Taking place on September 8th during Mobile Marketing Week, organised by Mobile Marketer, Women In Wireless will be holding a multi-city speed networking event, with similar parties organised in San Francisco, New York, Toronto, Calgary and, for the first time, London.

Women In Wireless was established to help empower and develop female leaders in the mobile and digital media industries. The organisation first formalised its efforts in 2009 by forming the Women In Wireless committee within the Mobile Marketing Association. Since then, the group has grown rapidly and today has over 1,000 members from companies including Google, mBlox, Apple, Cisco, American Express, Coca Cola and Disney.

Commenting on the launch of the UK’s first Women In Wireless event, Charlotte Fors, founder and co-chair of Women In Wireless said, “On September 8th,  women in New York, San Francisco, London, Toronto and Calgary will be getting together to ‘speed network’ with other people in the industry. We are very thankful to Diffusion Mobile & the GSMA for sponsoring the London event and helping us take the first step in becoming an international organization.”

Ivana Farthing, Head of Mobile practice at Diffusion added, “At Diffusion we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of innovation and are committed to supporting new initiatives and diversity across the sector. We have seen how successful Women In Wireless has been in the US and are looking forward to bringing it to the UK as the industry continues to grow.”

The Women In Wireless speed networking event will be held on Thursday 8th September from 6.30pm at the GSMA Member’s Lounge in London. For further information and registration, please visit  http://mobilemarketingweekuk.eventbrite.com

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Motors.co.uk, one of the UK’s leading used car search websites, has appointed Diffusion as its retained consumer PR agency.  Diffusion has been selected to develop and implement an integrated communications strategy using both traditional media and social media channels.  Key objectives of the campaign will include building brand awareness, amplifying a new TV advertising campaign and creating an online community around the Motors.co.uk brand.

Diffusion will be embarking on a sustained issues-based national and local media campaign for Motors.co.uk, aimed at articulating its motoring expertise and appeal to mainstream consumers, rather than just car enthusiasts.  The traditional PR campaign and Motors.co.uk’s wider marketing strategy will be closely integrated with the agency’s digital work.

Diffusion will be using its extensive expertise in community building and management to make Facebook central to Motors.co.uk’s online engagement strategy.  Social media platforms including Twitter, blogs and forums will also be used to build on the site’s goals of empowering mainstream car buyers and sellers and making car buyers feel safer and reassured about purchasing a used vehicle.

Phill Jones, commercial director, Motors.co.uk commented, “We recognised that we needed to take an integrated approach to our communication strategy to make the biggest impact. Diffusion impressed with their ideas and energy for building consumer engagement around our brand, allowing consumers to share their emotions around the car buying process.  They demonstrated that rare quality among agencies of being as strong in traditional media as they are in digital and crucially, expert at bringing those multiple channels together.”

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With a new year ahead of you it’s perfectly natural to be contemplating whether you are in the right job.  Are you working for clients you love, in a culture that is constantly innovating and pushing the boundaries of PR? Is your career where you want to it to be and can you see a clear path to promotion ahead of you? Is your employer investing in you to make sure you have the integrated communication skills which are essential for effective PR today?

If the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’, perhaps now’s the time to see what fresh opportunities are out there? 2010 was another year of great growth for Diffusion, winning new clients including, Metro, Mothercare, the Conservatives and Department for Business, Innovation & Skills.

We are now recruiting at a number of levels across our practices, so if you are looking for a new opportunity or think you have skills which would be a perfect match for our innovative integrated approach at Diffusion, please see our Careers page for more details.

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Diffusion has today launched of a new Film & Entertainment practice to shake up the UK PR market.  The division will be challenging both established PR players and digital agencies specialising in film, by providing entertainment brands with integrated traditional press and social media campaigns under one roof.  At launch, the division has secured Gateway Films as its first retained client and has also won the brief to promote director Reg Traviss’ latest film project, Screwed.

Diffusion has recruited Laura Pettitt, a highly respected senior film publicist from Freud Communications as its new Head of Film and Entertainment.  Laura has worked as the lead publicist on a series of high-profile projects including Bronson, Bruno, Kick-Ass, Adulthood and Made in Dagenham and has also managed ongoing PR campaigns for cinema chain Vue Entertainment and Sky Movies.

Pettitt commented, “Clients are becoming increasingly frustrated by mainstream media and digital campaigns being conducted by the same old agencies in isolation. All too often opportunities to create powerful campaigns integrated across media channels are being missed due to a lack of expertise, coordination or misplaced rivalry between agencies.  Our vision for Diffusion Film & Entertainment is to inject some much needed fresh thinking and competition into the agency space. We have built a team which brings together exceptional relationships with film journalists with Diffusion’s proven expertise in digital and social media campaigns.”

Diffusion Film & Entertainment has been retained by Terry Stone’s Gateway Films, the producers of Shank and Doghouse, to run the offline and digital campaigns for its slate of films in 2011. The first of these will be Weighed In, which starts shooting later this month and stars Bob Hoskins.

