2018: that’s a wrap!
It’s been another fantastic 12 months for the team here at Speak, in a year that has seen us talk leadership with football legends, explore the colourful streets of Brooklyn, New York with the city’s creatives and launch our brand new ‘Word of the Week’ series. We look back at the stories that made 2018 so special.
1. Leading Questions: Frank Lampard, Barclays – nominated by Joe McAweaney, Copywriter
“A personal highlight of mine was interviewing former Chelsea and England legend Frank Lampard as part of our ‘Leading Questions’ series for the home.barclays site. We spent over an hour with Frank, touching on a whole range of topics – from disagreeing with managers to taking the perfect penalty – and produced both a Q&A feature and video for the Barclays group site.
As a keen football fan, it was fascinating to hear about Frank’s experiences first-hand and gain an insight into his approach to leadership both on and off the pitch. Definitely one for the scrap book”
2. Attracting the right talent, Barclays – nominated by Laura Smith, Managing Editor
“With this feature we took a fairly generic announcement – that four Barclays colleagues had been named on the Financial Times’ annual EMpower list – and created two powerful and emotive articles based on what they had to say about being from an ethnic minority background in the British workplace.
We also managed to get all four together for a shoot at Barclays HQ in Canary Wharf. The resulting portraits of four people of colour ‘owning’ a professional environment is unusual on corporate sites – and helped the story become one of the most popular on Barclays’ LinkedIn feed in 2018.”
3. “I want to create technologies that help alleviate human suffering”, Parkinson’s Life – nominated by Simge Dogan, Copywriter
“In September we interviewed 18-year-old Erin Smith who is the inventor of FacePrint – an award-winning diagnosis tool for Parkinson’s. It was a real pleasure to chat to someone who has such passion, drive and ability at such a young age. The Parkinson’s community, and society as a whole, need people like Erin. This definitely isn’t the last we’ve heard from her and I look forward to catching up with her in the future.”
4. Word of the Week, Speak Media blog – nominated by George Theohari, Head of Content
“Our new series ‘Word of the Week’ sees us flex our linguistic muscles and keep tabs on what’s driving online search by taking a closer look at the words trending online and in the media.
It’s quickly settled into its groove and is building a loyal following of readers at Speak and beyond. So far we’ve covered a number of zeitgeist-y words – from ‘becoming’ (the ambiguous title of Michelle Obama’s memoir) to ‘ze’ (the gender-neutral pronoun and latest high-scoring addition to Scrabbles dictionary).”
5. “It’s been brilliant”, Barclays – nominated by Roisin McCormack, Copywriter
“Back in September we spoke to the lovely Enid Hayes, the community banker who’s been with Barclays for a whopping 54 years.
From a ‘banking for women’ handbook to the introduction of credit cards, taking a trip down memory lane with Enid was truly fascinating. It’s people like Enid that make our jobs so interesting, when we get to unearth those hidden gems of a story.
The feature’s heartfelt simplicity received a lot of love on social media (reaching over 600 likes on LinkedIn) and proved our ability to tell people-centred stories.”
6. “The Watchlist”, Patrick Church, Brathwait – nominated by Aurore Groult, Producer
“This year our Content Works team were tasked with helping watchmaker Brathwait embed New York City in its brand identity in an exciting culture-driven content campaign.
One of the first features – as part of our newly launched ‘The Watchlist’ series – was with creative and artist Patrick Church. He’s by far the edgiest person we’ve interviewed all year, we spent an hour discussing the importance of humour, romance and eccentricity in his work. Our photographers then went out and explored the streets of Brooklyn that he’s made very much his own.”
