Ian Hainey

At the turn of the millennium, I began my journey into marketing through PR as a fresh-faced business economics graduate from the University of Glasgow and IT postgraduate from the University of Aberdeen. Throughout my academic years I had been marked down for my writing being ‘too journalistic’. Therefore, upon graduation and having no clue which career I truly wanted to pursue, the idea came to try my hand at journalism. To get the ball rolling, I joined the team at The University of Aberdeen’s student newspaper, The Gaudie, and was soon enjoying writing various types of features, such as a report from an intrepid expedition to find the Loch Ness Monster. While it may have all seemed like a bit of fun, it also got me hooked on writing and having my work read by a large number of people - The Gaudie is well-read by the sizeable university population of over 14,000, which seemed a lot then. Ready for career progression, I used this as a stepping stone to land an internship with the local publisher, Aberdeen Journals, where I received some training in news writing with their daily regional broadsheet, The Press & Journal and evening city tabloid, the Evening Express.

I arrived at the enormous open plan newsroom, largely covering stories that no one else could be bothered with. The first by-line I wrote was one I gleaned from a customer at my evening bar job who was up in arms about kids setting fire to communal bins in the housing scheme where he lived. Cue the picture of a furious chap standing beside fire-blackened industrial-size bins and my by-line name beside the surprisingly large article, for all the city to read in the popular evening newspaper. The traineeship was during a cold dark Aberdeen winter and I somehow managed to quickly develop a reputation as the kid who would stand outside the supermarket in the freezing cold and solicit written vox pops (people’s opinions recorded while talking informally in a public place) and headshot pictures from shivering parents as they pushed their trolleys to their car, while trying to control their screaming kids. After several weeks I was delighted to be offered a full-time traineeship and I do remember deliberating over a choice between this job and one at DC Thomson’s Dundee Courier newspaper, which also produces national treasures like The Dandy and The Beano.

However, a part of me felt the position might be restrictive in career terms and I might not be making the most of my five years of university education. I also clearly remember an endless supply of press releases hitting the news desk, mostly by fax, and thinking it seems more powerful to get a story into several media than writing an article that generally only appears in one. I convinced myself of the ‘power of PR’ and felt this was the best career option at the time. It didn’t harm the decision that one of the agencies I was speaking to about a position was handling corporate PR for the local professional football team, which, being a big fan of the sport, I thought would be both a fun and valuable experience. I have to say, it still impresses me how those running the local PR agencies used to keep tabs on the new junior reporters on the news desk, to see if they could be a valuable recruit for them. I remember one reporter telling me she had been asked about my abilities by the local head of Weber Shandwick and she had told them: ‘He seems very competent’. At least she didn’t get too carried away with my potential.

After much deliberation between the newspapers and the interested PR agencies, I decided to jump ship to what many journalists still call ‘the dark side’ by taking up a position at PR agency Beattie Media’s small Aberdeen office – yes, the one that handled Aberdeen Football Club’s PR, even though it came with even lower salary than other offers. I worked at Beattie for over a year before moving to the Falkirk office, servicing Glasgow and Edinburgh, dealing with accounts including commercial property and, somewhat bizarrely, a shopping mall in Sunderland. It soon became obvious the daily car commute from my apartment in the west end of Glasgow was too much travelling and I moved back to Aberdeen, where I landed a poorly paid, but incredibly fun position as the PR executive for the tourist board, promoting Aberdeen and Grampian Highlands tourism, which comprises largely castles, whisky, hotels and restaurants, which it claimed to be worth over £500 million annually to the area. As chief press officer for the organisation, responsible for all news-related promotion and corporate PR, the position lent me the freedom to do whatever it took to generate my own news stories – which somehow led me to dressing up three times for the picture opportunity. Dressed in a Gandalf The Grey outfit, complete with beard, pointy hat and stick, I generated some solid publicity for the Spirit of Speyside Walking Festival, with some silhouette pictures taken on a hilltop of some little people walking behind the great wizard with backpacks on – well it is a journey after all. On another story I managed to source the outfit of a giant biting midge, after seeing it at a trade fair promoting a machine that literally sucked the flies out of the air. From some ‘creative’ online research, the newsline of my story was the east coast midge isn’t as aggressive as the west coast midge, contrary to popular understanding. The stunt generated a lot of publicity, including an interview on Terry Wogan’s BBC2 radio show, which was the most listened to in the country at that time. However, I am sure it got my boss at the time into hot water for approving it, as the tourist board on the west coast didn’t appreciate the comparison and kicked up a bit of a fuss. Another story claiming Aberdeen was in fact the sunniest city in the UK generated national publicity, which was helped by a picture set up of some happy young ladies frolicking in the beach in bikinis – a story that had particular success in the all-powerful UK national tabloids. There were lots of these fun stories, including haggis hunting season, coldest place in Britain and other newslines devised to draw media attention to the area.

