Start with intention, end with impact...

So, January was a great year, right?! Taking a moment today before February kicks off to reflect back on our first month of 2025 at Ketchum UK , and it’s safe to say we’ve definitely set the tone for the year. Hard to pick the highlights, but here’s my top 10 and some key takeaways…

Still not being over Adam Brody’s Bounty revelation. Christmas might feel like a distant memory now, but as many of us who work in this industry know, the festive PR calendar never stops rolling. We’ve had some exciting sessions with clients about 2025 but taken a moment with our incredible 玛氏食品 clients to reflect on the stellar success of our #Celebrations #MyFavourite campaign through December: 49% uplift in earned mentions YOY, 664% earned ROI, excess SOV on competitors and our most crucial shared achievement – supporting sell through of more tubs than 2023.

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Aligning on what matters from day one is the bedrock of partnership. Our Procurement Roundtable was as enlightening as it was engaging. Co-hosted by the formidable Tina Fegent (FCIPS) , we brought together key voices from across the industry and discipline to share insights on collaboration and connection, as well as key focus areas for procurement in 2025: sustainability, measurement and effectiveness, and reassuringly given recent conversations on roll back, DE&I.

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Start with intention, end with impact. Unsurprisingly given the month, we came together in multiple moments with clients, partners and colleagues to discuss strategy and planning for the year ahead. Stand out moments for me were our first session with the new all stars IAT line-up for Team Liquid I.V. 联合利华 UK, a full day planning workshop with our long time clients at VELUX , and our first UK Townhall over the year where we set out our road map for 2025.

But my ultimate personal moment was taking time out to vision board our growth strategy with the whole One London team (led by the ever-visionary Rachel Rix ): taking time away from slides and screens to ‘plan with your hands’ is highly recommended, whether with your team or solo.

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Successfully navigating uncertainty is the key to success in 2025. This was one of my biggest takeaways from a day filled with insightful content at The Drum ’s annual Predictions event. That said, the highlight was undoubtedly my ‘Would I Lie To You’ themed panel session with Michelle Sarpong , Tony Walford and Andrew Tindall , who’s thoughts on OOH have also definitely got me thinking. His prediction? A creative – and effectiveness - renaissance beyond special build and stunts.

Hosted by the always brilliant Richard Draycott , it also gave me an opportunity to thank him in person for our conversation at the start of the year: PR: The Secret Weapon for Strategic Leadership: trust, influence, and leading conversations that matter. Read more ??https://lnkd.in/e5pkJcih

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Communications is still intrinsically human, and storytelling has never been more necessary. Last week we hosted The Telegraph’s Gareth Davies, Adobe’s Michael Ruppert, influencer partner and founder of SevenSix 's Charlotte Stavrou and CNN’s Ben Hunte at Bankside to discuss ‘the social newsroom’ and how we consume, curate, create and amplify the news is evolving.

In the session (brought together brilliantly by Noor Kheir and her team), all our panellists shared valuable insights, but Gareth’s demonstration of The Telegraph’s AI language translation was particularly thought provoking, and a real ‘wow’ moment in the room. Showcasing how content is auto translated into key languages related to the story while preserving the original journalist’s voice – raised necessary discussion about the need to combine trust and authenticity as well as scale and efficiencies.

Check out our own Jack Stanley’s take here, but for me, the opportunity that combining experience and instinct with AI and efficiency presents for comms professionals is one I’ll be grabbing with both hands.

The topic of what sits behind the paywall also came up in my own predictions at The Drum event – with a discussion on ensuring that the balance between the individual reality of running a business (as news providers and platforms of course ultimately are) with our collective responsibility to make sure that what is free to access isn’t surrendered to AI in its entirety, and both quality and integrity of source content are maintained.

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Partnerships are built on people, and collaboration is built on community. Working with Adobe on the Adobe Insiders Programme is one of the most rewarding parts of our partnership, and just last week our team (led by Alizia Walker ) supported on launching the 2025 programme, bringing together this year’s incredible talent who will connect and create individually and collectively this year. The energy from our team alone after the event was as inspiring as it was infectious, can’t wait to see what comes out of this crew through ’25.

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Every day is still a school day… and every minute I spent at my first #GalaxyUnpacked with our incredible Samsung Electronics UK team and clients reinforced that. Not only did I get a front row seat to the reveal of the Galaxy S25 Series new features (which as a genuine tech geek, was an actual dream: I’m looking at you Now Brief feature and next level Health insights…) but I got to watch the seamless partnership between our teams at work. (Plus, the delivery of a flawless event, and the coverage, reach and engagement YOY increase results already rolling in of course…)

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Taking time to look at what hasn’t changed as well as what is changing, is just as insightful and rewarding. Bringing together clients, partners and collaborators across the food and drink sector for our first annual Burns Supper to share great conversation, with great people over great food reminded me of just that fact. From sharing memories of childhood food to debating what tastes best on chips (it’s gravy, obviously) and our trends partners Bompas & Parr Studio Ltd bringing to life the future of food and flavour through a liquid nitrogen fuelled whisky cloud and hot stone serve of Neolithic taste paste (trying saying all of that after your 2nd school night Old Fashioned), the evening (driven expertly by Estelle Boon & her team) didn’t disappoint.

Special mentions also have to go to Jo-ann Robertson ’s role as Cultural Ambassador for Scotland for the evening and an iconic Address to a Haggis, and our visiting Global CEO Mike Doyle ’s speech reminding us that auld acquaintances should of course, never be forgot. Our next deep dive event will be focused on the Travel and Tourism sector – if you’re interested in hearing more, drop me a message (likewise if you’d like the trends and takeaways from the Burns evening.)

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There’s no better start to the year than with a win… and no better place to share and celebrate the news that we’ve won LinkedIn than right here. Dream client, dream brief, dream team: we can’t wait to get started. Thanks as ever to PRWeek and Siobhan Holt for the write up: https://www.prweek.co.uk/article/1904489/linkedin-selects-uk-consumer-comms-agency .

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And finally, as awards season entry prep, editing and approvals really ramps up, I’m also looking forward to the opportunities to dive into the best our global community has to offer that come with the privilege of being asked to judge some of our most prestigious shows. First out of the gates this year is this week’s news that I’ll be joining Dubai Lynx International Festival of Creativity PR Jury - https://lbbonline.com/news/dubai-lynx-announces-2025-juries - looking forward to getting into the work and debate under the guidance of this year’s Jury President Vanessa Ho Nikolovski and my fellow judges.

If you’d like to hear more about any of the above, I’d love to grab a coffee and a chat. Here’s to a productive and positive February.