Nicky Stephen Marketing established the international PR effort for what was a new furniture and furnishings exhibition Las Vegas Market. Working with the company’s Vice President for International who was based in London, Nicky looked after the marketing and PR for all countries outside the US. This included masterminding visits of selected members of the international press to Las Vegas. Journalists from the UK, France, Italy, Thailand, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Hong Kong, Mexico, Brazil, China and Australia were all welcomed to Las Vegas. In addition, Nicky Stephen Marketing worked on specialist international exhibits and ribbon cutting ceremonies. This photograph is of the inaugural Las Vegas Market, when the Beach Boys put on a special show just for exhibitors and visitors to the Market – held in Fremont in downtown Las Vegas.
As part of an integrated marketing campaign, Nicky Stephen Marketing supported Brucciani, whose craft bakery and coffee shops in Leicester were renowned, with local PR. This campaign included introducing e-commerce to the Brucciani website, copywriting, print material as well as press relations and staff training.
Nicky Stephen Marketing successfully pitched for developing the PR and marketing strategy for Jackpad. This has included media buying, advertising, emailshots, print, public relations and website development.
2014 saw the 80th anniversary of The Belmont Hotel in Leicester. Nicky Stephen Marketing handled the anniversary PR and Marketing, having helped this family owned hotel at their 70th and 75th anniversaries too! The campaign included selecting Leicestershire charity TwentyTwenty as recipient of fund-raising through the year, a civic dinner and anniversary evening celebration as well as an old fashioned sports day for teams from local firms.
The Las Vegas Market PR department is a well oiled machine, Nicky Stephen Marketing’s responsibility was international PR to any countries outside the USA, so we built relationships with journalists in South America, Asia, Europe, Australasia, Canada and more… We took groups of international journalists over to Las Vegas for each summer market, treating them to some fabulous Las Vegas hospitality and fun as well as showing them this fantastic exhibition. The Beach Boys, Rod Stewart and President Bill Clinton were just some of the special guests of Las Vegas Market whose music or speeches we were able to share with the international press.
Nicky Stephen Marketing worked with a Tuscan food consortium and the Italian Chamber of Commerce to promote protected designation of origin (PDO) and protected geographical indication (PGI) Tuscan foods in the UK. The objective was to reach as many key food and cookery journalists as possible from the daily and Sunday newspapers, food and cookery magazines, radio, television and specialist UK based Italian magazines. The consortium was looking upon it as an educational exercise so that the UK’s ‘experts’ gained knowledge of the PDO and PGI logos is and could taste the products.
There were three parts to the promotion:
- a cookery school for journalists, run by renowned Tuscan chef Giancarlo Caldesi, demonstrating precisely how to use the foods
- a seminar aimed primarily at the food trade, particularly high end independent food retailers and
- a consumer element where consumers could taste the products at London delicatessens and restaurants and become familiar with the logos
The whole PR and food marketing project was a huge success achieving all the client’s objectives and significantly developing the consortium’s media relations.
Residents of Brooksby and surrounding villages were extremely unhappy at plans to turn a gravel extraction site at Brooksby into a refuse tip – this was a complete change of strategy from the original plan to return it to leisure use at the end of the extraction process. A campaign was undertaken to make the local residents’ views known and coverage was generated in local newspapers, on local radio and television. Cause related PR is just one area of Nicky Stephen Marketing’s public relations expertise .
The LOROS Garden Appeal was launched in early 2011 to raise funds for a beautiful garden to be installed at the Leicester hospice on Groby Road. The project involved two phases, one creating a garden for the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show which raised awareness of the hospice movement generally and then reinstating the garden back at LOROS in Leicester. A combination of fund-raising events, direct mailing and a public relations campaign managed by Nicky Stephen Marketing enabled this project to achieve success raising almost £50,000 in a matter of months and culminating in a Silver Award at RHS Hampton Court. The garden moved to its permanent home at LOROS in Leicester in 2012. To see some of the press coverage visit http://www.lorosgarden.org.uk/Fund/press/press.html
Universal Flexible Packaging in Leicester engaged Nicky Stephen Marketing to support the business with a PR campaign aligned with the development of a new £11m factory. This fast-growing business produced popcorn and does contract packaging for many well known international brands in the food sector. The PR campaign included local and trade press, television and radio.