In 2004, Powertraveller Ltd was formed with a mission to develop, design and manufacture a range of portable chargers for circumstances where mains electricity is not available. The company’s range of portable power solutions for everything from mobiles, iPods, and PDAs through to handheld games consoles and laptops includes the iconic powermonkey.

In April of this year Powertraveller were nominated for the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation 2009.  Jane Harsham, PR Manager, contacted TV News London to help prepare for the valuable publicity they would receive through the nomination alone and especially if they won.  Powertraveller’s Chief Executive, Jerry Ranger, needed media training to maximise the impact of the publicity opportunities created.  In discussion with Jane we decided the best option for Jerry was to attend our next Open Media Training Course, with three other professional spokespeople from different organisations.  This was a rigorous training day, which was very successful.

Jerry told us after the course:

“I certainly gained a much better understanding of how to engage with the media in an interesting and effective manner; to relate the information in a more conversational and as you say anecdotal manner. I am sure Jane will ensure I do not revert back to type and prepare a shopping list of answers! The course was of great value and I found it very interesting to see how other members of the course came out of themselves and in the end had genuine self belief in being able to represent their organizations. It has been a long time since I did any formal training and clearly I should do a lot more. Thank you and for all your efforts and patience.”

We also organised a one hour Broadcast PR telephone consultation for Jane Harsham with Roz Morris, TV News London’s Managing Director and broadcasting expert, to help her get the right pitch for targeting radio and TV as her main expertise was in print. 

Powertraveller subsequently won the Queen’s Award and ran a very successful promotion from that.  Jerry gave interviews to CNBC’s Strictly Money, several radio stations and The Daily Telegraph. 

Jane has since contacted us to say Jerry has been invited back to CNBC for a second interview.  This reinforces something we always stress at TV News London – if you give a good interview you will be asked back.  And media interviews are one of the most economical and far reaching forms of advertising and promotion.