H/Advisors Cicero is the retained public affairs agency for L&G and has been tasked with providing policy and regulatory support, engagement and insight across both the UK and EU.

In addition, with infrastructure being of strategic importance to government both in terms of the Covid-19 recovery and in the Levelling-Up agenda, our Campaigns and Corporate Communications teams were briefed to develop a campaign to reinforce L&G as the leading institutional investor in the UK built environment sector, and in doing so support their overall brand awareness.

Strategy & Execution

Our strategy was to create a distinctive quarterly index that drives regular content to engage with key audiences across web, social media, print / broadcast media and direct engagement. The index also sought to offer a platform for L&G to showcase the impact of their UK investment portfolio.

We designed the L&G Rebuilding Britain Index (RBI) to provide a key benchmark of the UK’s success in ‘levelling up’ the economy across the left behind communities and households in the wake of the global pandemic, identifying the  UK’s investment priorities, regional investment gaps and barriers to increasing investment.

In addition, our team provides day-to-day arms and legs to support to L&G – including stakeholder mapping across Government, Parliament, Whitehall and regulators, providing support on a range of select committee inquiries, engagement briefings and logistics and analysis on key set-piece political events.

The Rebuilding Britain Index campaign really highlights our ability to use the entire H/Advisors Cicero toolkit in order to deliver strong client outcomes across all disciplines – including media, brand and policy

Andrew Roberts – Chief Creative Officer

Results

Across social channels, the first three waves of the index alone achieved in excess of 1,000,000 impressions across Twitter and LinkedIn, with engagement (i.e. likes, shares and comments) of over 40,000 and more than 30,000 video content views. Compared against L&G’s press email benchmarks, all emails concerning the RBI exceeded the click rate.

The dwell time on the RBI hub was six times higher than the website’s average. Equally, the articles published in conjunction with the 2021 waves of the RBI are in the top 10% of L&Gs most viewed articles.

The campaign was covered by major press outlets, including BBC, Sky, Telegraph, Times, Daily Mail, CNBC, Bloomberg, and reached over 1.5 million people. It has also driven enquiries from around 150 central and local government officials. Furthermore, L&G CEO Nigel Wilson often uses RBI data to inform his work on the Prime Minister’s Build Back Better Business Council (BBBBC).

The campaign has also been a success in public affairs channels – using the quarterly reports to drive an MP meeting programme and using the campaign to host a Parliamentary receptions in the House of Commons – including handling all logistics.

If you wish to discuss any of the issues mentioned in this article, please contact Andrew in H/Advisors Cicero’s campaigns team on andrew.roberts@h-advisors.global

As part of the Climate Action Policy in Ireland, each year the Department for Environment, Climate and Conversation is required to go out and speak with members of the public from all walks of life to understand their views on climate change.

H/Advisors Cicero were appointed to support in the end-to-end delivery of the project across a nine month period. Ultimately, the Climate Conversations are designed to act as a feedback loop between the public and the Government to inform better, targeted policy that will drive climate action. Key to our commitment in achieving this was speaking to as many varied voices on climate change from across all populations in Ireland.

Strategy & Execution

Delivering the Climate Conversations is a multifaceted project, which involved designing a research approach that could pull together the multiple strands of both qualitative and quantitative research to produce one summary report with clear policy recommendations. As such, H/Advisors Cicero were responsible for producing a literature review, to summarise the current best practice on driving behaviour change around climate change.

Based on the findings of the literature review, we drafted an online public consultation, recruited and moderated 10 focus groups with hard to reach audiences from across Ireland (including farmers, remote island communities and the travelling community) and engaged with all PPN groups from across Ireland. We also conducted a series of in-depth interviews with expert stakeholders to identify areas of best practice and community-based learnings.

The Climate Conversations were an opportunity to show how H/Advisors Cicero can work with public sector clients to deliver national campaigns and research initiatives. The scope of the research encouraged us to engage with members of the public from across Ireland, to make sure all voices and viewpoints were heard and represented. Being able to present the recommendations to the Minister in Ireland to inform strategy is a fantastic way we’ve been able to deliver meaningful change to drive forward the sustainability agenda in Ireland

Aideen Ginnell, Eu Director

Results

Following four months of active outreach and engagement with members of the public across Ireland, we wrote up the key findings into the 2022 Climate Conversations Report.

