We’re not complaining about the terrific weather, as it beats doing the photoshoot under an umbrella as usual at this time of year, BUT … it’s causing the ice cream to melt all down model Jennifer’s arm. She’s a ‘game’ girl though as she knows the ‘buck’ stops with her for getting a good shot and battles on and bravely samples the Smoked Venison and Juniper Berry ice for the TV cameras.

We retreat out of the sun – who’d have thought we’d need sunscreen in Banchory at the end of September? – for our close encounter with the stag’s head. The pictures look great but most will not realise that Jennifer was eight foot up a ladder. It was a great idea from the photographer – until he remembered he’s afflicted with vertigo and he’d have to be eight feet up on another ladder. We have a choice of stag’s heads and opt for ‘Roe’bert as the alternative looks as if he started life as a sheep which was shaved, painted and affixed with antlers. He really doesn’t have a good side!
Roebert on the other hand knows how to milk his part and seems to have no qualms about being photographed in such a cannibalistic manner…

www.venisonfestival.com

• 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/

Needless to say there is already much talk of posh frock buying and high heel selection in the office!

We’re looking forward to also cheering on the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival in the Scottish Event Awards; and also Adam and Andy the Presidents of the University Boat Clubs in the Aberdeen Asset Management Universities’ Boat Race as they hope for success in the Best Educational Event and Best Student Event in both the Scottish and UK Event Awards.

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.

It’s Thursday night so there’s late night shopping – but will that help? Laura hits the phones and calls every company we can think of who might be able to photocopy or screen print the logo onto the fabric … but no joy. We discount the idea of photocopying the logo and sticking it on the fabric, but then the fabric won’t catch the wind the way we expect. But she’s not one to give up easily. It’s after 6pm now and we’re scratching our heads. The logo has been designed to look like a cask mark from the end of a whisky barrel and appears to be monotone – but we’ve been told by a couple of printers when we send it over to them that it’s actually a more complex set of colours than that. We think of trying to cut a stencil ourselves but discount this as being too fiddly to complete in the timescale. Eventually at 6.30pm we decide on painting the logo onto the fabric and head for the closest craft shop where we load up with various poster paints, brushes and the type of foam ‘brushes’ that you give pre school kids for their masterpieces. Back in the office we talk sweetly to the photocopier and eventually manage to ‘jigsaw puzzle’ together enlargements of pieces of the logo until we have one big enough for the photos.

Which is why, at 8pm I’m sitting at my dining table discovering a new world of artistic possibilities with foam brushes! As I trace the logo through a 4 meter length of thick muslin I ponder whether it wouldn’t have been easier for us to admit defeat at 5pm – but only for a second or two. It’s great to have a team of people who always pull together to deliver – even when it’s against all the odds.

The next day, Lauren makes a detour to pick up the material from my house before 7am and off they head to Findhorn about 1 hour 40 minutes away. There’s always a buzz in the office when we’ve got a big shoot on and we all wait with baited breath to see the snaps which Laura sends through on her mobile.

Once again the photographer has done us proud with a stunning set of images. Ones for the walls of the office. But we can’t be the only place of work where the unusual is the norm however. When we asked the cooper who made the whisky barrel skirt if it was his most unusual commission, he surprised us by saying no. Apparently, we’d been trumped a few years before when he made a Dalek from whisky casks! Now there’s an idea …

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.

He’d been sent all the briefing notes which clearly stated that the event was a black tie ‘do’ and he’d also been asked if he needed a room to change in, which he had declined saying he’d turn up at the event ‘ready to roll’. His staff had also been briefed. So it was a surprise when he exited the limo in office wear.
It was at this precise moment that my colleague, for some bizarre reason, started to eye up waiters. Half my brain was occupied with worrying about where we were going to find a dinner suit at 7pm, while the other half was frustrated that she’d chosen this moment to look for a bit of ‘eye candy’.

Then, she was off like an exorcet missile … the poor wine waiter didn’t stand a chance. But, she was actually way ahead of me and was measuring up potential waiters who looked about the size of our tardy politician.

As she wrestled with the wine waiter for his clothes, in walked the ministerial aide … complete with suit bag to save the day. The only thing he needed was a room to change in … in a hotel at maximum capacity?

