BACKGROUND

89up is an award winning agency founded with a clear mission: to create a powerful integrated communications agency for the world's most important causes. We help the good guys achieve great things, whether they are charities, political campaigns or commercial businesses. Right now, we’re working with amazing people to tackle climate change, defend our free internet, get proper support for new parents and change the way our pensions are invested.

THE ROLE

We are looking for enthusiastic, talented graduates, motivated self-taught individuals, first jobbers or someone who has just started out in their career and has been working for less than a year.

We want someone who can help run challenging accounts, help with research, insights, help collaborate on creative ideas, writing and pitching to the media and being the eyes and ears on accounts. Someone who always has their fingers on the pulse and shares news, insights and trends. We’re a flat structure at 89up, so everyone is expected to get their hands dirty - one day you may be writing and pitching a press release, the other pitching to a big potential new client.

You will work with senior team members and learn from them. All of these things will arguably enable you to hone your talent, while broadening your skill-set and fast tracking your career progression, in a passionate, supportive and friendly environment.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES REQUIRED

• Brainstorm with senior team to enable us to communicate often challenging campaigns to inspire the public to take action
• Help write and pitch releases
• Respond to phone calls and emails from journalists
• Arrange interviews and editorial meetings with journalists and clients and facilitate these meetings where appropriate
• Monitor media coverage (collate, analyse and evaluate media coverage) and report results to the wider team and clients
• Undertake research for clients or new business proposals and present them to potential new clients
• Handle the day to day admin on accounts - diarising internal and external meetings and booking rooms or setting up conference calls, keeping meeting minutes, writing status reports etc.
• Listen out for opportunities to sell further PR or social skills to clients
• Attend client events and industry conferences
• Support the wider team with admin duties as and when they are required.

KEY SKILLS REQUIRED

• A passionate and compassionate networker
• Possess great time management skills on multiple account
• Ability to prioritize
• Team player mindset and willingness to work collaboratively alongside peers.
• A can do attitude with the motivation to go above and beyond to strive for great results for yourself, your team and your clients
• A willingness to learn in the role and develop new skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and deal with tight deadlines.
• English language fluency: You need to have excellent written and spoken English.
• Copywriting skills: You need to be hot on spelling, grammar and proof-reading, as well as have a creative flair for producing engaging copy.
• Presentation skills: From communicating ideas to your team to presenting stories to journalists, you need to organise information in a succinct and interesting way to capture their attention.
• Strong interpersonal skills: Whether it’s over the phone, by email or in person, PR is all about people, so you need to be approachable, friendly and empathetic, and be able to relate to people on different levels within the agency, with clients and with the media.
• Excellent telephone manner: You will spend a lot of your time pitching stories to journalists, so you need to have the confidence to pick up the phone and speak to them and maintain a positive, friendly and upbeat tone.
• Time-keeping: You will often be working to tight media deadlines as well as meeting the demands and pressures of your team and clients, so you need to be able to work quickly and efficiently, without compromising on quality.
• Exhibit resourcefulness knowing when to ask questions, and where to look for answers

However, we're equally keen to find someone who is hungry to learn more about PR and integrated marketing and broaden their skill set, under the guidance of some of the best senior staff in their sectors - who can share years of valuable experience. This will see candidates supporting social, content and tech teams - learning associated communications skills.

We're also looking for someone who thrives on working across a number of different projects and in an agile manner - as some of our clients (particularly the political ones) can change strategic direction in the course of days.

WHAT WE ARE OFFERING

• A competitive base salary with excellent performance-linked bonuses
• Gold-plated sickness benefits and life insurance
• Company wide bonuses
• Enhanced maternity/paternity pay
• Plenty of scope to develop your career in a fast-growth business
• An opportunity to be seen, heard and counted in your contributions, and not get lost in the noise and tangle of a large corporate business

89up is an equal opportunity employer and positively encourage applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital status, or pregnancy and maternity.

Please let us know if you are eligible for Universal credit as part of your covering letter.

MORE ABOUT US

Our team is made up of big agency players, journalists, data and digital innovators and production geniuses, giving non-profits and commercial cause clients a big agency experience with boutique agency dedication.

Our stand out creative and campaigns are designed to affect change - whether that be behaviour, attitudes or policy. We work with a variety of clients from start ups to tech firms, to NGOs, global health campaigns, finance, politics and many more. We’ve won awards including the PRMoments Boutique Agency of the Year award and we are c urrently nominated for the The Purpose Awards EMEA 2020 as agency of the year. We’ve delivered global coverage for the Toyota Mobility Foundation’s $4,000,000 global challenge, won the UK consumer account for GoFundMe and have run PR campaigns for organisations from 38 Degrees, Reporters Without Borders, global agritech startup Mootral and Independent SAGE.

As well as securing client coverage, we make the news ourselves. 89up Think’s report into Russian disinformation during the EU referendum was reported widely in the media including The Economist, Daily Mail, The Guardian, In October 2018, 89up’s digital team spotted a new ‘fake news’ website spreading disinformation via targeted social media advertising on Facebook. The exposure of Mainstream Network saw coverage of the agency across the globe from the New York Times to The Guardian, TechCrunch, BBC, Time Magazine, FT, Wired… and it continues!

As a boutique agency, 89up punches above its weight in both winning big client accounts and also its impact in the world. So if you fancy joining a small, smart team with big ambitions - you will unquestionably get a number of benefits in return, which you would be far less likely to see in a big agency environment.

APPLY TO: RUTH.EMBLIN-JAMES@89UP.ORG