The agency has also been selected to work on Screwed, a feature being directed by critically acclaimed director and Reg Traviss (Joy Division, Psychosis).  The film is a semi-biographical story based on the experiences of former prison guard Ronnie Thompson, who spent seven years working in some of the UK’s most dangerous prisons. Based on Thompson’s book of the same name, the project stars James D’Arcy (Master & Commander) and Noel Clarke (Kidulthood).

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As you may have read in PR Week, Diffusion Mobile has been appointed by Upstream, the international mobile marketing and technology company to leads its integrated media strategy in the UK.  Upstream develops advanced mobile marketing solutions for major brands and operators across 40 countries.

Diffusion Mobile has been briefed to develop and implement an ongoing issues-based campaign to raise Upstream’s profile among chief marketing officers, global operators and analyst communities using online, trade and national media.

A central objective for us will be to raise and manage Upstream’s profile ahead of Mobile World Congress, taking place in Barcelona in February 2010. The campaign will focus on themes relating to consumer response rates and ROI from mobile marketing.

Alexandra Chong, Head of Marketing and PR for Upstream, described the rationale behind the appointment: “Mobile marketing is a young but crowded market, and to achieve penetration it’s vital to engage multiple audiences with very clearly defined messages. Diffusion Mobile was selected on the basis of their experience of executing successful campaigns in the mobile and marketing industries, borne out by the agency’s payment-by-results approach.”

Diffusion’s 2011 PR Graduate Scheme is now open and we’re looking for the brightest and the best to join our award winning team in September 2011.  For more information about our scheme, what we’re looking for in new recruits and to download an application form, please visit our Graduate Careers page here. Remember, the closing date is 31 January 2011.

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As reported by PR Week, La Senza, the global lingerie brand and retailer has appointed Diffusion to develop and implement its social media strategy in the UK and Ireland. This latest win builds on the agency’s expertise working with leading retailers including Primark, Mothercare and Early Learning Centre.

Diffusion has been tasked with increasing awareness and understanding of the La Senza brand, generating quality traffic to boost online sales and driving footfall in La Senza’s 190 stores across the UK and Ireland.  A central objective will be to use social media to emphasise La Senza’s affordable luxury values, the range and quality of product available in store and online and in-store expertise and service. This will be achieved through Diffusion building and managing a brand presence for La Senza on key online platforms to create conversation platforms, as well as running an ongoing influencer relations campaign with key fashion and lifestyle blogs and forums.

Situl Thakrar, Head of Online for La Senza commented, “Social Media has proved itself to be invaluable for fashion retailers in driving awareness and engagement with customers and, when done well, converting that engagement in to sales.  We are seeing our customers using social media not just as a way to communicate, but also as a way to engage with ‘subject matter experts’ when make a considered purchase”.

Thakrar continued, “There are an increasing number of agencies who claim they ‘get’ social media who are jumping on the bandwagon, but most lack the direct experience and results that Diffusion were able to demonstrate, particularly in advising retail brands.  What really set them apart was their understanding that social media does not sit in a silo and is vital in shaping and managing brand reputation across an organisation.  Diffusion’s focus on actionable insights and the bottom line will make them an integral partner in continuing to drive La Senza’s popularity and growth in the UK and Ireland.”

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As you may have read in Marketing Week, Diffusion has been working with mobile location-based social networking service Foursquare to create an official presence for our client Metro. This is a UK first with Metro becoming the first UK national newspaper to feature editorial content on the social networking site. You can follow Metro on foursquare here.

Users of Foursquare who follow Metro will now be able to view London restaurant and entertainment reviews from the UK’s third largest national newspaper when they ‘check- in’ to relevant places, providing them with up to date trusted reviews, exactly when they need them.

Jamie Walters, Digital Director, Metro had this to say, “Foursquare is a cutting edge social tool that helps users find new ways to explore cities, making it the perfect fit for Metro’s Urbanite and City Clicker audiences.  We are really excited to be the first UK newspaper to take advantage of this platform and I am sure users will find our reviews helpful when they are on the move and exploring the UK’s cities.”

Metro’s readers, particularly those living in London, have become enthusiastic early adopters of Foursquare in the UK and they are crying out for tips they can trust.  By creating a dedicated Metro layer on Foursquare we now have the ability to deliver targeted, timely and trusted editorial reviews to Metro readers and to create new opportunities for brands keen to work with an established media partner to deliver location based marketing.

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Was this really the UK’s first Digital Election? That was the question we wanted to try to answer, at least in part, when Diffusion commissioned YouGov to examine the impact that online campaiging played as we headed to the polling stations on May 6th.  You may have seen the results of our Digital Election Report covered exclusively by the Financial Times last month, but I wanted to share some of the data in a bit more detail with you below.

