‘Year in review’ pieces are by their very nature, pretty self-indulgent. But hey. Pier we are. Our blog, our rules.  

To celebrate every ounce of hard-work and creativity poured into the year from our relentlessly passionate team, allow us to take a moment to reflect on a memorable 12 months. 

January 

Starting the year as we mean to go on, we secured national coverage for Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult with this fantastic piece in the Independent. We welcomed account assistant Rachael to the team and kicked off social content strategies for Pure free from, Fieldfare frozen and ready meal brand Hungry Joe’s. 

February 

While we were all battling a serious Wordle addiction, our renewables team still found time to win new clients, with Generate and Perceptual Robotics coming on board. We secured considerable coverage for Ellison’s Solicitors pivotal ‘Waking Watch’ case thanks to a savvy media relations strategy and were pleased to take a trip away from our desks to Scotland to attend the Subsea Expo. 

March 

There was much to celebrate in March as we picked up High Growth Business of the Year at the Federation of Small Business (FSB) Awards and started working with new client Richmond on its meat-free range. Our campaign for HIPPO was kicking off with decluttering expert Dilly Carter, and we helped drive new participants to the Essex Residents Panel for Essex County Council. Meanwhile in the team, Olivia received a well-deserved promotion to account executive, and our food and beverage team were at trade food mecca IFE. 

April 

We’ve enjoyed several awards nods this year for our work with Affinity Water, and in April we were at the finals for the first of these – The PRMoment Awards. Meanwhile, in food and drink land we were busy creating scrummy new recipes and photography for Del Monte, and our renewables PR experts landed some cracking TV coverage for Generate on ITV Anglia, as it welcomed East Anglia ONE and TWO wind farms being given the thumbs up by planners.  

May 

May was BUSY, where do we even start?! We had earned media coverage galore, helped Affinity Water host an exclusive comedy show with Matt Richardson and Zoe Lyons at Rickmansworth Festival, gifted a whopping 100 influencers for Richmond’s new meat-free range, started working with Fridge Raiders and delivered a climate comms strategy for Essex County Council. We needed more people! Thankfully, new account manager Lucy Brown joined our ranks at just the right time. 

June 

Our renewables team were very busy in June running two public consultation events for the Five Estuaries Wind Farm. The Del Monte team were excited to deliver sponsorship activity with Britain’s No 1 men’s tennis player, Cam Norrie, and mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with a very fancy celebration cake. We also enjoyed celebrating success as finalists at the PRCA Dare Awards in London. 

July 

It might not feel like it now, but July was HOT! There were two more stakeholder consultation events for the Five Estuaries Wind Farm that kept our renewables team busy and we activated across TikTok, Instagram and Facebook for Fridge Raiders Meat-Free Tasty Bites with social content, influencer gifting and a creator partnership, achieving a campaign reach of more than 800K.  

August 

Amal joined us in August for an internship, placed through the Taylor Bennett Foundation, and was a tremendous help across the business. Consumer lifestyle coverage was rolling in for the Sun Hee Korean food range and we made a stir in renewables trade media for BLADEBug’s new concept robot. One lucky homeowner won their mortgage for a year, thanks to the ‘Mortgage Free’ competition we ran for HIPPO. We also created this thought-provoking before and after shot to help the East of England Co-op drive home the importance of supporting food banks over the summer holidays as part of its Shop & Share campaign, which landed BBC Look East coverage. 

September 

Did you know nearly a third (32%) of UK homes are powered by clean energy from the east of England? Our fascinating infographic for Generate launched in September, helping to cement the east of England’s status as the UK’s energy powerhouse. We started delivering public consultations for offshore windfarm, Dogger Bank South, while our resident foodies headed to the Aldeburgh Food & Drink Festival.  

October 

PIER WE ARE! October marked a huge moment in Pier’s history as we re-launched with a new commitment to giving 1% of our profit to fighting climate change, opened an office in London, and announced a ream of new staff benefits including private healthcare, all under a fresh new identity and website. That didn’t stop the client work though – we were running a broadcast day for HIPPO’s winter gardening campaign and using drones to shoot video content for Essex County Council’s sustainable route planning app, TravelEssex. There were more public consultations for Dogger Bank South and we helped popular world foods brand Laila celebrate Diwali, the festival of lights, with a PR campaign. 

November 

It may have been grey out but our renewables team were only thinking about the sunshine as they delivered public consultations for British Solar Renewables (BSR) Energy. Our food trade PR hit new records with swathes of The Grocer coverage this month, including multiple hits for Saputo’s exciting Cathedral City plant-based cheese NPD. The Del Monte team also kick-started their brand-new collaboration with actress and cookery author, Lisa Faulkner. 

December 

We helped announce the East of England Co-op’s generous £100,000 donation to warm hubs and food banks this winter, money usually spent on Christmas marketing, a wonderful feel-good story to end the year. Out and about, we battled the elements and the train strikes to take Fridge Raiders Chicken & Stuffing Bites on a Festive Tour, from Edinburgh to Bournemouth, for an exciting social activation. We took our Affinity Water client Jane to the global The Drum Awards for PR where we had landed a prestigious finalist nod. And we ended the year with our own Pier Pledge – filling the ‘Help yourself shelf’ at an Emmaus hub. 

 If you were part of our 2022, we cannot thank you enough. Here’s to 2023.