News

We’re beyond happy that our work late last year to help our VR client Pimax fund over $4million has picked up multiple awards at last night’s #In2Sabre awards ceremony, put on by The Holmes Report.

At the event held in New York, PR companies vied for trophies in categories ranging from innovation in PR, through to employee engagement.

Dynamo was shortlisted for four categories, and by the end of the night we had won three! We picked up awards for best Technology, best Lean Marketing, and best Crowdfunding / crowdsourcing campaigns.

If you’ve a consumer tech product you’re thinking of crowdfunding, do get in touch

Over the last year we’ve seen an increase in Dynamo’s services by companies who have blockchain-based services or technology, so it a good fit to combine our consumer and tech knowhow, with our crowdfunding experience to offer ICO PR support. Our first publicly announced client is WIZZLE, the globally trusted blockchain service provider with the singular goal of making cryptocurrency accessible to anyone.

Partnering with Goadi, with whom we’ve worked on projects reaching as far back as 2011, we will be running earned and owned outreach; targeting press, influencers and paid media to amplify WIZZLE’s reach and support their initial AirDrop as well as pre-sale and main sale of the ICO. The team will also be supporting on social, managing ad spend and strategy across WIZZLE’s Telegram, Reddit and YouTube channels.

Mark Noorlander, CEO WIZZLE Global N.V., commented: “Dynamo and Goadi provide a perfect comms fit for us, combining an understanding of the crowdfunding and ICO sectors with experience in all of the marketing channels we need to use effectively to achieve our goals, ranging from paid media, community management, through to media and influencer relations. Fundamentally they get and understand our mission and goals, and are best placed to help us succeed and take cryptocurrency to the global stage.”

Paul Cockerton, co-CEO of Dynamo PR, added: “We are at the start of the blockchain era, and there’s no doubt that cryptocurrencies have sparked a gold rush, and yet even with all of the buzz, the concept is still very alien to many. WIZZLE’s mission to make this technology accessible and simple is a game changer. We are thrilled to be part of this revolution and support WIZZLE with their upcoming ICO.”

“Our experience supporting ICOs and Dynamo’s expertise in crowdfunding allows us to create an integrated strategy, ideal for supporting WIZZLE,” said Fiona Chow, Founder of Goadi Consulting. “Cryptocurrencies have a huge amount of potential, which, despite the hype of crypto, has been largely untapped. Together with WIZZLE we will breed understanding of the technology among consumers and enterprises, ultimately driving engagement in crypto and growth of WIZZLE.”

It’s no secret that crowdfunding is going through a turbulent time. We’ve seen very high profile campaigns not deliver to backers despite raising millions. It’s understandable that people have become more sceptical of crowdfunding campaigns and whether campaign creators can deliver on their promises.

Despite this, 2017 has been our most successful year of crowdfunding since we launched the world’s first crowdfunding division four years ago. This year we’ve worked on several multi million dollar campaigns including TicWatch ($3.2m), Bluesmart 2.0 ($2m) and Pimax ($4.2m).

So how did we do this? It’s all about understanding how perceptions have changed and working with your community. It’s important to build trust, showcase your product in an engaging way and share the process to get to this point. Clear communications with your community is necessary. You need to talk to them before you launch, show them the product at events and listen to what they have to say.

You can read more about our work with Pimax, the 8k VR headset, and what we did to help them raise over $4million to beat Oculus here.

We’re delighted that we’ve done it again. At one of the industry’s biggest and most respected awards ceremonies, Dynamo was up against 10 of the biggest and best technology PR companies, but walked on stage to pick up the coveted gold award for our work within the technology PR sector.

This is a testament to the way we work, as much as the work we do.

We’ve built up world class expertise in sectors including edutech, 3D printing, AI and ML – from early work with clients like SwiftKey, through to more recent clients that are breaking technology barriers like Speechmatics. We’ve opened up an office in Silicon Valley to better support our North American clients, and help with crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

And whilst our creativity has also won awards (the successful hijacking of the Rio Olympics in the Athletes Abstinence campaign for instance), it’s the way we work that clients also value.

We have a clear desire to influence the wider PR community through the adoption of modern, forward-thinking policies. 2016 saw our efforts reach a new high with the public release of the agency’s wage gap, the introduction of a Diversity Working Group, and even having some of the largest agencies in world consult senior management on how to implement best in class working practices.

Thank you to all our staff, and our clients, and the judges for picking us once again as Technology PR agency of the year.

Around a year ago I attended the launch of the first edition of #FuturePRoof, and was impressed both by how many senior level practitioners were involved, as well as the wisdom of their advice and strategy on running, managing, and developing public relations and marketing. The book contained essential advice for anyone working in PR, and was widely read and shared.

