Scottish Book Trust & Kirsty Innes PR shortlisted for the CIPR PRide Awards 2016

Kirsty Innes PR has once again been shortlisted for a CIPR PRide award. Featuring in the integrated communications category, Kirsty is listed with her client Scottish Book Trust for Book Week Scotland 2015 – a campaign designed to change lives for the better by engaging people to begin or continue their reading or writing journey.

The CIPR PRide Awards recognise the outstanding talents and achievements of public relations practitioners across the UK’s regions and nations. They are the most prestigious and rigorous awards of their kind.

Speaking about the shortlisting, Kirsty said: “It was a privilege to work with the dynamic and creative experts at Scottish Book Trust. I believe the team was exemplar in embracing a truly integrated strategic communications approach to Book Week Scotland 2015, and I’m absolutely delighted that this has been acknowledged by the CIPR PRide Awards. It is an honour to feature alongside some of the best campaigns and the biggest players in the PR industry.

“The greatest results come from the perfect combination of effective teamwork, collaboration and ensuring consistent communications approach across all platforms – this was so clearly evidenced by Book Week Scotland 2015.”

Book Week Scotland 2015:

• engaged 600 partners in its events programme including libraries, bookshops, community organisations, prisons, football clubs and unions.
• Involved the distribution of 140,000 copies of specially written Journeys books at just over 800 different sites.
• featured well known ambassadors including Hollywood star Alan Cumming; Outlander’s Grant O’Rourke; acting legend Brian Blessed; comedian Greg Proops; best-selling authors Ian Rankin, Diana Gabaldon and Kate Mosse; and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
• focused on engaging with active readers and previous participants to proactively encourage friends and family to take part in the week.
• utilised creative digital apps and Memes.
• reached an audience of over 75.8 million on Twitter via 3.7k tweets, 9.1k retweets, 6.7k mentions and 4.5k favourites.
• generated 22.5k interactions on Facebook.
• achieved 1006 items of media coverage (44% more coverage than 2014) with an audience reach of over 152 million. This included a contra media partnership with Scotland’s leading tabloid news brand Media Scotland (which includes the Scotland’s leading Daily Record, Sunday Mail and various local media titles).

A YouGov national omnibus survey conducted following the Week showed that 29% of adults had heard of the Week (9% more than 2014).

Interviews and focus groups with BWS 2015 participants conducted by KSO Research showed:

• Representatives from all demographic groups and reading abilities engaged in the Week.
• 82% of active readers became cheerleaders and the most common reported way of finding out about the Week was via word of mouth.
• a third of participants shared their activities on social media.
• Schools reported that young reluctant readers expressed greater confidence following participation in the Week.
• those who regularly read at home increased from 83% in 2014 to 97% in 2015.
• those who buy books from bookshops increased from 61% in 2014 to 75% in 2015.

66% of Book Week Scotland participants attended events, 22% more than 2014; and 50% picked up a copy of the free book (an 18% increase on 2014).

The CIPR PRide Award winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms on 13 October 2016.