Stafford PR firm dominates PRCA DARE Midlands shortlist

~ Stone Junction shortlisted for six PRCA DARE Midlands awards, including Large Consultancy of the Year ~

Stafford-based technical PR agency Stone Junction has been shortlisted for six categories in the PRCA DARE Midlands awards: B2B Award, Event/Launch of the Year, Integrated Campaign of the Year Award, Purpose Award, Rising Star of the Year and Large Consultancy of the Year. The shortlistings follow an impressive twelve months for Stone Junction, which saw it win new twelve new clients, generate over 7,000 pieces of media coverage and reward staff with a combined £75,714 in pay rises.

Stone Junction’s campaign, The lynchpin of British industry, which is shortlisted for Event/Launch of the Year and Integrated Campaign of the Year, saw the agency promote two industry-leading events; Advanced Engineering and Lab Innovations. Both shows, organised by Easyfairs, took place at the NEC, Birmingham, on November 1 and 2, 2023 and were co-located across three halls to drive cross-sector collaboration.

Stone Junction’s PR activity generated 302 pieces of UK trade media coverage, exceeding the target by 67 per cent, and the event saw a 5.6 per cent increase in visitor registrations compared with the previous year. 25 per cent of the campaign’s coverage referenced sustainability, which was a key theme across both shows.

“Stone Junction has been a valuable partner for the last few years in our Lab Innovations and Advanced Engineering campaign,” explained Charlie Taylor, marketing manager at Easyfairs. “Its integrated approach blending traditional PR with digital strategies has driven remarkable results.”

In the agency’s shortlisted B2B campaign, Driving sustainability and efficiency, Stone Junction helped Brazilian engineering company WEG communicate a significant EU regulatory change for electric motor efficiency, securing an impressive 480 pieces of coverage in global trade press. Furthermore, the team’s efforts resulted in a substantial growth of 4,774 new followers on WEG’s LinkedIn page.

Stone Junction was also shortlisted for the Purpose Award, for its client Katrick Technologies. Here, the team’s strategic campaign successfully positioned Katrick as a Greentech disruptor, achieving 211 pieces of trade media coverage, including a five minute segment on BBC Click in December, 2023. This helped Katrick win the Energy Innovation Award at the National Sustainability Awards, 2023, and be invited for a meeting at 10 Downing Street.

“A key objective for us is to change the ways business market themselves,” explained Richard Stone, managing director of Stone Junction. “The results the team achieved last year, especially on the shortlisted campaigns, shows our joined-up PR campaigns are delivering meaningful results for our clients in terms of media coverage, social media engagement and web traffic.”

Leah Elston-Thompson Chart.PR, account director at Stone Junction and a member of the agency’s management team, is shortlisted for Rising Star of the Year. Elston-Thompson became the agency’s fourth CIPR chartered practitioner in 2023 and leads a team of five PR consultants that manages a significant amount of annual business.

Finally, Stone Junction is nominated for Large Consultancy of the Year following a year that included moving into a new, larger Stafford-based headquarters and establishing its presence overseas.

To find out more about how Stone Junction can help your business establish an award-winning technical PR campaign, contact the team on [email protected].