Tricker Treats for Christmas

Here’s a selection of our favourite festive treats, cards and calendars for Christmas 2012.
Email us or call us for a quote

Sweet Treats

Christmas Cup Cakes
The perfect gift for your – or your client’s – office in December. Can be festively boxed-up with your company’s brand.

Personalised Cupcakes
If you can see it on your computer screen we can have it transferred to icing (not rice paper) to top cupcakes. Festive boxes available.

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When I hung up my backboard eraser (yes we had real blackboards with chalk … none of this interactive white board technology to break down back then!) to move from a career as a primary teacher into PR, I thought there’d be at least a few glasses of champagne and cocktails to ease the transition. It’s got such a glamorous reputation.
Which is why I find myself asking where the perks are as I sit inelegantly on the gravel surface in the ruins of Melrose Abbey throwing a rugby ball into the air for the umpteenth time.
“You’re making it spin again” the photographer tells me as I, once again, fail to make the sponsor’s name face the camera as the ball is hurled up into the air as we try to catch the illusive perfect shot.
‘I need a rugby player.’ It’s not the first time I’ve had this thought to be honest – but this time I need one for professional reasons.
“I think that it’s meant to spin,” I venture to the photographer.
“Yes, but you need it not to spin. Or, to spin round enough to be showing the sponsor’s logo when I take the picture.”
I’m getting it now; I need to know enough about how to throw a rugby ball to make it do the exact opposite of what it’s meant to do. A bit like Les Dawson, when he used to play the piano so comically badly … and now I am showing my age.
It’s been a long day already and we’re reached the point where we’ve’ lost it’ and can’t stop giggling – which seems disrespectful to the history of the setting; being as we are, so close to the buried heart of Robert The Bruce.
You’d think by the law of averages that the rugby ball would spin in the right direction at the same time as the shutter moves at least once in our twenty thousand attempts to date. The gravel is beginning to hurt now and if I didn’t have cellulite before, my posterior will certainly be dimpled by now.
It brings to mind other glamorous days out for work. Like the day I spent waving a checked tea towel just out of shot when we were trying to shoot a giant truckle of cheese on the Cambus o May Bridge… Or feeding someone’s black Labrador a whole box of Bonios in front of a roaring log fire whilst trying to get it to hold the ribbon in its teeth to look as if it was wrapping a huge pile of Christmas presents – on the hottest day of the year in mid-July. Or perhaps, being handed a snake to hold while the model, who was eight foot up a ladder, applied further lip gloss. I didn’t have time to work out if I was scared of snakes or not. (Turns out I’m not!)
Does a picture truly paint a thousand words? And while my rear end is as numb as this – do I care any more!
As we call it a day, hoping that the recalcitrant rugby ball has performed at least once, it suddenly strikes me:
“I bet the visitor centre manager who let us in plays rugby.”
“We’re in the borders, every male plays rugby,” I am reminded by the photographer.
As we leave, giving thanks to the visitor centre manager, I can’t resist asking him.
“Of course,” he tells us proudly.
If it wasn’t such a long drive back to Aberdeen I’d buy myself that glass of champagne …

PR In Action

It’s the hottest day of the whole year – and it’s also the last day of September. Rather than being stuck in the office we’re up ladders getting ‘up close and personal’ with a stuffed stag’s head!
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The CIPR Pride awards finalists have been announced this morning and there’s great excitement in the office as the Tricker PR team has reached the finals of five categories:

• External Newspaper/Magazine          Deelicious – Royal Deeside Larder
• Best Use of Photography                      Royal Deeside Larder campaign
• Consumer campaign                             Royal Deeside & the Cairngorms
• Best Campaign under £10k                 Scotland’s Dolphin Coast
• Community Relations                          The Big Green Challenge

We can add these nominations to four others; two for the best Marketing of events in conjunction with our partners at Blue Square design in Dundee in both the UK and the Scottish Event Awards; one for the Best PR campaign for an event in the UK Event Awards and one for the Best Marketing campaign in the Northern Star Business Awards. These nominations are all for our work on the Royal Deeside and The Cairngorms and Royal Deeside Larder campaigns.

Click here to find out more about these campaigns:

http://www.trickerpr.com/Consumer/Royal-Deeside-and-The-Cairngorms/

http://www.trickerpr.com/Consumer/Royal-Deeside-Larder/

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I’ve just finished sewing a pair of bloomers and a chemise – essential ‘smalls’ for your average Victorian lady. It’s another ‘usual’ day in the Tricker PR office. Tomorrow, colleagues Laura and Lauren will be heading off at about 6.45am to head for Findhorn on the Moray Coast for the photo shoot to launch the new Moray Speyside tourism brand.

Packed in the car will be a crinoline cage style dress made from a whisky barrel two corsets; a pair of Victorian pantaloons; a chemise and lace up boots and – if we ever manage it – a copy of the new Moray Speyside logo on a large piece of white material. But we’re having huge problems with it. Our ‘pet printer’ Tom (who never asks us why when we turn up with a box of free range eggs to ask him to print them with a company logo or ask him to give us a transfer of a logo to adhere to a pregnant woman’s ‘bump’!) has had a major computer problem and he’s unable to finish the job.

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What is it with men and formal dress?

Even when they are briefed for months about black tie requirements, there’s always that heart stopping moment when they arrive at an event casually dressed – or at best in a work suit – with no evidence of a suit carrier in hand …

My first experience of that moment was several years ago at an awards ceremony. A senior Scottish politician was to be the key note speaker … and he was running rather late. The champagne reception for finalists was at serious risk of running dry when the VIP cavalcade drew up.
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From the Blog of Scott Douglas of The Holyrood Partnership.

There are some questions that have to be asked when you get up close enough to the person likely to have the answers.
My burning question last week was: “Why was that goat wearing a pair of deely boppers?”

The woman with the answers was Aberdeen-based queen of the photocall, Beverley Tricker

“Everyone in Scottish PR knows La Tricker’s work – not least because she hoovers up awards with the gay abandon of the shake’n'vac lady.”

Thankfully for the rest of us, Beverley is quite happy to share many of the hints and tips which help keep the creative juices flowing at her PR agency. Continue reading »