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Clarion launches new digital arm influenceD; Move to bring pr and social together comes after taking Warburtons from zero to third most engaged UK Facebook brand
[November 29, 2012]

Clarion launches new digital arm influenceD; Move to bring pr and social together comes after taking Warburtons from zero to third most engaged UK Facebook brand


(M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) LONDON -- Clarion Communications is launching a new digital division, working across all aspects of social media, social advertising and online PR, called influenceD.

The WPP-owned agency - named Consumer PR Agency of the Year at the prestigious The Grocer MAP Awards this month (Nov.), and winner of PR Week's Campaign of the Year 2011 - has a roster of consumer, trade and digital clients including Vue Cinemas, Nectar, Unilever and Lindt.



And the launch of influenceD follows several recent successful digital client campaigns, which included taking Warburtons - the UK's second biggest grocery brand - from zero social media presence to the third most engaged-with brand among UK Facebook users in under 12 months, according to Marketing magazine.* Other Clarion digital campaigns in 2012 included: - building the UK's Number One lifestyle recipe app - doubling traffic to an EU-funded organisation's UK site in three months via SEO - creating and seeding a viral which went global via Twitter with 180k YouTube Views - increasing product sales by 381% using PR-led social media with e-commerce - reaching a 1m target audience via a low budget Facebook advertising campaign Clarion CEO Gary Freemantle said: 'We have created influenceD in response to clients wanting all their digital, social and PR needs satisfied under one roof. Ultimately, PR and social media are wholly interlinked - for one thing, you need good PR skills to run an effective social media campaign.

'But more than that, the most engaged social campaigns have a good story at their heart, and PR is all about telling a story that generates word of mouth for a brand; we get people to say good things about your brand - via journalists, celebrities and endorsers through traditional media, and via consumers and journalists through social media.' influenceD will offer a full range of services across social media, social advertising, social apps, online monitoring and reporting, purchase journeys (E-commerce), SEO (Google Knowledge), SEM and digital strategy.


It will be headed up by Clarion's head of digital Habib Amir, who also provides a close relationship with Facebook - allowing influenceD to offer an exclusive Facebook mobile ad service.

Habib Amir said: "Social media is more than simply Likes and Reach - real engagement ultimately results in sales, brand advocacy and natural growth, and that's at the heart of influenceD.

'We want to focus on content and promote personal conversations supported by rich, interactive experiences; the key for 2013 is going to be nurturing more engaging conversations that deliver sales and brand advocacy - and as one of few digital services to set and deliver against sales KPIs, every audience interaction, change in sentiment, website visit and product purchase is easily measurable by our reporting systems.

'influenceD will offer all the big thinking of a WPP digital PR agency, with the individual feel, creativity and client care of a smaller, bespoke agency.' #influenceD *In June 2012, Marketing magazine published its iProspect Engagement Index, which shows how much consumers interact with brands on Facebook, by combining numbers of Likes with data from the "people talking about this" metric, introduced by Facebook this year. Warburtons scored 9.1%, indicating that around one in 10 fans had actively responded to a page in the previous seven days, either by liking, commenting, posting or responding to polls - making it the THIRD most engaged-with brand among UK Facebook users.

For more press info, contact Liz Canning or Habib Amir at Clarion Communications on +44 (0)20 7479 0910.

((M2 Communications disclaims all liability for information provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties. Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at http://www.presswire.net on the world wide web. Inquiries to [email protected])).

(c) 2012 M2 COMMUNICATIONS

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