However, in 2004 a letter was left on my desk from the hand of the city’s Lord Provost about a book that had been written tracing Elvis Presley’s lineage to a man from a village called Lonmay. The newshound in me immediately saw the story, but no one could have expected the tornado of publicity that was about to hit the east coast of Scotland. I invited the author, Allan Morrison, up for a photo opportunity and, after failing to find an Elvis impersonator on my meagre budget, I hired a fancy-dress outfit complete with wig and glasses, then invited the local news agency along to the sleepy village. After being released on the newswires, the story quickly gathered momentum - appearing in UK newspapers and on some national broadcast bulletins. Then some international newswires picked it up and before long it was a trending story globally – hitting all the major newspapers, in many languages, from the Washington Post to the Sydney Morning Herald. People at breakfast tables all over the world were opening their newspapers to the picture of myself jumping in the air ‘rocking’ some bagpipes, badly dressed as The King. My phone barely stopped ringing for days and the only public house in Lonmay was soon fully booked for weeks due largely to international media covering the story. It seemed the world had been waiting a long time for a fresh Elvis angle and news crews flew into the village, while the author did a tour of the national UK breakfast TV shows. It was quite an incredible result for the region and the articles can still easily be found on Google to this day. It was also a lesson that each story should be approached in a thorough way, as while some might not garner much interest, from time to time it can blow up and priceless PR is the result.

These tourist board stories were all my own ideas to draw as much media attention as possible to the region’s tourism offering and they did generate incredible amounts of publicity for the area without any real budget. Looking back, it was an ideal job to develop skills delivering creative, proactive public relations. During this 2003-2005 period, I was also involved in PR for the Scottish Film Tourism Liaison Group, plus Ski Scotland and would organise press trips for journalists to come and explore the activities, fine cuisine and, of course, the wares of the world-famous Speyside whisky distilleries.

However, it was time to get serious and, at the tender age of 27, I was offered the position of Deputy Head of Communications for Grampian Police, where I headed the regional force’s busy media office. There I led the team, reacting to constant daily calls from media and proactively promoting the force’s many initiatives and campaigns - from road safety to crime reduction. Supervising up to 15 press releases a day, fielding an average of 50 calls and arranging around five photo opportunities per week, this position was a huge leap in terms of work intensity and responsibility and prepared me well for future career challenges. For example, one day a child had went missing and rumours began to spread of potential abduction. When this happens some of the world’s media begins to contact the press office, in case they are looking at a child murder story. Press conferences were held and regular media updates went out, while some alarming police records of one of the child’s guardians were kept from the public, despite the clamour for information. This turned out to be the correct decision, as the child has merely stayed over at a friend’s house and had not told anyone their whereabouts. The role was a steep learning curve in the power of the media, how to work under severe pressure and the potential consequences of providing information. During my time with the police I am proud to have created a community engagement anti-vandalism campaign which we as a team worked hard to deliver, using all elements of integrated communications tactics available at that time and bringing on board all the main daily newspapers, radio and television stations, plus uniting politicians and departments of the local council and other public organisations along the way in the cause. The campaign, which reduced vandalism in the city by 17 per cent and was mentioned in parliament on two separate occasions, won the UK Best Strategic PR Campaign Award, beating all the major police forces, such as London Metropolitan, despite their extensive resources.