In particular, we developed thinking further on the importance of climate literacy as a topic that influences drivers of behaviour change around taking climate action. We also identified where and who the public saw as responsible for delivering on climate action and at what level across individuals, communities and the government.

A summary of the key findings from the Climate Conversations were presented in working groups to over 100 members of the Civil Service, to actively inform the drafting of the Climate Action Plan 2023.

If you wish to discuss any of the issues mentioned in this article, please contact Aideen in H/Advisors Cicero’s Dublin team on aideen.ginnell@h-advisors.global

H/Advisors Cicero was tasked with updating the Novartis external facing lobbying guidelines and internal handbook. The brief involved a root and branch review of the lobbying landscape globally, to mitigate any reputational risk to Novartis and establish a principles-based approach to external stakeholder engagement.

Strategy & Execution

Detailed desk research of legislation surrounding lobbying was conducted and a review of institutions’ best practice guidelines, this included standalone reports of key markets including UK, US, EU and China. A further comparative report was delivered that compared the external lobbying guidelines published by other global pharmaceutical companies, to demonstrate the key attributes required for best practice.

Following the research phase, H/Advisors Cicero delivered a series of workshops with country leads across the Novartis global network to review their understanding of lobbying best practice and help align messaging for the new guidelines. For example, exploring whether the word “lobbying” was appropriate, or if an alternative term should be used instead. 

New guidelines were drafted utilizing the workshop insights. Previous Novartis policy documentation was cross-referenced to ensure consistency in language and length. Ongoing working sessions with the client were used to ensure a collaborative approach to delivering the new guidelines. 

As all companies face increasing scrutiny around practicing good governance, establishing clear and robust guidelines around how to lobby appropriately is an essential for global corporations to protect themselves reputationally. Delivering this project for Novartis involved understanding all the lobbying regulations globally, and identifying where the grey areas of risk lie in how companies engage. Our approach was to ensure Novartis not only met the requirements, but sought to be best in class, through empowering all their colleagues globally to follow the revised Guideline.

Sarah Bosworth, Account Director

Results

We successfully delivered the new guideline draft for Novartis, which redefined its scope to include public policy and stakeholder engagement. The revised guideline adopted a principles-based approach, designed to increase the accountability and responsibility of all colleagues to make informed and responsible decisions.

We also helped to promote the guidelines internally with an animated explainer video and are currently working on developing the internal handbook. 

If you wish to discuss any of the issues mentioned in this article, please contact Sarah in H/Advisors Cicero’s Research team on sarah.bosworth@h-advisors.global

Self care is an emerging healthcare theme globally, enabling patients and consumers to play a more active role in managing their own health. Reckitt wanted to understand from a policy and regulatory perspective, how advanced the policy is and in which markets to focus resource. H/Advisors Cicero was instructed to undertake an independent review of the self care landscape in five key markets, and present to Reckitt a Self-Care strategy and next steps for implementation.

Strategy & Execution

Across five tier one markets, UK, US, France, Germany and Australia, we conducted desk research to collect information available on self-care policy in each market. This included using Government and regulatory websites, trade association groups for consumer health and academic sources compile reports on each market. We established both how well understood self care was as a term in the market, and which other issues it was most likely to be associated with. We also identified any live policy debates or legislation that specifically referenced self care.

Having completed the desk research, we utilized relevant political contacts to assess their understanding of self care. We also interviewed the Reckitt country leads in each market to understand how familiar they were with self care as a term and to compare this with our research findings, identifying potential gaps or hooks which could be used to drive the self care debate within that market.

Reducing the burden of care on healthcare workers is a top priority across all developed markets. Self care is a key part of that strategy, increasing the role that consumer and Over The Counter (OTC) medicine can play in the wider healthcare system, and enabling the public to become more informed about how to reach their own decisions regarding their own health, and which services are most appropriate to be contacted.

Sarah Bosworth, Account Director

Results

Our work concluded with the presentation of a global public affairs strategy to Reckitt on self care. We provided Reckitt with detailed insight into each market, including political appetite for self care and mapping of key political stakeholders, and the toolkit needed for country-level activation.

For the UK market, where we found that self care was most advanced as a policy, we made suggestions for two potential campaigns that could be launched by the public affairs team, and how they would align with the wider healthcare policy agenda.