Today we see the launch and release of the follow up, #FutureProof: Edition Two. It’s available on kindle or you can buy a hard copy.

I do have a personal interest in promoting it, as this time round I’ve contributed a chapter on best practice (aka top tips) in crowdfunding, but I think for anyone interested in public relations it’s a great read, informative and useful.

Thanks very much to the founder and editor, Sarah Hall, who crowdsourced 39 essays from luminaries all over the world for this outstanding edition.

In her words: “The success of #FuturePRoof shows that public relations practitioners are aware of the direction of travel and are no longer prepared for other disciplines to eat their lunch. Demand shows professionals want to close their competency gaps in order to provide strategic advice at management level.”

You can follow further conversations about the book with #FuturePRoof

After over a year’s worth of planning, structuring, form-filling, preparation, site visits, meetings, and everything in between, Dynamo is ready to welcome its new little sister – and she has a sunny Californian accent.

With US native Heather and myself making the move from London, Dynamo will be opening its brand new offices at GSVlabs in the gorgeous Redwood City, California. This puts Dynamo in the heart of Silicon Valley; which seems fitting, given our clients, experience, and expertise with tech start-ups.

GSVlabs, our new home, is about 25 minutes south of San Francisco, and prides itself on being a campus of global innovation, hosting tech entrepreneurs, acceleration programs, and key industry events. We couldn’t really have asked for something more ideal!

The US expansion has been a long time coming for Dynamo. We’ve always adopted a Silicon Valley mentality here, with the company operating in a style more akin to Google than what you would see in a typical UK office, albeit with our own quirks. We pride ourselves on creativity, innovation, drive, charisma, and getting the best results, and we see the ‘Dynamo way’ of doing things as key to the success of this extension.

This move is of huge benefit to our clients too. We work with so many companies in the US, so to have a team on the ground here is a no-brainer. Also, we pride ourselves on the fact that Dynamo has become a centre of excellence for crowdfunding, which is an area dominated by innovative West-Coast start-ups. Now we get the added bonus of more face time!

Everyone in the office is excited about this. Heather is from the Bay Area, she’s been back and forth between Cali and London for months now getting this all set up. The fact that she gets to be settled, amongst journalists and companies she has befriended over the years must be a joyous feeling. I’m excited to be taking up a new challenge, and putting my PR skills to the test in a different environment – as well as getting to meet all the people I’ve been mostly on email and phone with for so long. The team is excited – they’ll have somewhere to visit, and it means extra support for clients in different time zones. It really is win-win all round.

The next few months promise to be exciting for Dynamo, so we’ll be sure to check in with y’all with a progress report.

(Although I did promise my mum I wouldn’t start saying “y’all”).

It’s been an incredible and fun year at Dynamo PR.

Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve been up to over the last 12 months…

We hosted the world’s first micro-pig picnic this summer for Yelp

The #londonpignic has been filled with pigs education, pig games and piggybacks. It’s quite the Saturday night. pic.twitter.com/gDtChCqRmz

— YelpLondon! (@yelplondon) June 20, 2015

On the theme of animals, Bathrooms.com launched a nationwide search for a duckling bath tester:

We raised more than $20 million for 40 crowdfunding projects, including Neeo’s smart remote smashing $1.5m on Kickstarter earlier this year:

AttractionTix.co.uk answered the question for you CanIBringMySelfiestick.com:

We took to the red carpet to launch the Electric Jukebox at BAFTA with Alesha:

And to top it off, we climbed Everest with NVIDA showcasing their GeForce technology at an intimate virtual reality event:

Fancy being in our round up next year? Just drop us a line and who knows what could happen.

Adding to our growing list of audio clients, Dynamo have been  appointed by Chicago based audio company Gramovox, to handle the launch of the their Floating Record™ vertical turntable.

The Gramovox Floating Record™ is a high-performance turntable that plays records vertically through built-in, dynamic full-range speakers. Prior to their vertical turntable, last year Gramovox launched a Bluetooth Gramophone, dubbed the ‘modern gramophone’, which they also launched on Kickstarter.

Peter Bowles, co-CEO and co-founder at Dynamo PR, comments:

“Working with products that are innovative and have the wow factor get us excited, and who doesn’t secretly want a floating vinyl player in their home. Pavan is a real entrepreneur and his creative spirit resonates with everything we do at Dynamo, and we’re looking forward to working closely with him.”

Bapu, co-founder and CEO of Gramovox added:

“Our first Kickstarter campaign raised a quarter of a million dollars and we wanted to raise more. Dynamo’s track record is brilliant and with their support we’ve already achieved far beyond what we had ever hoped and love their creativity and passion for our project.”

Other recent Dynamo audio clients include Native Union, AUMEO and HTC, launching the Gramohorn II.