As CPL One managing director Mike Sewell explains, we’ll be making extra donations to three charities this year.

First it was the Christmas cards. Now it’s the Christmas chocolates.

Not so long ago, our team members spent hours during the build-up to Christmas signing hundreds of cards for our clients, suppliers and other stakeholders.

We stopped posting physical Christmas cards a few years ago, but have continued to send chocolates and other gifts in recent years.

They were both a lovely thing to do; a chance to say thank you to the many people with whom we work and to acknowledge that it takes a true team effort to create and deliver some consistently great work during the year.

But, in recent years, we have increasingly questioned whether sending physical gifts to our clients and stakeholders was always the right thing to do. So, for Christmas 2024, we have decided to give more money to the three charities we support as a company. 

We’re sure you will understand why we’re doing this.

These charities do some fantastic work – and I trust you’ll allow me a quick plug for each of them here.

1. Mesothelioma UK

The charity supports people with this horrible form of asbestos cancer. It’s a charity that is particularly close to the hearts of the team at CPL One as Martin (pictured below left), the husband of our colleague Janette Millan (below right), is currently living with mesothelioma. 

Soon after we heard about Martin’s diagnosis, it was brilliant to see Janette’s fellow media sales expert Caroline Harland (below centre) rise to the occasion and go full-on in raising funds for Martin, Janette and the charity. Caroline ran a brilliant coffee morning at our office in August, followed soon after by a crowdfunding campaign that would enable Martin and Janette to set off on a holiday of a lifetime to make some precious memories.

Between them, these raised more than £7,650 and CPL One is pleased to be making a further contribution to Mesothelioma UK this Christmas. 

2. Abbey People 

With its universities, science parks and fast-growing biomedical campus, Cambridge is an affluent city. But it also has sections of extreme poverty including in and around the Barnwell area, where our Cambridge office is located. Abbey People runs targeted local community projects, including running a food hub, supporting access to education and employment, and developing a culture of volunteering in the community. We support employees to volunteer at the food hub, and hope that more will do so in 2025 when we’ll also be carrying out some pro bono work for Abbey People, including creating newsletters and an annual report.

For this Christmas, our Wellbeing team have liaised with Abbey People to arrange for our employees (a few of whom are pictured below) to put together two special hampers for families who are struggling with extra financial pressures at this time of year. It has been brilliant to see our team’s response – and the company will be making a financial contribution to further support Abbey People’s work.

3. Batemans Trust

This one, I have to admit, is particularly close to my heart. My wife and I volunteered for the Batemans Trust in Chennai, India, back in 2006-7, supporting the fantastic work this small charity does to deliver education, secure accommodation and welfare for disadvantaged children. 

Over the years since then, the charity has changed the life chances of dozens of young people and it has ambitious plans to build its own school in the future.

CPL One sponsors seven-year-old Roshini (pictured below), who had a particularly challenging childhood before joining the girls’ hostel run by Batemans’ sister charity the Satkaarya Trust. We also carry out pro bono work for the charity, writing and designing an annual printed newsletter, as well as regular enewsletters and other material. And we’ll be topping up our donations to the charity this Christmas.

Of course, we all have individual charities that we support, but if you feel able to make a donation to one or more of these charities this year it would be hugely appreciated. And it might even make up for not receiving a box of chocolates from CPL One this year!

Donate to Mesothelioma UK here.

Donate to Abbey People here.

Donate to Batemans Trust here.

CPL One managing director Mike Sewell on maximising your content and other lessons learned at a recent industry conference.

As a full-service content marketing agency, you’d expect us to work hard to keep up to speed on trends and developments in our various sectors.

That’s why, during 2024, our team members have attended flagship industry events, conferences and festivals run by organisations including the Content Marketing Association, the Internet Advertising Bureau, the Periodical Publishers’ Association (PPA) and two membership organisations, the Association of Association Executives and Memcom.

At last month’s Independent Publishers Network Conference, organised by the PPA, I had the chance to learn about the challenges and opportunities facing commercial magazine publishing organisations – and consider how they apply to our clients.

Perhaps the most encouraging point for me was that all the publishers present were striving to do something that our membership clients have, by their very nature, already achieved – that is, build communities. 

They have spent years, decades and, in some cases, more than a century creating communities with their members.

So, in many ways, when working on membership publishing projects, our teams at CPL One are in a strong position. We just need to ensure we continue to create must-read, must-watch and must-listen to content, and take advantage of the revenue opportunities that come from having an engaged audience that is part of a community of people and organisations with shared interests.  

