We’ve directed all media relations and event management for this annual celebration of vocational qualifications for the past four years. Every February, we look forward to getting stuck into how we can make June’s event even bigger and better than last year.

2011’s VQ Day saw us bringing together some of the biggest voices in business for an employer roundtable. BAE Systems, Cisco, The De Vere Academy, Mitchells and Butlers, EDF Energy, Whitbread and other shining lights all signed up to a 12-month pledge to back vocational learning in their local communities. Across the country, more than 81 ministers were engaged with nearly 40 MPs signing an Early Day Motion pledging to support vocational qualifications.

We’ll keep you posted on how plans shape up for 2012’s celebrations on June 12th.

“Sure”, we said. “How about we come up with a new take on that old card game, where you have to find pairs of cards to win? We could ask tweeters to guess combinations to win Smartphones and other Three goodies. It could be streamed. Bet it’d trend globally.”

And it did. Within an hour, with 63 entries every minute.

Hundreds of talented amateur cooks have entered our competition for Dr. Oetker to find the star of the brand’s new online Bake TV tutorials. Now we’re just whittling down the finalists for an on camera baking test.

Bake TV is just the latest way in which we’ve ensured Dr. Oetker, a traditional cookery brand, is now at the forefront of embracing the massive trend for online baking communities. Last year, we set up Dr. Oekter’s first ever Facebook page, and with a combination of canny offline traffic drivers, spot on community management, engaging ideas and great trend spotting, we’ve brought in 40,000 fans in just under a year.

Anyone fancy volunteering to help clean up all the goodies from the test day?

Bob Geldof, Paloma Faith, Jimmy Carr and the TOWIE girls were just some of the celebs we got down to the packed out opening night. We’ve been handling the London run of the world-famous theatre group’s show for the past eight years, finding new ways to keep it fresh, exciting and front of mind for both the media and audiences alike. This year was no exception, as we rolled in headline after headline, resulting in 170 pieces on and offline and coverage in most national newspapers.

Every year, we’re judged on how well tickets sell. This year was a sell-out.

Citizen Brando managing director Mandy Sharp said: ’Airports are increasingly looking to create an emotional engagement with consumers.’

The agency will create and manage an experiential Christmas Market within the airport, to drive sales and increase passenger engagement.

Gatwick Airport marketing manager Lucy Thomas said: ‘Citizen Brando’s proven track record in developing and managing great brand experiences meant we were excited to be working with them on this project.’

The news follows the appointment of Spencer Sheen to the newly created role of head of retail, with responsibility for retail, food and beverage, bureaux and media. He joins Gatwick from Marks & Spencer where he held a number of roles both in the UK and abroad.

In August, Gatwick Airport’s executive director of comms Andrew McCallum resigned to take a job at oil and gas company Dana Petroleum.

Citizen Brando was recently created following the merger of Band & Brown Communications and Brando.

Citizen Relations formally bonds PainePR from the U.S., Optimum from Canada and Band & Brown and Brando from the U.K. and is further supported by strategic alliances in Asia Pacific, Latin America and India. After more than five years of collaboration, today’s launch is a significant milestone, unifying more than 200 practitioners and hundreds of affiliated experts around the world under the power of one new global agency brand.

“Citizen Relations reflects the democratization of communication and the changing landscape of how people receive and share information. Our efforts are fueled by deep insight-led understanding of people, their cares and influences, and we’re specially engineered for the new networked world,” said Daryl McCullough, chairman of Citizen Relations.
The four founding agencies are all members of the EDC Communications group of companies that also includes Dare and Elvis Communications. Regionally, the Citizen Relations agencies will be known as Citizen Paine in the U.S., Citizen Brando in the U.K. and Citizen Optimum in Canada; they will be grouped under the Citizen Relations brand globally. Jeffrey Group, SPRG and Creative Crest are strategic partners of Citizen Relations in Latin America, Asia and India, respectively.

“Citizen Relations is engineered to bring our award-winning regional brands, talent and service model to a global scale,” said McCullough. “ We leverage the full suite of assets available to modern communications professionals, from traditional media and influencers to social media and digital offerings, along with the always-on reputation and brand management that companies are seeking.”

“Citizen Relations is not another loosely-formed agency network,” said McCullough. “Our lead partners share common ownership, and together we’ve created an innovative global collaboration model that provides focused resources, an innovative organizational model, and fresh insight-based thinking that PR clients, regionally and globally, need to meet complex communications challenges today and tomorrow.”

The Citizen Relations international PR credentials are not new, as the teams are already providing a variety of global and regional strategy, creative and program execution services to international blue-chip clients and brands.

For more information about Citizen Relations, please visit www.citizenrelations.com.

Formed by uniting four Vision7 International PR agencies, renowned in North America and Europe, Citizen Relations represents the merger of Optimum in Canada, PainePR in the U.S., and Band & Brown and Brando in the U.K. It includes nearly 200 professionals in eight cities and hundreds of strategic resources in more than 60 cities across the world, which enables it to deliver large-scale campaigns, not only on a worldwide level, but on a regional and local scale, as well. Citizen Relations’ unique vision is based on collaboration, imagination, agility and boldness, to meet the new realities of the digital age. Citizen Relations is a member of the EDC Communications group; EDC is an operating group within the holding company Vision7 International.

We’ve spent the summer promoting newly designed in-store Kids Zones, highlighting how many parents across the UK are failing to take their children for free NHS eye tests and asking primary school children their opinions about wearing glasses.

Our most recent news story showed that, whilst UK glasses-wearing kids are still concerned about bullying, the latest celebrity ‘geek chic’ look is making them seem cooler in the eyes of their peers.  UK rapper Tinie Tempah was voted their most iconic glasses wearer.

So far, the story has resulted in nine national and 20 regional newspaper articles with widespread online buzz, too.

The films celebrate the launch of Sony Ericsson’s new stylish, HD smartphone, the Xperia™ ray.

The Xperia™ Unseen films go behind the scenes of the life of style icon Daisy Lowe, providing consumers with a privileged glimpse of celebrity life through the lens of a mobile phone. The films chronicle Daisy as she hotfoots it across London from photo shoot to dinner parties; meeting friends and stylists, trying on vintage outfits in trendy Knightsbridge for a glamorous awards ceremony before finally hanging out with close friends at her Primrose Hill pad.

To date, the films have received in excess of 300,000 views online.

To drive targeted awareness, Citizen Brando developed and managed a bespoke outreach plan, targeting key media across multiple sectors and platforms, resulting in widespread coverage to date.

On Sony Ericsson’s owned social media channels, a bespoke Facebook campaign tab was developed, featuring all content including competitions giving away tickets to the next exclusive VICE party, behind-the-scene photos and a how-to videos, as well as on Twitter a live Q&A with Daisy Lowe.

Against the backdrop of youth unemployment at its highest for 20 years, Citizen Brando promoted WorldSkills London 2011 and inspired more young people to be enterprising in their careers. Attracting 1,000 journalists and 200,000 visitors over five days, the event generated blanket coverage including Daybreak and BBC Breakfast.

The media relations generated by the agency showcased vocational qualifications as a positive and valued choice at all levels - for example revealing Britain’s new ‘Skillionaires’ and the fastest growing skilled jobs of the decade.  The event created talk-ability on Twitter and even led to a campaign started by the FT’s Chris Cook to #bringworldskillsbacktolondon.

So far, the campaign has generated over 200 pieces of coverage, helping to make the public see vocational skills and qualifications in a new light.