STUART BRUCECorporate communications, public affairs, public relations and social media

Summary and highlights• Founder and MD of Wolfstar, growing it into one of the UK’s largest

specialist public relations social media consultancies• Listed in PRWeek Power Book 2011 as one of the UK’s top 1% of

most influential public relations people overall and first for online influence

• Recently led online PR and social media strategy and campaigns for Sony Ericsson, PayPal, Unilever, First Direct, HSBC, Carlsberg, World Vision, Philips, NHS and many others

• One of the world’s first public relations bloggers in 2003 and still one of the world’s highest ranked PR bloggers

• International PR and social media speaker at high profile conferences• Director of Communications for Andy Burnham’s Labour Party

leadership bid and Alan Johnson’s deputy leadership bid• Founder member of the CIPR’s national social media panel• Partnered with United Nations to conduct world’s first global research

into how FT Global 500 use social media for CSR• Winner of multiple PR awards and regular awards judge

PERSONAL PROFILESome recent achievements

Wolfstar – founder and MDManaging director and co-founder of Wolfstar which in less than four years I grew into one of the UK’s largest specialist public relations social media consultancies

Top 40 Digital Consultancy

22 – top of table for specialist PR consultancies for the highest percentage of income derived from online PR

Top 40 Technology Consultancy

31 – largest outside of the London region

PRWeek Power Book 2011Listed in PRWeek Power Book 2011 of the UK’s top 1% of most influential public relations people and first for online influence

Listed in every PRWeek Power Book since it started in 2007 (except 2010!). Online influence as measured September 2011.

Second most influential PR person online in the UK according to Klout

First most influential PRWeek Power Book person online in the UK according to PeerIndex

“The comms wunderkind is seriously web savvy, his CV reads like a top ten of all

things tech.”

Selected client experience

Award-winning peer recognition

• CIPR PRide | Best Use of Social Media | Sony Ericsson | Winner - President’s Grand Prix• PRWeek | Best New Consultancy | Wolfstar | Highly Commended• CIPR PRide | Outstanding Small Consultancy | Wolfstar | Winner - President’s Grand Prix • CorpComms Digi | Best Social Media Press Office | First Direct• Communicate Digital Impact | Best Social Media News Release | Sony Ericsson and Dolce & Gabbana | Gold• CorpComms Digi | Best Agency with Integrated Digital Expertise | Wolfstar | Highly Commended• Communicate Digital Impact | Best Social Media Newsroom | First Direct | Silver• DADI | Best Use of Social Media | First Direct | Highly Commended• PRWeek | Best Healthcare Campaign | Vibration White Finger Litigation Group | Winner• PRWeek | Best International Campaign | Ascom Timeplex | Winner

Best Use of Social Media

The judges said: “Imaginative use was made of social media to compliment the PR launch. This strategy had a true global reach that was high

impact, well executed and involved, and engaged the blogging audience it targeted. As a result it

achieved excellent penetration. The objective of differentiating Sony Xperia against rivals was achieved. The judges particularly liked how

bloggers ‘co-created’ the campaign, helping Sony Ericsson achieve recognition as a world leader in

integrated corporate communications.”

Outstanding Small Consultancy

The judges felt Wolfstar demonstrated outstanding achievements coupled with

exceptional CSR for an agency of its size. The growth the consultancy has undergone since its

inception is impressive and it is well on its way to meeting many if not all of its business objectives,

particularly that of being a global agency. The campaigns Wolfstar chose to showcase in its entry simply underscored the judges strong feelings that this is a consultancy to watch!

UK and international conference speaker

Contribution to PR profession• Founder national council member of the Chartered

Institute of Public Relations’ Social Media Council• Regular judge of PR and social media industry awards:

• Founding governing member of the Word of Mouth Marketing and Communications Association UK

• Lecture at universities and professional associations:

Senior political campaigning• Director of Communications

and Strategy for Andy Burnham MP in his bid to become Labour Party leader and the same role for Alan Johnson MP in his deputy leadership campaign

• Responsible for all aspects of communications and strategy including message development, broadcast and national media relations, issues management, speech writing, online and digital strategy, direct marketing, paid media and events

Some world and UK firsts• Started one of the world’s first public relations blogs in

early 2003 and still ranked as one of the world’s top PR blogs

• Launched UK’s first local councillor blog and second politician in the UK (after MP Tom Watson)

• Created and directed one of the world’s first Twitter public relations campaigns in early 2007 for senior UK government cabinet member Alan Johnson MP

• Directed world’s first multi-country, multi-language social media newsrooms for Philips in Scandinavia.