Much of the focus of the PPA conference was on how to make the most of these revenue opportunities.

In his keynote address, Juan Señor, author of a major 2024 media report, advocated the ‘freemium’ model as fundamental for commercial publishers. 

As the image below shows, Freemium involves organising your digital content in three ways:

1.  Free

2. Behind a data wall

3. Behind a paywall.

Señor argued that all three need to be combined to help drive engagement, subscriptions and revenue: “Your data wall is just as important as your paywall,” he stressed.

He also picked out a few other key priorities for publishers that are highlighted in the report. These include:

• Maximising AI-powered media to streamline workflows and processes: “You should embrace AI,” he said, but emphasised that editorial experts need to stay closely involved in all content production –  ‘human first and human last’ should be the guiding principle. “Listen to your editors; they will make you the money,” he added.
• Valuing print: “Print is your flagship, premium proposition; cancelling it is a big mistake,” he said. People like reading magazines, he added, because: “Humans love to say they have finished something – a Netflix series, for example. You never finish a website, but you can finish a magazine.”

It’s a good report – I thoroughly recommend investing in it.

CPL One’s publishing clients have varying requirements for their digital and print strategies. But as we develop and evolve a range of multichannel solutions on their behalf, we will continue to take into account the lessons and insights from our peers in the commercial publishing world.

If you would like to talk to me or a colleague about how best to combine and transition your print and digital content strategy, do get in touch.

CPL One appointed to produce a quarterly magazine and shape the Institute’s digital content.

Following a competitive tender process, the Institute of Leadership (IoL) has appointed CPL One to create its quarterly magazine, Edge, and to shape its future digital content strategy.

The new business win underlines CPL One’s expertise in creating and delivering content marketing strategies for professional membership bodies.

John Mark Williams, CEO of the IoL, said: “We were impressed by the way the CPL One team responded to the whole tender process. They demonstrated an authentic and collaborative approach and clearly have the skills and expertise to be a great partner for us. We are looking forward to working with the team.”

Lucy Oakshott, business development director for CPL One, said: “The IoL is a growing organisation with so much to offer its members. We are excited about our new partnership and the opportunity to use our journalistic and design skills to further improve the IoL’s magazine and content.”

The IoL announcement comes after CPL One successfully retained its long-running contract with the Local Government Association (LGA) and extended its partnership with the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE).

CPL One’s first issue of Edge will be published in September.

Our animated film for CIWM celebrates the Institution’s 125^th anniversary by telling an important story with style.

How do you tell a story that spans more than a century if you only have three minutes to engage and inform your audience? 

When CPL One created content to celebrate the 125^th anniversary of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), and chart the birth of the circular economy, this was the challenge. 

“Initially, we put together a proposal with a choice of content ideas that we could create to help CIWM mark its anniversary year,” says senior account manager Alex Lamb.

“One option we suggested was animation, which we know is a good way to tell a story and something that can also stay online as evergreen content. Animation would also allow us to overlay CIWM’s brand colours and tone of voice across a mix of stock imagery and bespoke graphics and design. It would also let us weave different elements and milestones into the mix – for example, by highlighting Circular, the magazine we create for CIWM and its members.” 

CPL One’s Ian Farrell, editor of Circular, had written a feature about the Institution’s anniversary for the magazine, and this was used as the foundation from which to script the animation.

“Using the magazine feature, we broke down the 125-year history of CIWM into a timeline of different scenes,” says Alex. “It transported us from seeing waste on the streets of Victorian Britain to the advances of the present day and into the future. 

“After the first draft of the script was signed off, we set about storyboarding the animation and finding suitable images so that our designers could create a collage to illustrate the story. The creative process involved our designers, editorial team, animators and videographers.“It was a truly cross-departmental project and we really enjoy being able to work in that way. We think the animation is really strong; for us it hit a sweet spot and know it’s resonating with CIWM members too.”

If you would like to discuss how animation could help tell your organisation’s story, get in touch.

After completing the first in a series of films to encourage people to become occupational therapists, Marcus Codrington Fernandez reflects on the strategy and rationale behind CPL One’s approach.

Shock horror, hold the front page, drop the mic. There’s a crisis in social care.

Admittedly, that’s hardly new news in 2020s Britain. But when we were approached by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust to find a strategy to help address a shortfall in occupational therapists, our suggested approach to the crisis did create a bit of squeaky bum time.

