It’s been another exciting year of change and growth at Hotwire. We’ve been inspired by new possibilities and have taken strides to narrow the gaps that exist between marketing and sales, whilst working with some amazing new brands and deepening our expertise and leadership across key areas of the business. Here’s a brief recap of the key highlights for Hotwire in 2021!
New service offerings
In April, we acquired McDonald Butler Associates (MBA), a strategic B2B sales and marketing agency. We continued to build on our strategic acquisition to unlock new possibilities of growth and present clients with a more robust communications offering and access to new skills and services. This new level of communication has been designed to build brand reputation, strengthen stakeholder relationships and deliver revenue growth, igniting the entire marketing ecosystem and supporting CMOs in growing their businesses. We’ve already seen a number of clients benefitting from the new range of services; whether that’s marketing clients embracing media relations or vice versa. Our combined offering is super powerful and delivering ROI for CMOs globally.
New hires
As well as strengthening our bench with the MBA team, we continued to appoint a series of new hires, adding senior leaders in strategy, planning, digital and client consulting to its teams across the world.
In Germany, Martin Opercan joined Hotwire as a Senior Director, Strategic Growth and will be responsible for client strategy and planning. Martin brings over 20 years of experience in marketing, communications and business development.
Rebecca Rhodes and Anastasia Pavolva joined the Hotwire U.K. team as Head of Planning and Strategy Director. Before joining Hotwire, Rebecca ran her own consultancy, SuperHuman and previously worked as Global Chief Creative Officer at Golin, whilst Anastasia brings with her a tonne of experience working in global agencies such as Ogilvy and in brand management at Procter & Gamble.
In the US, two new Senior Vice Presidents joined the leadership and client services team. Andrea Holland has worked in tech comms across large global brands including Intuit, PayPal and LegalZoom as well as early stage B2C tech startups. Jessica Heagerty joined us from Dell Technologies where she held roles in Analyst Relations and Field Marketing.
New client wins
We’ve welcomed on board a number of new clients who selected us for our technology and innovation expertise to grow their businesses. New client wins this year include Aircall, BAM Karaoke, Bright Machines, Cobrainer, QA, Rocket App and Splashtop.
Award Winning Client Work
Hotwire and individuals across the agency have continued to gain recognition for their leadership and impactful client work this year. Some of our recent accolades include:
- ITSMA Awards – Gold Award for Marketing Excellence for our Honeywell ITSMA Award Submission in Embedding ABM Programs
- Ragan Communications – Workplace Wellness Award – HOTMess to NOStress Challenge: Helping Employees Maintain Mental and Physical Health
- The Drum B2B Awards – Winner for Best Use of Programmatic (for Honeywell)
- Covid Response Awards – Bronze Award for Hotwire Best Staff Support / Wellbeing Initiative During Lockdown
We were delighted to be named for the first time in the PRovoke EMEA Tech Consultancies of the Year, recognising our passion and expertise in the tech industry. We also ranked highly in the likes of Forbes America’s Best PR Agencies 2021, #2 Small Best PR Agency to Work for by PRovoke, PR News Agency Elite 100 and Ragan Comms Top Places to Work. Our very own Ludi Garcia, Managing Director Hotwire Spain, was recognized as the #1 most admired communications professional in Spain by SCOPEN. Hotwire was also named Best Comms PR consultancy, as voted for by PR professionals working in agencies.
Our work on Zoomtopia, Zoom’s annual conference, received Honorable Mention for Ragan Comms’ Media Relations Award for Virtual Event and was shortlisted for a number of other Awards this year.
We were also named in the Propel 100 list as one of the most influential PR agencies in the world in 2021.
Igniting Possibilities (HIPP)
This year also marked the launch of the Hotwire Ignite Possibility Program (HIPP) – our initiative dedicating up to $1 million USD in pro bono brand, marketing, and public relations services to qualifying tech or tech-enabled organization. This included for-profit, non-profit, education, or government—that are either minority-led or providing a product or service benefitting minority communities in a country with a Hotwire office. This year, we’ve started work with the first six companies on the scheme:
- Menther (U.S.) – a global mentoring app supporting women social entrepreneurs
- Children’s Creativity Museum (U.S.) – hands-on, multimedia arts and technology experiences designed to build creative confidence in children ages 2-12
- GoFlyy (U.S.) – a retail on-demand app
- Full Circle Fund (U.S.) – a community that leverages resources and accelerates nonprofits to build a better Bay Area
- STORYSKIMO (UK) – a digital platform of highly curated audio stories to delight all families
- Husmus (UK) – an app that makes renting easy and affordable in order to build a world where everyone can enjoy renting privately
We also appointed a HIPP lead in the UK, Natasha Gay, who joined us through our acquisition of MBA. Natasha will continue to champion diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives. Read more from her as featured in Management Today.
New partnerships
We became members of techUK this year, a trade association bringing together people, companies and organisations to realise the positive outcomes of what digital technology can achieve.
We also became sponsors for ‘Get On Board’ which is a week of education and training to prepare women leaders for Board positions. We are also a sponsor of ‘Alley to the Valley’, a community of accomplished women who fast-track business opportunities for each other.
Looking ahead to 2022, we are excited to continue igniting new possibilities! We’d love to chat to you about your plans and how we can help.