We are delighted to announce that Firefly has been shortlisted for a Golden Hedgehog PR Award for our work on The Centre for Effective Distribution’s ‘Inquiry into Public Inquiries’ project.

With the ‘Public Inquiry’ very much engrained in the UK’s consciousness in the wake of the News of the World hacking scandal and the resulting Leveson Inquiry, The Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) was midway through its project examining the effectiveness of Public Inquiries and asked Firefly to help raise awareness and encourage contributors to come forward to take part.

We commissioned simple omnibus research to determine the public’s level of faith in the Public Inquiry process and, as predicted, a level of discontent was discovered. The findings were offered to top tier media with the opportunity of a briefing with the project’s co-chairs, former Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Woolf of Barnes and Chief Executive of CEDR, Karl Mackie.

A media day was organised, beginning with a live interview on BBC’s Radio 4’s The Today Programme, and the co-chairs then met with journalists from national and legal press including the Financial Times, the Press Association and Legal Week. This gave the chairs the chance to get across their hopes for the project and encourage other experts to become involved.

We view the ‘Low Budget Campaign of the Year’ category as being particularly prestigious as it truly shows that effective PR campaigns do not have to cost the world. Being shortlisted is a testament to the agency (us) but also to our client CEDR, whose investment and collaboration really can’t be praised enough in making the campaign a success.

We are delighted to start 2012 with the news that Firefly has been shortlisted in the The Golden Hedgehog PR Awards for the work we’ve done for client, Give as you Live.

PR agencies like award nominations and wins for the same reasons that many of our clients do.  They offer us (in no particular order):

• Respect within our industry, for the quality of our thinking and results
• A compelling proof-point, to help us grow and fulfil our ambitions
• Appeal to potential new hires, meaning we continue to attract the best staff
• Critical conversation – oh, Twitter, how we love thee when word gets out!
• PMA (positive mental attitude, hey Linford?) , upping morale and staff retention

Our Give as you Live Christmas campaign, which we talked about in a blog post back in November, has made the Golden Hedgehog shortlist.  We’re honoured to be on the list with the likes of 1000heads for Nokia, Frank for Beatbullying and Splendid for Smirnoff; and we’re looking forward to hearing the judges’ verdicts in March.

But the shortlist itself, threw up some interesting observations amongst the Firefly team.

Firstly, that the shortlist for the ‘Social Media Campaign of the Year’ consisted of the maximum eight campaigns.  This tells us that, according to the Golden Hedgehog shortlist, suddenly ‘Social Media Campaign of the Year’ awards are amongst the most hotly contended out there.  That’s more shortlisted campaigns than in ‘Integrated Comms Campaign of the Year’ (a huge favourite of the early-to-mid 2000s, in response to our clients’ “360-degree campaign briefs”) and ‘Best Use of Research’.  This is a landscape that even a year or two ago, would have been entirely different; these are truly exciting times for social media evangelists.

Secondly, we noticed that amongst the shortlisted entries three are squarely in the tech/consumer tech space, two are cause-related marketing, and all, including our own, seem to have been communicating to a consumer audience.

Why is it that, when it comes to social media, B2C campaigns are so ahead of the curve?  Friend of Firefly Peter Thomson has some interesting points to make in his blog around why B2B businesses aren’t taking enough responsibility for their social media.

Interestingly, the myths that his post goes out to bust, are very similar to many of the myths that we have found ourselves tackling over the years with our B2C clients, too. Take for example, “social media isn’t about selling”.  It can be, used correctly.  Or, “social media doesn’t have a clear ROI”.  It does – and it is our job to communicate it.  “Social media can replace offline marketing.” Show us the brief – but we suspect it’s better used in combination.

We’re excited about our award nomination, as it helps us to tell the story of how we can help brands and businesses to use social media more effectively. And we suspect that the landscape will continue to change: next year, how about some B2B businesses fighting for those award nominations?