Let’s make a film, we said. Really? One of the greatest issues facing society and we’re suggesting producing some films can be anywhere near the answer?

There’s a perfect storm of factors that have brought about the social care crisis, including an ageing population, chronic underfunding, increasing complexity of needs, socioeconomic inequalities, changes to family dynamics and the impact of Covid-19.

Epic crisis

The scale of the crisis across the country is epic. In Cambridgeshire, the team at CPL One have devised campaigns to recruit more qualified carers across the board in various areas of social care: care workers, reablement workers, child services, adult social care and, most recently, occupational therapists. And they need to be recruited fast.

So making a film seems, on the face of it, somewhat trivial. Certainly, that’s what we feared our clients might think when we presented our plan.

However, we were confident our rationale was compelling.

The starting position for considering how to crack the problem is to face up to the fact that occupational therapy doesn’t exactly help itself. Even those in social care could be forgiven for not knowing exactly what occupational therapy is. So recruiting people to commit their lives to it needs an explanation of the role before you can start to build any cogent, rational argument.

Perhaps it could also be said there aren’t too many rational reasons to consider a career in occupational therapy. It’s not highly paid, nobody knows what the role entails from its obtuse title, it doesn’t exactly hold the same social cache as vaguely comparable roles like physiotherapist, and the offices for the job certainly won’t be featured in Wallpaper magazine any time soon.

Critical work

The most irresistible reason for following this vocation is emotional. You get to help people at their hour of most desperate need. You can very literally turn a person’s life around. And in doing so you can elevate your own. It’s unfathomable that there isn’t more social equity in being an occupational therapist. This work is increasingly critical to the health of a modern nation.

And thankfully, in spite of the obstacles, we know there are plenty of people who want to look after other people. People who like hearing other people’s stories. These people are the very definition of people-people.

People-people are the heart and soul of social care. They aren’t in it for social validation or to earn the big bucks. Just as well.

To feel complete, they simply have to help people. To feel valued, they need to value others. To be emotionally engaged they need to hear of the lives of others. It’s not rational and it’s not considered. They do it because they feel it.

That’s where the skills of content marketing come in. Words and pictures used to help people feel like they belong to something. And to feel something.

Filmmakers are the masters of making you feel something. They touch a nerve. They bring the emotion to the surface. They deal in loss as the secret ingredient of every story.

Emotional stories

So we at CPL One resolved to create stories. Short stories that can be told in 30 seconds, but that pack an emotional upper-cut to the gut. They are little more than case studies – examples of what it’s like to work as an occupational therapist. What it feels like to help someone in trauma come out of themselves. Or to help someone who had reverted to self-imposed isolation to see the value in just hanging out with others once again.

And we are telling these stories to students, people at a crossroads in their life where they are considering what kind of life they want to lead. The short films we’re making don’t draw on the techniques of advertising. There’s no persuasion involved, hidden or otherwise. All we’re doing is inviting people to decide if they feel something.

If they do, then we hope these people-people will respond to the call to action and find out more about being an occupational therapist.

It could be one of the most fulfilling things they will ever get to do in their lives.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marcus Codrington Fernandez is a strategy and creative director who has devised and led campaigns for CPL One. Marcus has been global creative director for the world’s largest communications agency and founded a number of international networks.

Joy was the theme of IAB UK Engage 2024. Here, senior account executive Chessie Cronk shares key takeaways and insights from the event.

We recently attended Engage, the annual flagship event of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK). The theme this year was ‘the joy of digital advertising’. It reminded us how it’s good to embrace all things joyful (it’s one of the reasons, for example, that we are on TikTok).

Could CPL One help you to bring out a more joyful and authentic side of your brand or organisation’s personality? It’s not a frivolous question. Statistics shared at Engage 2024 show why being a little playful with your creative advertising content can help cut through with your audience.

• 76% of people in the UK belong to a digital community (e.g. ‘BookTok’).
• Children laugh 300 times per day vs 17 times for adults.
• You only have about 4 or 5 hours of concentration per day.
• 50% of 18-34 year olds, 39% of 35-54 year olds, and 22% of 55+ year olds trust advertising.
• Since 2021, influencer, online and social media have grown the most in trust  (33%, 27% and 26% respectively).
• 18-34 year olds trust all forms of advertising between 40-50% compared to 20-30% for 55+ (with cinema, TV and OOH trusted the most for 18-34 year olds).
• We spend our lives trying to get rid of ads (e.g. paying for subscriptions to apps just to have an ad-free experience), but 90% of WeTransfer users (both free and paid) prefer the site with ads.