If you wish to discuss any of the issues mentioned in this article, please contact Sarah in H/Advisors Cicero’s Research team on sarah.bosworth@h-advisors.global

H/Advisors Cicero was commissioned to support thyssenkrupp Steel (tk Steel) in their lobbying efforts around the European Green Deal. We were tasked with helping the business push for reforms that make the necessary decarbonisation process commercially viable for the steel industry. The brief covered a wide array of policy areas ranging from state aid to sustainable finance and the hydrogen economy.

Strategy & Execution

H/Advisors commenced the engagement with several insight and analysis sessions to bring tk Steel up to speed on all areas of the Green Deal that would impact their business. This was followed by several strategy and messaging sessions to set out objectives, a detailed and live 600+stakeholder powermap of tiered and prioritized targets across all EU institutions and a message house with positioning on key policy areas.

We then developed detailed position papers, which were shared with Commission and Parliament targets, we prepared pre- and post- engagement briefings for C-Suite level Commissioner meetings setting out goals and next steps, and we kept our client abreast of the latest state of play on all relevant policy areas. This provided the appropriate groundwork for our direct engagement programme

Recognising the necessity of these green reforms whilst also ensuring that they were fit for industries such as the steel-making industry was critical for legislative success. tk Steel recognised the balance that needed to struck across the public affairs strategy, messaging and tactical approach. It was this awareness that ultimately led to the significant cut-through we achieved – outlining tk as a fair and considered stakeholder, rather than a market actor looking to create favourable market conditions

Helena Walsh, Managing Director Brussels

Results

tk Steel has met with 4 Commissioners inputting directly into the EU’s Green Deal policy agenda and is well placed to continue engagement throughout the 1st reading of the Fit for 55 package files. EU Taxonomy developments and new reporting requirements were flagged to the relevant compliance teams ahead of schedule providing an increased timespan for internal transition and allowing for positioning to be revised and circulated to legislators prior to final adoption.

If you wish to discuss any of the issues mentioned in this article, please contact Helena in H/Advisors Cicero’s Brussels team on helena.walsh@h-advisors.global

H/Advisors Cicero was tasked with helping Energy Networks Association (ENA), the UK’s energy network trade body, to understand the key issues and challenges for the energy networks among their key external audiences. This included relevant senior decision makers and thought leaders across politics, regulators, think tanks and academics as well as consumer groups.. H/Advisors Cicero were tasked with engaging relevant individuals across these groups to glean insights into their perspective on pressing topics and foreseen challenges for the networks.

Strategy & Execution

H/Advisors Cicero identified a core stakeholder list amongst the key audiences and designed a discussion guide in collaboration with the ENA, ensuring we were targeting the right audiences with the right questions.

H/Advisors Cicero leveraged our reputation as a heavyweight strategic communications agency to engage with these hard-to-reach audiences, as many relevant candidates were already present in the H/Advisors networks or aware of the quality of the research we undertake. We embarked on a series of 30 in-depth interviews in Spring 2021, with conversations lasting up to an hour, across wider stakeholders. The conversations were tailored to the individual’s area of interest in order to maximise the level of insight garnered from each conversation.

Putting the interests of the networks first, and not assuming they hold a complete understanding of the wider stakeholder universe their members wish to engage, the Energy Network Association spent their time really understanding their members stakeholders. We collaborated on every step, allowing our research knowledge to marry with ENA’s industry knowledge to create harmonious outputs that provided actionable insight for their members. To hear that members have directly integrated the findings into their communications and wider corporate approach is what our research team wish to achieve across every project.

Andrew Roberts, Chief Creative Officer

Results

H/Advisors Cicero produced a report based on the insight gathered from these conversations to share with its membership. This covered the key challenges the sector faces, the political and regulatory requirements to overcome them and the preferred forms of engagement tactics from the Networks to reach external stakeholders going forward.

The insight report informed the ENA’s membership on how to improve communications across the Networks, particularly given the growing interest by external audiences in the energy sector as a whole. Their membership applauded the publications of the findings, noting that it served as a framework within which they could develop their own communications and wider corporate approaches.

If you wish to discuss any of the issues mentioned in this article, please contact Andrew in H/Advisors Cicero’s Campaigns team on andrew.roberts@h-advisors.global