Spark Coverage Cup

Media relations is at the heart of a successful campaign and our team take great pride in beating their colleagues to win the weekly Spark Coverage Cup vote.

The winning piece of coverage isn’t just about circulation or credibility. A great business national or broadcast piece doesn’t always beat trade coverage – outcomes are key. How effectively was the client’s message communicated? What was the engagement like? Did it result in leads?

While earned coverage is now only part of what we do, the impact of what we deliver is often why clients choose to work with us in the first place. It’s why 80% of our clients come through referral and why some of our clients have stayed with us for over ten years.

Below are some of our previous highlights:

Coverage Cup 08/10/2024

Despite the autumn chill creeping in, Spark’s Coverage Cup has continued to bring the heat with some strong national pieces in recent weeks.

To start things off, we saw two very different client letters published in the Financial Times. Firstly, our CIISec team shared a warning on the need for cyber security skills to boost resilience in data centres and wider industries. Meanwhile, a letter from the International Society of Infectious Disease (ISID) on the mpox health crisis in Africa was also published in the FT. The ISID team also secured an interview that resulted in two pieces of BBC coverage – one in a piece on mpox and another on how a warming world contributes to more infectious diseases.

ISID and the broader life sciences team has also been reaping the rewards from longer-term planning around features. The FT’s special report on communicable diseases featured both ISID, on the links between inadequate diagnostics and pandemics, and genomics expert PacBio on how a repeat of Covid-19 is possible without better access to testing.

Elsewhere our Dynatrace team was tracking a news story that some people were taking even more seriously – the battle to secure tickets for Oasis’ reunion tour! When Ticketmaster went down during the peak ticket sale period, we jumped on a news hijack securing coverage in Daily Mail. The comment laid out to the important role AI can play in resolving incidents and preventing further downtime when applications crash.

Our teams have also been driving national headlines using our own data-led stories. The Quadient Finance team secured a brilliant piece of digital and print coverage in The Times following an FOI request on the rise of voluntary liquidations in the UK from 1960 to 2023. The research revealed that UK businesses are now three times more likely to enter voluntary liquidation than ever before. And the HP team scored an impressive piece in Forbes following the client’s most recent threat report, revealing how threat actors are using ChromeLoader web browser malware in recent attacks.

Check out the links on the right to read more about the latest coverage.

  • FT – ISID letter on the impact of mpox
  • BBC – ISID interview on mpox
  • BBC – ISID interview on mosquitoes and disease
  • FT – CIISec letter on cyber security skills
  • FT – PacBio and ISID feature on inadequate diagnostics and pandemics
  • USA Today – ISID article on flu season and safety
  • Daily Mail – Dynatrace news hijack on Ticketmaster outage during Oasis ticket sales
  • The Times – Quadient Finance insolvency research
  • Forbes – HP’s latest threat report