brand presence for La Senza on key online platforms to create conversation platforms, as well as running an ongoing influencer relations campaign with key fashion and lifestyle blogs and forums.

Situl Thakrar, Head of Online for La Senza commented, “Social Media has proved itself to be invaluable for fashion retailers in driving awareness and engagement with customers and, when done well, converting that engagement in to sales.  We are seeing our customers using social media not just as a way to communicate, but also as a way to engage with ‘subject matter experts’ when make a considered purchase”.

Thakrar continued, “There are an increasing number of agencies who claim they ‘get’ social media who are jumping on the bandwagon, but most lack the direct experience and results that Diffusion were able to demonstrate, particularly in advising retail brands.  What really set them apart was their understanding that social media does not sit in a silo and is vital in shaping and managing brand reputation across an organisation.  Diffusion’s focus on actionable insights and the bottom line will make them an integral partner in continuing to drive La Senza’s popularity and growth in the UK and Ireland.”

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As you may have read in Marketing Week, Diffusion has been working with mobile location-based social networking service Foursquare to create an official presence for our client Metro. This is a UK first with Metro becoming the first UK national newspaper to feature editorial content on the social networking site. You can follow Metro on foursquare here.

Users of Foursquare who follow Metro will now be able to view London restaurant and entertainment reviews from the UK’s third largest national newspaper when they ‘check- in’ to relevant places, providing them with up to date trusted reviews, exactly when they need them.

Jamie Walters, Digital Director, Metro had this to say, “Foursquare is a cutting edge social tool that helps users find new ways to explore cities, making it the perfect fit for Metro’s Urbanite and City Clicker audiences.  We are really excited to be the first UK newspaper to take advantage of this platform and I am sure users will find our reviews helpful when they are on the move and exploring the UK’s cities.”

Metro’s readers, particularly those living in London, have become enthusiastic early adopters of Foursquare in the UK and they are crying out for tips they can trust.  By creating a dedicated Metro layer on Foursquare we now have the ability to deliver targeted, timely and trusted editorial reviews to Metro readers and to create new opportunities for brands keen to work with an established media partner to deliver location based marketing.