Creative Brand Communications

Full service PR for Beano

Beano PR Agency

Work

We’ve been working alongside the marketing team at Beano since 2017.

As Beano’s retained PR agency we run their press office, create social content and devise high profile consumer PR campaigns.

The work taps into a Beano Trendspotters panel of kids across the UK, who each week are interviewed on their media habits, playground trends, passions and anxieties

Our work won Best Consumer campaign at the PRCA Awards.

Launching the first ever ‘Beano for Grown Ups’.

To help keep the nation smiling in the Covid-19 Winter we launched the first ever Beano comic for grown-up’s – BeanoLD.

Sir Thomas Moore, Marcus Rashford and Dominic Cummings are among the famous faces from 2020 that feature in the first ever Beano comic written specifically for grown-ups.

Found inside the regular Beano, on sale today, the special edition, pull-out comic sees Dennis’ mum and dad looking back on the events of 2020, recounting Zoom quizzes, home schooling, delayed Bond films and toilet roll shortages.

The launch achieved 350+ new articles.

more about it here

 

Proactive Press Office

Last year marked the brand’s 80th anniversary  – and the landmark birthday was supported with PR-able events which celebrated the heritage of the comic.

These included the transformation of the ‘McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery and Museum’ to ‘The McMenace Gallery’ for a bespoke exhibition and Horace Panter’s punk pop-art makeover of beloved Beano characters.

Overall the campaign for the 80th birthday achieved over 2,150+ pieces of high value media coverage, including 749 x broadcast pieces including Good Morning Britain, BBC News Worldwide and BBC Radio 4 Today.

#Beano80 trended throughout the birthday and the campaign achieved over 170 million social media impressions.

Fame Generation

We issued a cease and desist letter to Jacob Rees-Mogg, requesting that he stop impersonating the Beano’s much-loved character Walter or face a legal showdown on the matter.

The stunt went viral and #waltergate trended on social channels.

The story garnered over 700+ high-value, fully-credited media articles, including 85 x national print/online pieces and 78 x broadcast. BBC Television News sent a crew to Rees-Mogg’s home and conducted a 6-minute LIVE interview on lunchtime news in which they went through every point in our letter.

With over 400 million impressions on Twitter, Beano.com saw a 48% uplift in visits during the campaign period – a new record for the site.

The Beano gained 2,100 Twitter followers in one day, with no paid promotion.

Britain’s Funniest Class

We staged a national competition to find Britain’s Funniest Class.

Pupils at Castlewood Primary in Southwater won.

Their joke, “At the bank a lady asked me to check her balance, so I pushed her over” received over a third of the final 7.4 million votes on Beano.com, crowning them the ultimate champions.

 

Comic Credentials

As part of the celebrations, comedian and prolific children’s author David Walliams also guest-edited and starred in the commemorative issue.

Creative Collaborations

We teamed up on a collaboration with fashion icon Stella McCartney, to create a bespoke autumn/winter kid’s fashion collection featuring iconic Beano characters.

The Funny Gene

Being naturally funny could be predetermined at birth and influenced by both genetic and social factors, according to research we commissioned for Beano.

Analysis of 50 of Britain’s most famous comedians, carried out by a leading statistician examined shared characteristics and traits.

The study was specially commissioned as part of a campaign to find Britain’s Funniest Family.

This nationwide competition – launched in partnership with mental health charity YoungMinds – aims to help keep families entertained at home during lockdown.

The World’s Funniest Fart

We commissioned scientist Dr Helen Pilcher to unveil a new study titled the “Flatulence Report”, in a bid to uncover the formula for the funniest fart.

Dr Pilcher analysed 176 different fart sounds and used sociological and acoustical factors including intensity, duration and potential for social embarrassment to determine the funniest possible fart sound according to science.

 

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