In under two years with the police, I was given the opportunity of a holiday to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, to consider it as a place to live and work, thanks to family living there. Therefore, I decided to jet out for a holiday and test the job market, lining up some interviews and having a look at the city in general. The UAE’s economy was booming at the time and, having sent my CV out to companies in advance of my two-week trip there, the offers of interviews came in thick and fast. It was clear it was an opportunity not to be missed, so from several offers I chose an agency and joined as account director and head of English language delivery.

In under six months of working for the PR agency, I had decided I would only be happy in my job doing things my own way, so was given the opportunity to establish the marketing communications department for a medium-sized advertising agency in the city, which I grabbed with both hands. Despite winning some impressive accounts, including Bosch and Sharaf DG within two years working in the position, I decided to move forward as a freelance consultant. It was during this period working as a freelancer in 2009 that I landed a role in Abu Dhabi, promoting the activations and education initiatives surrounding the city's first F1 Grand Prix. A huge success and fantastic experience, the position elevated my reputation within the industry and vastly improved my network. As part of the three-month project I recommended two event managers to come in and handle the launch press conference, then post-event convinced them to set up in partnership my first company - marketing agency, Custard Communications.

Custard Communications hit the ground running, winning some high-profile clients and capitalising upon some of the governmental relationships we had developed during the F1 project. However, with events being an area unsuitable long term for someone who struggles with multitasking, we split the agency into two where I continued to grow the PR side of the business, while the other partners concentrated solely on event management. By this point, I had won some high-profile integrated briefs, including Air Miles, Tim Hortons and FranklinCovey - helping well-known brands move towards digital communications, across PR, social media, mobile apps and online advertising. It was an exciting time in the marketing industry and the event management arm of the business was proving an unwelcome distraction, consuming time that should have been spent focusing on the real growth area of the business. Before long I couldn’t see the benefit of being part of the company that I had started, so we dissolved the partnership in 2011 and I used my share to establish Integrated Holistic Communications (iHC), which continues to grow steadily to this day. With headquarters in Dubai and clients across several countries, I am now focused on developing the iHC brand internationally, winning business and helping the teams deliver integrated communications across a wide variety of sectors and brands.

In 2013, I took a year out from the Dubai office to create and lead a marketing department for a year-long project in London when hired as Head of Communications for the launch of an ambitious sport social media app called Sportlobster. I quickly built a marketing team of 17 and had a large budget to utilise a wide variety of marketing activities, from PR to influencer marketing, online advertising, social media, outdoor, television, events and activations. We established an in-house influencer marketing team and ran campaigns around major global sporting events, optimising constantly and setting the company on the way to eventually driving over two million registrations over a two-year period, including helping the company raise in excess of £15m in venture capital in the process through the integrated marketing efforts. Throughout all that, I maintained the growth of iHC’s team and client roster, while also keeping my hand in at writing, having been published across several different magazine titles and many times in the leading UAE newspaper, The National, for whom I wrote a weekly column for several months.

The agency in Dubai, where I am still highly invested on a daily basis, continues to grow, but I am now based in Rio de Janeiro, where we are delivering integrated communications across South America, with clients in Brazil, Peru and Mexico. The focus in South America is particularly on international English-speaking clients looking to promote their activities in the continent and Brazilian organisations looking to promote their businesses internationally. When not doing this, I am providing international consultancy, helping organisations elevate their brands and market themselves better. The super-talented integrated team in our ever-growing Dubai office continues to work hard together to win, service and retain a diverse array of clients, who benefit from the results we consistently deliver - largely using the disciplines covered in Promoting Your Business.

Contact me at: http://ih-c.com/promoting-your-business/