What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 5 October 2015

Welcome to another week and its still all go here at Cloud 9 Towers, and we're off to Manchester at the back end of the week for both the Fresh PR & Fresh Creative Awards at the Piccadilly Hotel.

Whilst we are on the subject of Manchester, it looks like there will be another 622 hotel rooms to add to the mix as there are five new hotels planned for the City. 

We've already seen Hotel Gotham, Hotel Football and the new Melia Hotel open as part of the huge First Street Development, all this year and yet there are more to come!

First up is The Trafford City Hotel which will be a 203-room hotel covering a 1.75-acre site opposite Trafford Centre's EventCity. Work on the hotel is anticipated to start early next year prior to the planned Metrolink extension to the Trafford Centre set for 2018/19.

Budget airline easyJet have announced plans to convert a Grade II listed building in the Northern Quarter into a six story 116 room budget easyHotel. They already have easyHotels in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow (plus lots of International ones) and Manchester is next. 

Work on Bradley House which is know locally as The Flatiron Building and sits on the corner of Dale Street and Newton Street is due to start next Summer.

Travelodge has plans for two additional hotels in South Manchester. One with 86 rooms in Stockport on Heaton Lane and one in Sale on Cross Street, with 67 rooms and work on both should be up and running before the end of the year, with plans to open late in 2016.

Travelodge already have 16 hotels throughout Greater Manchester and long term they have plans to look at further seven new sites to increase their portfolio. Potential sites include two in in Manchester central, plus locations in Cheadle, Oldham, Rochdale, Wigan and Worsley.

Last but by no means least, Hilton are starting work on a new 150-room, four-star hotel at Emirates Old Trafford. The existing 68 room lodge is being replaced and the new hotel will feature a bar, cafe, ticket office, glazed bridge link to the pavilion and balconies overlooking the cricket pitch. Now news yet on an opening date, but exciting times ahead in the City all round!

We are also aware that there are other plans afoot, throughout Manchester and the Thistle on Portland Street is being rebranded as a Mercure, plans have been submitted for a new

350-room hotel planned for the 24-acre Mayfield Quarter development at Manchester Piccadilly and there are also plans for a 'major five-star hotel by Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville.

Additionally Allied London are looking at the potential for two or three new hotels in Manchester, Crown Plaza with a new 210 room hotel and the Staybridge Suites with 116 Rooms both on Oxford Road to be near the Manchester campus redevelopment. There are also plans in place for a new four-star hotel within Urban & Civic's £75m Gay Village development, with plans for another 200-bed hotel for a scheme at the Marriott Rennaisance hotel on Deansgate.

There might already be 11,000 hotel rooms in Manchester with around 7000 of these in the City Centre, but you can guarantee when you want a room you might struggle, such is the popularity of Manchester as a destination for both business and leisure. Good job we're around to help you make an informed choice!

Have a great week! 

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 23 September 2013

Welcome to another week and the Freshtival is finally here.....

We kick off on Wednesday which is very much a PR orientated day with some truly great guest lectures scheduled throughout and also a hopefully humorous talk by our very own Paula Kelsey on the History of the Fresh PR Awards, which includes all sorts of gossip and a few stories too....

Paula founded Fresh back in 2003 and although the Fresh PR Awards were not introduced until 2006, she plans to share the journey and examine some of the trials and tribulations that we’ve experienced in competing with major publishers, industry bodies and a highly cynical industry.

Despite the many challenges, we like to think that we have turned Fresh into a respected Awards brand, one with a little edge against its rivals and a programme that is now attracting the attention of some serious consultancies from the length and breadth of the UK – and if we allowed them – from abroad.

Paula also plans to share some of my own personal favourite winning campaigns from

previous Fresh PR Awards, a few salacious stories and some of the more stupid questions we’ve encountered in running the awards.

We’re fairly fortunate at Fresh to have worked with some great people and industry bodies and have a little of an inside track on the thoughts of some of the best thought leaders in the business.

Some will argue that the business needs to embrace change and some will state that whilst change is a good thing, the industry needs to more to safeguard its best practice status from the social media starlets and wannabees that claim to be able to deliver PR simply through adding a few tweets to an existing campaign.

Of course social media is a fantastic marketing tool and we acknowledge that we need to do it better, be more proactive and engage more here at Fresh. But we like to think we learn and wherever possible adopt the tactics of some of the best Social Media Stars around.

We have the utmost admiration for those that can deliver truly memorable campaigns on a shoestring and anyone that can vouch for a campaign that they’ve seen or been exposed too (and we are not talking Jimmy Saville here!)

Fresh PR is not ready to go global yet, and yes we do get at least half a dozen enquiries each year about overseas entries, but if we did accept International Entries, we hope that both our entrants from the UK and Abroad would aspire to deliver projects of the calibre of one of the most talked about integrated campaigns this year: The three-minute short co-produced by Melbourne private rail service Metro Trains to teach people to be careful around trains, 'Dumb Ways to Die', has notched up more than 50 million views on YouTube since its release in November 2012, sparked hundreds of parodies and even become a smartphone game.

The fantastic Matt Neale first bought this campaign to our attention during the PRCA Dare Roadshows, and we are still talking about it now, so it goes to show just how memorable it has been! 

After all of the speaker events, it will then be time to celebrate at the Fresh PR Awards at the Imperial War Museum North, and to see just who has been successful and which campaigns we will still be talking about in the coming months.

To end this week, we'd like to remind you that the Brand You Awards are next Tuesday in Bristol and if you haven't got your ticket sorted yet, you had better shout as the event is now sold out!

Have a great week and we hope to see you at the Freshtival!