• Led UK’s first social media newsroom for a regulated industry for bank, First Direct.

• Created UK’s first mummy blogger meet-up for Chuggington and the BBC

UN global CSR social media research

Partnered with United Nations in New York to conduct the world’s first global research programme into how the FT Global 500 use social media to support corporate social responsibility

SKILLS AND EXPERTISEBoard level strategy and tactical management

Skills and expertise• Communications strategy – public relations and

corporate communications strategy, particularly integrating social media and online PR into the overall communications strategy

• Online public affairs and advocacy – utilising social media and online PR to achieve public policy goals by online intelligence and analysis, stakeholder relations and online advocacy campaigns that create real world action

• Social media strategy – never exists in isolation, I provide corporate communications focussed social media strategy, especially dealing with complex issues regarding ownership between corporate communications, marketing, digital, IT, and legal/regulatory risk departments

Skills and expertise• Online issues management and crisis communications

– Handling CSR, pressure group campaigns, product recalls, leaks and rumours etc. Based on more than 20 years’ experience of traditional crisis comms and more than 10 years’ experience of online crisis comms

• Online monitoring and analysis – Global and national social media audits to provide insight and intelligence to create corporate communications strategy, including on-going real-time monitoring and issues early warning systems

• Social media policies – Global social media policies for company wide use, as well as specialised guidelines for in-house and agency PR and marketing professionals

Skills and expertise• Social media and online PR training and mentoring –

running professional workshops for PR, public affairs and corporate communications professionals as well as one-to-one mentoring for c-suite and board level directors

• Modern media relations – helping in-house press teams modernise to deal with the new demands of online platforms of mainstream print and broadcast media as well as blogs and social media

• Tactical campaigns and activation – Wide range of practical social media and online PR experience and expertise including directing social website creation and management, blogger relations and outreach, social media newsrooms and releases, PR SEO, online events and online video production

WHAT OTHERS SAYSome testimonials

Some testimonials“The comms wunderkind is seriously web savvy, his CV reads like a top ten of all things tech.”

PRWeek Power Book

“Thank you so much for all your hard work on the campaign. Your media and comms work was brilliant.”

Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP, former UK government senior cabinet minister

“Sony Ericsson is a master class into how you actually implement a global social media strategy.”

Somesso Global Corporate Social Media Summit

“Stuart is a PR professional who understands the digital age. He's an expert in word of mouth marketing. If I was launching a new product and wanted my customers to talk about it in their social networks, I'd hire him straight away.”

Tom Watson MP, who was the world’s first Minister for Digital Engagement

“Consistently delivered work that was of high standard and always solved the unexpected problems that arose. I felt confident that if I gave a project it will be done well, to plan and within the agreed budget. What more can you ask for? Innovative, passionate and responsive.”

Simone Bresi-Ando, Global Corporate PR Manager, Sony Ericsson

“Stuart’s knowledge and experience shine through… I wouldn't hesitate recommending Stuart.”

Andrew Thomas, publisher, Communicate Magazine

CASE STUDIESSome examples of work I’ve led and directed

Corporate social media strategy“Sony Ericsson is a master class into how you actually implement a global social media strategy.”

Somesso global corporate social media summit

Led client strategy at Wolfstar which has been Sony Ericsson’s global social media agency of record since 2008 responsible for:• Global corporate social media strategy• Corporate social media activity• Online media relations• Blogger outreach and events• Content creation and distribution• Social media guidelines, policies and

training• Public relations support for marketing

communications product launches

Audits, monitoring and analysis• Led creation of an online

framework to analyse online mainstream media, social media and social networks for corporate communications

• Identifies key influencer issues, sites and individuals to prioritise to promote and protect corporate reputation

• Real-time monitoring and analysis for issues and crisis management, as well as campaign measurement and evaluation.

