A sea of suits. Sara Bailey recollects the view from a hilltop on her first visit to MIPIM, the London property world’s home-from-home on the French Riviera. Things have moved on but by consensus, diversity and inclusion are nowhere near changing the industry as much as they might. How do you make the old-school real […]

The big communications challenge for the real estate sector is changing attitudes The property sector has a bad image. Developers and contractors are “net takers” from society. The public sees no social value from their activities. They don’t trust them – or councils – on planning. They wouldn’t advise young people to join the industry. […]

“What is PR?” It’s one of the most common questions people in our sector get asked. Close behind is: “What’s the difference between Public Relations and marketing?” As it turns out, the answer to the second question sheds much light on the first. Public Relations in its purest form is about reputation – gaining it, […]

Welcome to Hopwood PR and Communications’ event listing for London property events. We’re specialists in marcomms and public relations for the property sector. We’re always on the lookout for networking events, conferences and other opportunities for our clients and contacts. We know they are a proven way to build awareness and reputation. We also provide […]

Firms who back up their property brand marketing by walking the talk will be more successful than those who peddle empty promises. Strolling mid-morning near St Paul’s. Suddenly and in broad daylight, a fox darts across my path and into the road. He shimmies to avoid an advancing vehicle and disappears around the corner. Some nearby […]

How do you build your firm’s PR profile, raise awareness and develop a reputation in a sector where you have yet to make your mark? Or how about if you do have a track record in a sector but your customers won’t let you talk about the projects you’ve done for them? These are common […]

Hopwood, the property PR and marketing specialist, has launched three new websites for property sector clients. All three are built on our model of making web sites the centre of communications. With content tailored for search engines, all three feature lively news sections. These attract valuable inbound links from the media, social media and client […]

‘Say what you like about Mussolini but at least the trains ran on time’ was a sardonic remark, popular in the days of British Rail. The monolithic network that ran the tracks, trains and everything else in the 1970s had a reputation for inefficiency and grim catering that was grist to the mill for the dark […]

Here’s a remarkable forecast. By 2020, Millennials* will make up half of the global workforce, and four out of ten of them will be independent operators, mostly by their own choice. This is good news for WeWork, whose new take on workspace is designed to appeal to an entrepreneurial generation less concerned with ownership and […]

‘Present tense, future conditional, past perfect’ Much of what we do in PR is about creating compelling information, the kind that makes you feel something or want to do something. In our work in the property sector, we employ strategies to build reputations and to persuade stakeholders of the merits of our clients’ developments. That […]

MIPIM is the largest and most important European property event, hosted in Cannes each year. For most delegates and their businesses, it’s a significant investment of time and money. And with so much to do and see, it’s vital that you have your visit planned out before you step on the plane. We spoke to […]

A client asked me the question “do you have any research / feedback on what makes a website successful?” so here are a few pointers. We have produced numerous websites, online shops and web apps working with our in house design team, specialists and web developer partners. For a proposal and quotation to overhaul your website that will […]

Client Patrick Hayes, Director at multidisciplinary engineering consultancy Meinhardt UK, was part of a panel discussion at Estates Gazette’s Development Summit in Birmingham. Since we secured the opportunity for Patrick to speak at Development Summit, Meinhardt UK have been pursuing some exciting business development opportunities that arose from contacts made during the session. Patrick’s thoughts […]

Client maber, the architecture practice, featured in The Sunday Times, commenting on leveraging the workplace industry. Dan Pilling, Head of Workplace at Maber and Deputy Chair of BIFM (British Institute of Facilities Management) Workplace Special Interest Group, shared his thoughts on how to create an office that enables productivity. According to evidence presented to the […]

It’s commonly said that things move fast in the world of business but not, in my experience, when compared with daily newspaper journalism. And the breakneck speed that is required to process news accelerates in the world of 24 hour broadcast news, something that is true for sports news too. I’m with an audience of PR […]

Selling the vision of major projects: Do it well or be demonised. At the relaunch of the property and construction group within PRCA (the Public Relations and Communications Association), we’re hearing from the horse’s mouth about what went right with the public consultation and engagement on HS1 and what went oh so badly wrong on […]

London has a bright future with its formidable business community, culture, sport and nightlife. Angus Dodd, chief executive of Quintain, delivers an upbeat forecast for the capital in post Brexit Britain. He heads up the organisation that is delivering regeneration on a grand scale at Wembley Park with 1,000 homes built and 4,850 to come […]