Key themes from Engage 2024

Delving a little deeper, we can group insights from Engage 2024 into five key themes that are also resonating across the industry.

1. The power of personalisation

One of the most talked-about topics was the increasing importance of personalised marketing. Consumers today expect brands to understand their preferences and deliver tailored experiences. Geoff de Burca, chief strategy officer and Lindsey Jordan, head of creative strategy at EssenceMediacom, discussed how we can be more weird in our advertising and embrace people’s niche interests. They spoke about the importance of user-generated content (UGC) and letting go, allowing consumers to use content in whichever way they want to.

2. The need to build trust

With growing concerns over data privacy, building trust with consumers has never been more critical. Stephen Woodford, CEO of the Advertising Association, spoke about how younger generations trust advertising far more than older generations, and how advertising is no longer at the bottom of the trust list, with government and media below advertising for the first time since 2014.

3. The rise of AI

AI continues to revolutionise the way we approach marketing. Sam Crowther, creative director at AudioStack, discussed how companies are using AI in their advertising and creating more emotive ad campaigns with it. Embracing AI is no longer optional, it’s essential.

4. The impact of laughter

Dara Nasr, VP global sales at WeTransfer Advertising, highlighted the positive impact of laughter. It is so important when it comes to advertising, particularly when you realise that adults only laugh 17 times per day on average. When it’s done well, advertising has the power to make people laugh and have fun, creating a positive impact.

5. Diversity in digital

Jordan Banjo and Perri Kiely from the Diversity dance group took to the stage to discuss how they’re using radio in an authentic way, while Jamie Laing, broadcaster and producer, and Sophie Habboo, podcaster and TV personality, talked about podcasting to engage your audience and why you should only partner with brands and organisations that really resonate with you.

When these themes lock together in the service of creative content, they amplify authenticity and make everything a little more joyful.

Perhaps we could start by looking at your digital content and social media to help make your content more relevant and engaging. Or perhaps our advertising team could help you better understand what audiences like yours are looking for.

If you think we can help bring some joy to your digital advertising, get in touch.

There are so many things to be proud about, including a number of new business wins, some excellent new projects delivered, and advertising and exhibition sales that are tracking ahead of the same period last year – despite what remains a tough economic climate.

But for now I’m going to concentrate on just three things that give a taste of the way our clients and their audiences benefit from the broad scope of content marketing created by the team at CPL One.

1. Anniversary animation

Is your company or organisation about to celebrate an anniversary? If so, you should take a look at this animation marking the 125th anniversary of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM). Conceived, devised and produced by our editorial, design and animation team at CPL One, it is an asset that CIWM will be able to use throughout its 125th year. Let me know if you would like to discuss whether CPL One could do something similar for you.

2. Theatrical podcasts

The podcast series produced by our sister company Cabbells, for Delfont Mackintosh Theatres (DMT), continues to grow in number and popularity. After previous episodes when subscribers have heard from stars such as Brian Cox and Sheridan Smith, May’s Episode Six features the revered Sir Ian McKellen and director Robert Icke talking about their production of Player Kings. The play, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, is currently at the Noël Coward Theatre in London’s West End before embarking on a UK tour during July. Cabbells specialises in the arts and heritage sector and we are proud to design and produce the programmes for dozens of DMT shows each year including, most recently, MJ the Musical and Long Day’s Journey into Night. 

3. Long-term magazine contract retained (again)

A great strength of CPL One is our commitment to editorial and design excellence – and ensuring the two work hand in hand. One example is that, unlike many news organisations and perhaps even some of our competitors, we continue to invest in employing professional copy and sub-editors to ensure our content is crisp, accurate and accessible. This was among the factors that helped us retain the contract for First magazine for the Local Government Association (LGA). Strict governance rules means the LGA puts this contract out to competitive tender on a regular basis and we are incredibly proud to have retained it again. Our focus on developing an engaging design that meets accessibility standards and our ability to generate income were also given as key reasons for our success.

So there you go – three reasons for some positive half-term reflections. If you and your audiences would benefit from a new animation, a podcast series, a refreshed digital or print magazine – or any other content marketing services offered by CPL One – do get in touch.