Lancashire-based PR agency, Catapult PR, has notched up more outstanding success in its 20th anniversary year, following on from being rewarded for creating Britain’s best travel, leisure and tourism PR campaign, just a month ago.
On June 6, Catapult swept to victory at the national CIPR Excellence Awards, considered the most prestigious awards in the PR industry, but now the dynamic small agency has received a whopping five award nominations in the CIPR PRide NW awards, for a different campaign.
Its national award – which took Catapult to a grand total of 30 top awards – saw it seeing off competition from campaigns conducted by five London agencies who carried out campaigns for EasyJet, Virgin Holidays, Legoland, Holidays.com and the National Trust.
Catapult is now nominated in the northwest PRide Awards categories of Best Travel, Leisure and Tourism PR campaign, Best Community PR campaign, Best Arts, Culture or Sport campaign, Best Use of Social Media and Best Independent Practitioner.
With five nominations, it has gone one better than in 2017, when it scooped four shortlistings at the NW PRide Awards and won two those categories.
Following its outstanding national achievement, Catapult is on an upward trajectory that has led to it moving into offices, at the heart of the UK tourism sector in Blackpool. It has also already won new accounts since its June 6 triumph and has become a finalist in the Enterprise Vision Awards and the prestigious Lancashire business awards – The BIBAs – Awards 2018, where it is shortlisted for Creative Agency of the Year.
The ‘Amazing Grace’ campaign for which Catapult PR is now shortlisted saw it generating involvement across the huge county of Northumberland for the second Northumberland Day.
It sailed to the island of Northumbrian heroine, Grace Darling, to lay a heart of red and yellow flowers in commemoration of Grace’s dramatic sea rescue from 180 years ago. However, in true Catapult style, it simultaneously created a dynamic launch photo by also taking Venutius the Celt and a Georgian gent from Capability Brown’s home of Kirkharle!
The campaign also involved engaging with the education sector, by creating an education pack featuring Grace Darling and a host of other school activities. Catapult PR extended its hugely popular ‘Northumbie Awards’, finding new sponsors and also devising ‘Hearts of Achievement’ to build on Northumberland Day’s heart motif. Additionally, it created and managed a dynamic social media campaign, inspired events the length and breadth of the huge county of Northumberland, created a whopping cheese and onion pasty packed with Northumberland cheese and ran a Northumberland Flag Challenge.
Managing director, Jane Hunt, says: “We have once again shown that, despite our size, we are hard to match. We excel at coming up with great ideas, but also throwing passion into everything we do, to achieve outstanding results. We’re thrilled with our nominations and hope it will lead to us working with more businesses that want creative, results-focused PR. We already work with clients in London, Northumberland and many places in between, so never make location a factor in our decision whether or not to work with a business. We ask potential clients to open their minds and do the same.”
