Here Be Dragons

Next week, we’ll be celebrating a major milestone at the Here Be Dragons lair — our 10th anniversary! 🥳 🔟 To mark the occasion, our Founder & CEO Paul McEntee reflects on the trials and triumphs of our journey, including the launch of our new 'Dragon Club' initiative, in an interview with PRmoment. 🐲 Read all about it below (link in comments). Thank you to Elizabeth Howlett for such a nice write-up. 🙏

Ever wondered what it’s like to be a dragon? ❤️🔥🐉 At Here Be Dragons, we soar to new heights and know how to bring the heat — and put out fires when it counts. Check out our new hype reel for a glimpse of the magic we create. 

With the festive season bringing a wave of exciting new releases, we've curated our top picks for this week's Dragon Fab Five, handpicked by our Junior Designer and Studio Manager Farzana Lalloo. 🐲 Check out the round-up below, featuring KFC UK & Ireland's lickable wrapping paper, Burger King's Invisible Billboard, Bottega Veneta's luxury children's book as well as the latest campaigns from McDonald's and Made with Love by Tom Daley in partnership with Royal Life Saving Society UK - RLSS UK.

How to fill 34 minutes on Ben Smith's indomitable PRmoment podcast without chatting absolute guff or navel-gazing? No idea, but gave it a go. #10years Here Be Dragons 🐉

𝐀 𝐍𝐄𝐖𝐒𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐏𝐑 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 Last week I took some of our talented PR young guns into the offices of the MailOnline and 𝐃𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐢𝐥 to get a tour of the newsroom operations It’s been 20 years since I entered the PR industry. The Mail has always been a power house in that time. 𝑯𝒆𝒓𝒆’𝒔 𝟓 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝟓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏’𝒕. I hope it's useful to all young (and old) bucks out there, even if it re-affirms existing knowledge. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝: There are zero phones on the news-desk. It’s all email. This has been a gradual shift over the last few years but, as someone brought up on the diet of the phone sell-in (and to see it in real life), this still blew my mind. 🤯 There is a huge Snapchat team pumping out over 60 pieces of content a day. Think of this as a pitch angle. TikTok is also heavily repped but harder to monetise, as legacy media and advertisers grapple with best practice. But Facebook/ IG teams don’t exist, so adapt accordingly. Podcast Studios and green-screens are incorporated into the newsroom as they chase new formats and make ownable content - consider this for influencer and creator briefs. This is a GAME CHANGER for collaborative creator news content and undoubtedly represents the future, where traditional and social/ digital media can unite at scale. 🤝 There used to only be one/two news conferences. Now there is one for news, pics, video, online, social etc.. A story can now can/ needs to be multichannel. Think of your lead asset and pitch that way in, but think beyond too - integration of channels is something they are pushing internally. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐇𝐚𝐬𝐧’𝐭: Journo’s still want to meet you (PR people) - the human factor still counts. Go Meet. Research matters more than ever. Don’t pitch poorly informed content. We’ve heard this a million times before, but every department named it as their No.1 pet peeve and it kills our industry credibility. Succinctness is everything. The news conference format has a grid that can fit only a headline on it. One line across an A4 page, that’s it. If you can’t fit your story into one line, forget about it standing out. PR stories are important to them. At a glance of the AM/ PM conference list, I spied at least 4-5 classic PR stories. They had good stats, a nice refreshing POV on an existing issue and a decent (non-brand) expert or institute attached to it. Don’t be afraid to let your brand take a second seat in the wider story or let it come through via the assets. Lead with ‘the thing’, then weave said brand in. The Mail is still a powerhouse. No legacy media have got new consumption habits figured out yet vs social media, or platform hybrids . But, it should still be in your top 5 if you want to reach mainstream UK audiences, and it's pretty obvious that they are going to crack the formula and be in the media landscape for years to come. Good luck out there 🫡

Just days ahead of this year’s #BlackFriday, a vibrant red rubbish lorry from CeX and Here Be Dragons turned heads as it rolled through the streets of London, highlighting the mountains of tech waste created by the annual shopping frenzy. Read here: https://hubs.la/Q02ZwW3v0

The Here Be Dragons lair is buzzing with excitement today after we came Highly Commended in the Agency of the Year category at this year’s PRCA Awards. 🐲 Well done to our dragons.

Lots of celebrations in the Dragons' Lair this morning after our campaign "Open Up" for Beavertown Brewery and Campaign Against Living Miserably won two The Drum Awards for PR. 🏆 Gold for Culture & Leisure 🏆 Silver for Innovation Read more about the campaign on the The Drum website. Link in below 👇

Here Be Dragons PRWeek UK's Award arrived to the office today 👊 Feels pretty special to have our first ever #PRWeekAward and third so far for Beavertown Brewery's Open Up Campaign with Campaign Against Living Miserably ✨ We couldn't make it as we were sailing around the Med, on what must surely be the best away day of the PR industry ever 🛥️ ☀️ Pleasure as always Dragons ❤️ Paul McEntee Dominic Radcliffe Emily Williams Emilee Senchyna Aggy Kazlauskas Luke Dixon Ines Coomonte Alonso Gavin Jenkins Farzana Lalloo

This week's edition of our Dragon Fab Five features the latest creative campaigns, curated by our Junior Designer & Studio Manager Farzana Lalloo We discuss Pizza Hut's personal pizza dining experience, the Tekken 8 collaboration glasses from GENTLE MONSTER, Walkers Crisps UK Halloween crisp outfits, and the latest creative from Tesco.