Blurred’s Post

For World Mental Health Day today we’re pleased to be included in PRWeek's article on how mental health can be improved in our industry. Blurred’s Managing Director Rachel Minty believes this is about both fostering an internal culture where individual needs can be addressed but also ensuring businesses underpin this with meaningful policies. From giving employees the freedom to pick their working hours to providing access to platforms offering therapy courses as well as ensuring mental health forms part of ongoing line management conversations - we recognise that mental health means different things for different people and we try to adapt our approach to meet our teams varying needs. This approach led to us being named as Mental Health Champion by PR Week earlier this year. See the full article here 👇 https://lnkd.in/e646H2ZB

Back in 2020 we committed to sharing bi-annual data demonstrating our progress against our ethnic and gender diversity targets. In 2023 we expanded on this by adding additional data points, reflective of our endeavours to build an ever more diverse team; something which we believe is fundamentally vital if we are to realise Blurred's true potential.    At present: 💫33% of our core team are from ethnic minority backgrounds with 27% in senior roles   💫71% identify as female, with 73% in senior roles   💫29% have disclosed Neurodiversity- something we separate from DisAbility in our broader tracking to highlight the enabling factor that comes with Neurodiversity💪 (Our CEO Nik Govier is Neurodiverse!) See here for the full report https://lnkd.in/eeV5CGsR   Are we there yet? No. But we remain committed. And of course data means nothing without the ongoing work that also goes into building an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive✨

PSA: Oatly works in tea! 📢 Well we think it does anyway and that’s the message we’ve been busy spreading this week.   Supporting the Oatly team’s brilliant OOH and social campaign we kicked off the week with 16 radio interviews alongside our spokespeople Grant Harrold (ex Royal Butler) and Jane Pettigrew (Tea expert) using data around UK tea trends and our ever-evolving tastebuds.   So while you’re reading this or thinking about making your next cuppa why not consider trying it with oat drink because, guess what, IT WORKS IN TEA...doesn’t it? https://lnkd.in/evMKe6_u.

Blurred will be sponsoring ‘Make Comms Great Again: How to Use Your Comms Skills for Good’✨ taking place on Thursday 28 November at London’s Conway Hall. The conference will explore new comms techniques and audiences as well as showcasing great work, celebrating creativity and providing an inclusive, dynamic space to engage with big topics including DEI, climate change and the political landscape. There will be a range of keynote presentations, panel discussions and workshops delivered by a host of experts including journalists, content creators, activists and comms specialists. https://lnkd.in/erBCbJyf Elizabeth Bananuka

Our very own Cathal Wogan and Malini Bhargav will be speaking at Ticketsolve Recharge 2024 next week. The event, which will focus on pushing boundaries, building resilience and driving the communications sector forward, provides the perfect opportunity to discuss our own work to foster greater inclusion in the tech space. Cathal and Malini will be detailing Blurred’s own I Am Not A Typo campaign that seeks to engage with Tech Giants, encouraging them to update their online dictionaries and correct autocorrect.   The campaign, launched in March, was propelled by the insight that 41% of UK children’s names are currently flagged as typos by many of our devices. In an age where we are all striving toward greater inclusion, no one deserves to feel othered by their device.   We have received thousands of online submissions from members of the public sharing their experiences with spell check and as we push forward with our mission to engage with Big Tech, we’re delighted to share our message at next week’s forum. Image below includes: Yellow background with black text that reads 'My name's not a typo. It's my identity.' The word typo is underlined in red to signify a spelling mistake, whilst the word identity is underlined and highlighted in green to show a correction.

Once again we submitted our data for the PRWeek x People Like Us Annual Pay Gaps Report – as we have done every year since it was created. At Blurred we have always been committed to transparency. While this data focuses on ethnic and gender pay gaps, we're increasingly focused on intersectionality, not looking at one single characteristic (ie: ethnicity) in isolation. People's life chances and access to opportunities are determined by multiple factors, including gender, disability and parental socio-economic status and so we now report more generally across a number of areas. https://lnkd.in/evwVCm_R

We're super excited to share this work, a campaign that launches today from Lloyds Banking Group and Crisis, focused squarely on addressing the social housing waiting list emergency. At the heart of this campaign is a powerful film - Waiting List - which dramatises the fact that 1.5m households are on social waiting lists in the UK, often feeling like they have zero way out. There is in fact a whole A-to-Z of problems caused by that waiting list: the alphabet no child should have to learn. More detail in the comments.

In just over a week we’ll be hosting our Anchor Goal Event talking about the importance of companies moving from ‘reducing harm’ to ‘doing good.’ We’re delighted to be joined by two brilliant panellists: Natasha Jamal, VP at Mastercard in charge of Global Social Impact, Inclusive Growth, Small Business. Philipp Küst Social Impact Manager at Reckitt. Natasha and Philipp will be talking about their own experiences of creating Anchor Goals alongside presentations and discussion from Blurred’s Stuart Lambert, moderated by Anisha Vikram Shah. This event will now be virtual only and there’s still time to sign up if you want to join us. Link below: https://lnkd.in/ej6R_cwH