My own transformation from day to evening wear had taken my usual 2 minutes and 20 seconds and had, as usual, resulted in a trail of destruction only usually found following natural disasters. But, there was nothing for it but to show the minister to my room scooping up my ‘smalls’ – okay my ‘mediums’… well if pushed my ‘larges’ – off the floor into a drawer.

The champagne reception bill may have been higher than expected … and the kitchen staff may have been blowing a gasket over the delay to the meal, but we finally kicked off the event with our suitable attired key note speaker.

Fast forward eight years and I’m back at the same hotel, handling PR for the same event. It’s 4pm, just two and a half hours to go to the champagne reception. This time the key note speaker is Nick Leeson – even he acknowledges that he will only ever be remembered as the man who brought down the bank – and there’s a queue of media to interview him.

We move into the ballroom for some TV shots against the Grampian Awards for Business Enterprise backdrop and everything looks on track – stage, backdrops, table dressings. As he’s waiting for the camera man to set up, he siddles over and whispers those words of dread …”It’s not a black tie do is it?”

And, before he’s even finished the question, I’m off… chasing wine waiters. “What size are you?” is my parting shot to Leeson, but to my utter dismay he says that apart from his collar size – he doesn’t know.

As I ambush a waiter and ‘assist him’ out of his jacket and force it onto the man who brought down the bank (or at least the first one to do so …) the hotel manager approaches obviously to protect his staff from aging PR ‘cougars’. Fortunately, he sizes up the situation and offers his own spare suits leaving me only to find a wing collar shirt and bow tie before the shops closed.

To all PRs out there – if you ever find yourself in this situation, Mr Leeson is a 17 ½ collar! Make sure your local gentlemen’s outfitters has one on stand-by for you… And… he’s a highly entertaining, self deprecating speaker.
(Photo of Nick Leeson at GABE)

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.

About 18 months ago, when I found out she was running a creativity workshop for junior practitioners, I promptly dispatched a couple of our own young staff.

They came back fizzing with bright ideas and desperate to unleash their newfound brainstorming abilities on the first available campaign.
During a debrief the pair excitedly tried to explain how a moment of on the spot creativity led to one of Beverley’s most successful  photo calls – the aforementioned horned farm animal in bobbling head wear.

I never did quite get to the bottom of the story – so here at Holyrood Partnership the expression “a goat in deely boppers” is now a byword for anything inexplicable in the world of PR.

However, last week at a CIPR event in Edinburgh , Beverley was giving a talk on creative PR on a budget and I finally got the explanation I’d been seeking for so long.

Turns out Ms Tricker was arranging a picture opportunity for a charity which encourages would-be donors to raise money to provide poor African families with goats, sheep or other livestock.

After an exhausting afternoon wearing wellies and herding a dozen wayward sheep and a single goat across muddy fields the photo shoot was in the bag – but it hadn’t yielded the killer image Beverley had hoped for.

Farmer, photographers, Beverley and various PR assistants were all thoroughly fed up and happy to call it a day. Indeed, the only member of the team who seemed to be having any fun was the goat.

So when the beast was loaded into the back of a farmer’s van, it popped its head out between two wooden slats to bleat forlornly at being separated from its new pals.

As quick as a flash, Beverley delved into her handbag, fished out a set of Christmas deely boppers and popped them on the animal’s head. A photographer managed to fire off a couple of quick frames as the van pulled away – and thanks to that  inspired moment, Beverley got the image that came to define that particular campaign.

I never did get the chance to ask why, exactly, she had the deely boppers in her bag, or if she ever got them back – because she promptly launched into a funnier story about the same photoshoot.

Apparently it took what seemed like hours of teeth-grindingly frustrating work to get a flock of sheep herded from the farm to the appointed photo set, so the snappers could start their work.

Just at that point Beverley tells me the farmer dropped this bombshell: “Stop the photoshoot – we haven’t got the 10 best looking sheep!”
An oldie, but a goody. Then again, maybe she wasn’t joking. After all this was in Aberdeenshire…

http://www.holyroodpr.co.uk/index.php/coverage/entry/think_youve_found_the_perfect_goat_for_your_photo_call_now_check_if_its_the/