The Tea Drought

I read an interesting fact the other day. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. In our office, I can quite confidently say it’s the other way round. Our kettle is by far the hardest working member of our team and without it we would be at a loss, or at least the three heavy tea drinkers, myself included, would be. In less than five weeks, we have worked our way through a box of 250 tea bags and countless pints of milk.

 I think tea is a versatile drink that plays a vital role in our daily lives. It’s a drink shared between friends over gossip- it helps to forge bonds. It can be a drink to cheer someone up or an energy drink. Within our office, brainstorms are rarely held without a cuppa in hand – I strongly believe it helps to spur our creativity. Consumed first thing in the morning, the first round of teas is always met with huge enthusiasm and it is only after that first restorative sip that the thunderous sound of keyboards tapping begins.

This Wednesday, our office suffered a fate worse than death. We ran out of tea bags.

Now I know the fact our office was without tea bags for several hours isn’t front page news. It won’t be trending on Twitter or have the FT banging down our door but, for us, the impact was severe.

Working in PR, we pride ourselves on our ability to anticipate change and spot potential crisis. We then take the necessary steps in advance to avoid them. Here at Wordville, we’re experts in crisis management. We anticipated this near disaster the previous Monday and placed an order with Tesco’s for delivery on Wednesday afternoon. Ideally we would have picked Wednesday morning but hey- you can’t win them all. 


By Pema Seely

The Power of Knowledge

This week, the Wordville team had “the satisfaction of taking part” in a client’s general knowledge quiz. I emphasise the aforementioned phrase, as people use it all too regularly to make losers feel better about their poor performance. Well I can tell you, the Wordville team gained no notable satisfaction from taking part. We were in it to win it. Who enters a competition with the aim of not winning? Yes, I’m a bad loser but I’m proud of this; I want to win, I want to be the best. What’s wrong with that?

Later that night, my poor sportsmanship got me thinking. In our team of five – and out of a total of 50 questions – my individual performance left a lot to be desired. Not one to sit quietly, I volunteered answers for many of the questions. However, I was probably individually responsible for a correct answer of about… one? Maybe two at a push. The rest of the team seemed to know considerably more than I did. To further add insult to injury, it turned out my specialist subjects (whales, dolphins and vegetables), had not cropped up once. I was left looking like I knew absolutely nothing.

The team offered their support. ‘We’re just full of useless information’, said Polly and Lucy, who seemed to be the best ‘informed’ of all of us.

Is this knowledge really useless, though?  In the case of the above quiz, it would have been distinctly useful. Knowing Henry VIII’s third wife’s first child’s birthday might not help me out when writing a press release, but who knows when that exact question might crop up? One day such knowledge could win me a million pounds or, in the case of this week’s quiz, infinite workplace glory. The point I’m trying to make is that one day, some situation might present itself, where knowing an obscure, some might say useless fact, could have weighty consequences.

Lucy and Polly are so full of ‘useless facts’ that they would stand a much better chance of answering that million pound question.

The conclusion I have come to is this. The more you know, the more power and advantage you have. As long as you don’t compromise on having useful knowledge, there is no harm in filling your head with useless information too. So, from now on, I am going to absorb everything. From memorising the day’s main news agendas, to Steph’s favourite nail varnish. From Barrack Obama’s policies on human rights, to what direction Pema likes her tea stirred in.

Pub quiz teams all over the country should beware… 

By Jessica Matthias

Great Stories Live Forever

What is it about the Titanic? People to this day, a century after the tragedy of 1912, remain in awe of this event. In a recent article published in the Metro, Una Riley MBE of the Belfast Titanic Society theorised this international obsession, describing the event as the “greatest story never written.”

Stories are told all over the world, every minute of every day. Here at Wordville we help businesses tell those stories and make them known to the masses.

But there’s something about the mystery of that fateful day that makes us all sit up and take notice every time a little more information rises to the surface. Artefacts are still being recovered from the wreckage, survivors’ stories are still being traced and now a 3D film graces our cinemas.

I think that the draw for many people lies in the emotion of the event. There’s the heartbreak of love and loss, the division of rich and the poor and evidence of tragedy and hope.

I also think this is what makes it so compelling to the press – it strikes a chord. There’s conflict and pain, which as a nation, we seem to thrive on.

Unsurprisingly, one of a kind stories are hard to come by but every business has a ‘Titanic moment’ at some point. Something that was unexpected and emotive but (we hope) avoids the tragedy and heartbreak.

Stunts such as T-mobile’s flash mobs and Honda’s live sky dive have all had great PR campaigns behind them, building them as moments to remember and creating competition amongst industry peers eager to  outdo one another.

Other memorable media events include BP’s oil spill and the hacking frenzy at the News of the World. These by contrast, have had a shocking effect on the public, negatively marking the brands involved. Needless to say, the execution of PR activity surrounding both scandals left much to be desired.

Detrimental or inspirational, it’s moments like these that shape companies and build reputations, becoming an indelible moment in their brand’s stories for years to come – maybe even forever.

By Stephanie Rock