• Directed global and UK audits and monitoring for numerous clients including:

Online public affairs• Appointed to conduct public affairs campaign to

win UK government support for a new global initiative on infant mortality

• Campaign strategy was to create massive online ‘buzz’ in order to get one of the three main UK political parties to contact the charity and request a meeting

• The 300 page report was analysed to identify to identify 15 different stories to give each target its own unique angle

• Pitched under an embargo so all stories would appear on the same day resulting in 13 of the 15 political blogs publishing a story

• Used banner advertising to provide link to full report, its main purpose was to get web traffic data

• Adverts were targeted so they only appeared on computers on specific IP addresses e.g. only on computers in the Treasury department or Conservative Central Office with unique advert for each IP address

• Negotiated live web chat with The Independent which resulted in 60,000 unique visitors

• Result of the online public affairs campaign was that by midday all three parties had called to request a briefing meeting

One of world’s first Twitter campaigns

“Your media and comms work was brilliant and I’ve never been so well Twittered in my life!”

Alan Johnson MP, former senior UK Government Cabinet member in four departments

Modern media relations• Use search analytics to identify news and

feature angles to pitch at online properties of mainstream media

• Provide interactive and multimedia rich content including web chats, video chats, Twitter chats, infographics and video news releases

• Pitching and seeding stories via Twitter, blogs and social networks

• Examples include:• Video chat with The Independent for First Direct

on carbon reduction, resulting in the highest ranked item on Google News on the day the Copenhagen Climate Summit started

• Unilever’s Chief Financial Officer doing web chat with The Telegraph for quarterly financial results

• Seeding programme news for Discovery Channel on social media resulting in mainstream media coverage and 410% increase in viewers (separate case study)

• Partnering with The Guardian to publish a regular blog on development issues for World Vision

• Future of banking live webchat for First Direct with The Times

Online corporate relations• After its success of using social media for

product launches Sony Ericsson asked Wolfstar to lead using social media for a corporate announcement

• Kyte, a social live video streaming service, was used to host a video chat to make the global announcement of Sony Ericsson’s new sustainability strategy

• A mobile industry blogger was asked to chair the chat

• Questions were taken live from multiple social sources – Kyte chat window, iPadio audio blog, Twitter, the Sony Ericsson GreenHeart blog and web-based text message, the first time this had ever been done in the world

• The result was more than 200 questions submitted and more than 50,000 live video viewers

• Coverage was achieved in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Treehugger (the world’s biggest environmental blog), Engadget (the world’s biggest technology blog) and hundreds of other media outlets

Social media newsrooms and news releases

• In 2008 created the world’s first multi-language social media newsrooms for Philips in Scandinavia

• In 2009 created the UK’s first social media newsroom in a regulated industry (financial services) for First Direct. Increased visitors from about 5-10 a week to 2,400 a week

• In 2010 developed Sony Ericsson’s global social media newsroom portal

• Award-winning social media news releases including beating Coca Cola to win award for Sony Ericsson and Dolce & Gabanna

Marketing communications

• The brief was to promote a documentary series on WWII London • The in-house team had given an exclusive to the Mail on Sunday to run two days before the first programme

aired• However, the paper pulled the story, which is when Wolfstar was asked to help• An exclusive clip of the first show (depicting a Nazi funeral in London) was given as an exclusive to Iain

Dale (one of the UK’s highest read political blogs, but just as importantly read by lots of journalists)• He published the video on Sunday afternoon. Other images were later made available to other media and

blogs• Within 48 hours the video was watched fully 16,724 times (and partially many more). The original story was

viewed 111,021 times. Mainstream media also took the story off the blog and reused it including The Times, The Independent and ironically the Daily Mail

• The activity resulted in the programme being watched by 410% more viewers than other programmes in the series

• The activity by Wolfstar was the only promotion for the programme

Global product launch• Social media strategy and

implementation for the global launch of the Xperia X1, Sony Ericsson’s first smartphone launched in partnership with Microsoft

• Ran blogger outreach campaign and created the Xperiancers blogger resource centre which resulted in:

• More than 1.4 million mentions• Almost ¾ million page views• 258,000 visitors, 222% more

than similar sites• from 192 different countries,

speaking 111 different languages

• 61st most viewed Science and Technology video of all time.

CONTACT STUART BRUCE+44 20 3239 1093 | + 44 7852 135456 | stuart@stuartbruce.biz

Twitter stuartbruce | Skype stuartbrucepr

Blog www.stuartbruce.biz | Consultancy www.stuartbruce.eu