Maximising the news value

To deliver the campaign, there were two main challenges:Although the results of each quarterly index could not be known in advance, they still had to form the basis of a strong news story. To maximise the potential news value, MS&L ran through a variety of scenarios and pre-determined how each could provide the foundation for strong coverage. The second challenge and, probably, the most difficult to overcome, was the domination of the media agenda by big business issues. While big brands had always been perceived as having greater news value than their smaller counterparts, the late Summer of 2008 saw this grow further as companies like Lehman Brothers collapsed. MS&L addressed this difficulty through issues tracking in the run-up to the launch of the first BIG in September 2008 and for the subsequent launches each quarter. This tactic enabled MS&L to sell-in the guide based on issues that were playing most strongly with the media. For the initial launch, the focus was to create awareness of BIG amongst influential journalists with existing or potential interest in small business issues. The second index, in December 2008, built on the momentum and created mass awareness of BIG in UK media. While for each subsequent quarter, the objective focused on positioning BIG as the leading and most credible economic research covering micro businesses. For each of report, MS&L delivered the findings in the form of a press release, a report highlighting the salient points and commentary from M>B and Warwick Business School. A dedicated BIG website was also created for media to use as a one-stop information source.