There is something ever so slightly ironic about working for a PR and marketing agency. I don’t mean irony of the ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife kind. It is a pre-Alanis irony that seemingly prevents a PR and marketing agency from actively PR-ing and marketing itself, in the same way as the old adage about cobbler’s children with no shoes.
At Sine Qua Non, we invest every minute of our time on our clients. Our goal is to make our clients happy. In the Pharrell Williams kind of way. Like a room without a roof, if you will. So when we see our own company name in print it comes as a surprise. Over the Bank Holiday weekend, a Twitter alert appeared innocently on my phone while I was in Portsmouth with the family. My wife has become accustomed to me checking my phone every five minutes (you never know when a client might email after all!).
You have been mentioned in a tweet. Not me personally but our company Twitter account @techandsport (which, as an agency that doesn’t promote itself, we don’t use half as much as should).
The tweet in question was from Caroline Reid of Formula Money, who had posted a link to an article on the Forbes website referencing @techandsport. Hastily opening the link and scanning through the story (which incidentally was about Subway entering Formula 1 and the good people of JMI), I spotted the reference to Sine Qua Non of Britain as a rapidly growing business in Formula One.
Staring at my phone screen with a strange feeling of incredulity and pride, I immediately forwarded it on to my colleagues (we do a fair bit in the digital comms space so we get the whole viral thing!).
But I then questioned why I was so amazed. We have a great portfolio of clients covering PR, marketing, sponsorship and hospitality. We work in F1, WRC, WEC, MotoGP and have clients in other sports and industries – engineering, automotive, electronics, IT and telecoms. We have an accomplished workforce with corporate, agency and journalism backgrounds. And we are rather good at what we do.
There, I’ve said it. We are good at what we do. This whole self-publicity thing might just catch on. But first, I’ve got something to do for a client…
Chris Hughes is Head of PR and Communications at Sine Qua Non, follow him on Twitter @ChrisHughesPR and Sine Qua Non’s company account @techandsport.