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One of the key research findings was that over half  (56 per cent) of the voting age population consumed political information via digital channels during the General Election campaign. However, despite the hype surrounding some social media channels, one of the most popular sources for political information online were the websites for candidates and political parties, with 19 per cent of the public as a whole and a third of voters aged 18-24, visiting these sites over the course of the campaign.

Twitter was arguably the most hyped platform in the run up to and during the election itself, but our research shows that only 5 per cent of UK voters read any political content via the site, rising to only 13 per cent for those aged 18-24. This contrasts with Facebook, which was one of the big winners of the Digital Election with over a third (36 per cent) of those aged 18-24 reading political information on the platform. Of the sites we surveyed,  Facebook  was the most popular single online source of election information for young voters.  The social network also remained influential with those aged 25-34 with almost a quarter of this group (24 per cent) consuming political information on the site.

Online video content was a focus for all the main political parties, however only 8 per cent of the public watched political videos on sites such YouTube during the General Election campaign, but this figure is significantly higher at 25 per cent for 18-24 year olds.  Online advertising was also a prominent part of the online election campaign, with both the Labour Party and the Conservatives investing in Google AdWords and other online advertising campaigns on key sites.  According to our research 12 per cent of adults, rising to a quarter of 18-24 year olds, recall seeing online political advertising during the election campaign.

Interestingly, email, one of the oldest and potentially most effective digital channels and one which was a cornerstone of Barack Obama’s campaign, seems to have made minimal impact in this General Election.  Only 13 per cent of those surveyed can recall receiving any emails from political parties and organisations in the run up to May 6th.

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This was also not the ‘Mumsnet Election’. It appears that blogs and forums played a much more limited role as a source of political information for the general public, with only 11 per cent recalling reading political information on such sites.  While ‘online mums’ were courted by Cameron, Clegg and Brown, blogs and forums were actually twice as popular among men (15 per cent) compared to women (just 7 per cent) as sources of political news and commentary.

Finally, we also wanted to gauge the impact of digital campaigning on the voting intentions of the public. Did voters feel that the information they read and shared online actually made any difference? Now, asking voters  to separate out the impact of different channels on a decision as complex as voting is a difficult task, but the research revealed some important results.

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Of those that consumed political information online during the election, only 19 per cent claimed it made no impact on how they voted. Significantly, 15 per cent of voters stated that the political content they consumed online had either a ‘fair amount or great deal’ of influence on who they decided to vote for on 6th May. This may seem like a small amount, but a couple of percentage points can be more than enough to sway an election outcome.

As shown throughout the research, younger voters were most likely to have engaged with the General Election online and also most likely to be influenced by online campaigning. YouGov found that almost a third (30 per cent) of 18 – 24 year olds stated that their decision on how to vote was effected to a fair or great degree.

While the 2010 election campaign was dominated by the novelty of the TV debates, it is clear that digital channels, many also used for the first time in a General Election, influenced the electoral choices of British voters to varying degrees.  This was not the Digital Election some had predicted, but it certainly was a Digital Election, with online campaigning making an impact with large sections of the British electorate.

In the weeks ahead all political parties will no doubt be receiving the results of even more in-depth studies into the effectiveness of their online campaigns. If their results mirror ours, there will be some important lessons that will need to be learned ahead of the next General Election, whether it takes place in five months or in five years.

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Metro, the UK’s third largest national newspaper has appointed integrated agency Diffusion to develop and implement its social media strategy for Metro.co.uk. Diffusion has been briefed to build awareness of Metro’s online offering to the 3.5 million consumers who read the paper daily in 33 cities across the UK.

The campaign will look to make Metro.co.uk a destination site for ‘City Clickers’, 18 to 44 year-old young urban professionals looking for the best entertainment, showbiz and sports news as well as the strange and irreverent stories for which Metro has become famous.

Core to the campaign will be to increase online engagement and conversations between the paper and its readers and creating new digital marketing opportunities for advertisers.  Diffusion will be developing Metro’s presence and engagement with readers on key social media platforms as well as building relationships with key bloggers across a range of niche subject areas and at a regional level.

In addition to building visits and reader loyalty to Metro.co.uk, Diffusion will also be promoting Metro’s online services, including the launch of its World Cup Fantasy Football game this month.

Abi Slater, Head of Marketing for Metro commented, “Metro.co.uk has established a strong reputation for fun and irreverent content which sets it apart from traditional newspaper websites. While the newspaper clearly owns the mornings, the website has the potential to give people more Metro moments throughout the day and week.  Sustained online consumer PR and strategic use of social media channels will be key to building awareness, traffic and consumer loyalty to Metro.co.uk. Diffusion impressed us with their strong understanding of social media and the ability to showcase real results from working with online media brands”

Ivan Ristic, director, Diffusion commented:  “The 2010 General Election was a watershed moment in proving the importance of digital channels and online communities to the media industry.  Metro has recognised this with the rebrand of Metro.co.uk and the campaign will provide a positive, solid platform enabling users to share content at a time when other news outlets are restricting access to their sites.”