Can having a way with words give property organisations the power to make big things happen, and what does physics have to do with public relations? Scientists knew about black holes before they were called black holes but it wasn’t until the term was coined that the phenomenon captured the public imagination. A man known for his […]

How has the emergence of social media changed the PR industry? MD: The big difference is that it has made us much more interested in real engagement and conversations with our target audiences, rather than simply putting out messages to them in a largely one-way fashion. Before social media, if you wanted to reach people […]

After developing a compelling story idea, good writing often makes the difference between an article that makes the media and one that disappears. Here are some tips from our internal writing workshop. Start with the end in mind You have to have a clear goal for each piece that you write. What effect do you […]

When a star footballer admitted what many people think, namely that Premiership salaries are obscene, it set us thinking. Our construction training client DTL had told us how a chronic skills shortage was leading to spiraling wage inflation in the utilities. We wondered if the problem wasn’t tackled, would construction workers one day earn footballer […]

We see LinkedIn as a natural extension of the face-to-face networking that property professionals do so well. But most people are barely scratching the surface of what it has to offer. To help you make the most of this powerful business-to-business channel, here are a few ideas. Connect to your company – Ensure that you […]

MIPIM UK – a spin-off from MIPIM, the largest property event in Europe, which descends on Cannes in the south of France every March – was held for the first time in 2014. Ahead of this year’s event on 19th-21st October at London Olympia, here’s our quick guide to getting the most of your time […]

From multicultural Leicester to cosmopolitan London this morning where the latest Capital 500 survey of business confidence was unveiled. The mood is angry. In the wake of England’s humiliating exit from the Euro 2016 football championships, the economic goalposts have been moved, and no-one knows where. What we do know, as Vicky Pryce from the […]

Why do some property and regeneration projects succeed while others fail? According to analysts Gartner, the main reason for a failed architecture project is lack of communication. Projects sank as stakeholders misinterpreted the designers’ ideas, and the vision was not successfully communicated to the potential buyers. For those projects that do get off the ground, […]

Like nature, the media abhors a vacuum.   The Guardian’s Nils Pratley sympathises with Sir Philip Green’s grumblings about the unrestrained conduct of MPs grilling him over the collapse of BHS, but he also feels Sir Philip could have waged a smarter PR campaign in the wake of the department store’s downfall. Pratley says the […]

Leicester City’s miraculous victory startled everyone, and manager Claudio Ranieri won everyone’s hearts, even the media’s. But how? From a public relations perspective, we’ve been looking at how the Italian maestro picked up a broken record and created an operatic masterpiece. PS As the longest-established PR consultancy in Leicester, we want to say thank you. […]

“Pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space…” – Monty Python’s Meaning of Life Five years after the moon landing, astronomer Frank Drake sent a radio message from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico far out into space. It was a brilliant attempt to tell ET there was someone down here, and we wanted […]

So here they are, the world’s favourite quotes about the public relations profession as compiled in our online survey of communications professionals.

Weakened by the insidious media outpour of grim economic news. Gunned down by the rat-tat-tat of your prospects telling you “no”. Deafened by the silence when you ask the world to take notice.

With whistleblowers and spooks dominating the headlines, questions about secrecy, privacy and loyalty are topping commentators’ agendas.

When she was ten years old, Zoe Averianov placed a note in a bottle and cast it adrift from the deck of a ferry bound from Hull, England.

When we think ‘regeneration’, we think ‘transformation’.

Managing image is tricky.  People view organisations from their own points of view, and organisations who want to be seen a certain way frequently fail to ‘walk the talk’. Look at the passionate public resentment towards banks, and how incapable of meaningful change those organisations appear to be.

As told to me (and a room full of other people) by Steve Cram, and if you’re asking yourself who he is, read on and be prepared to be amazed.

Trade shows can be tiring, but there are ways to ensure that you are doing the best you can with the time you’ve got.

TV presenter and cycling journalist Rebecca Charlton was on twitter last week looking for top tips for surviving multi-stage rides, and while I was replying it started me thinking about managing complex PR projects.

Ever been in another country or even just a different city and found the news in the local paper unfathomable (and not just because it’s in a language you don’t speak)? It’s probably because you don’t know the backstory.

Newspaper journalism is a trade in decline, and it looks terminal. Figures from big publishers reveal a plummeting decline in the advertising revenues on which newspaper businesses traditionally depend.