Sussex Business Times’ International Women’s Day Q&A
7th March 2022
Author EditorPosted on Categories Business
By Flo Powell and Alex Hankinson, Joint Managing Directors, Midnight Communications
Why is it important to mark International Women’s Day each year?
Women have been campaigning for equality since the mid-1800s. Today, inclusivity and gender equality are legislated for, but there’s a long way to go. Even in the UK, unconscious and conscious bias play a part in women being underrepresented at senior level in many sectors. We feel a shared responsibility to ensure the next generation of women don’t face the same barriers. Midnight is female-owned and we pride ourselves on our supportive and inclusive agency culture.
What does Midnight bring to businesses that other PR agencies don’t?
Midnight is a national PR company based in Brighton. As a small agency with large agency impact, there are none of the drawbacks that can come with bigger outfits. Being Brighton-based means we have a happy, loyal and energised team primed to deliver standout service. Our operational costs are lower than our London counterparts, so we’re excellent value.
We’re mainly B2B with some B2C clients, and we’re plugged into all their commercial goals. Taking a holistic view of the media means we deliver creative ideas, and we regularly land coverage in the nationals. Last month that included The Times, The Daily Telegraph, London Evening Standard and MailOnline. We’re an owner-managed agency with a core team of ten, half of whom are ex-journalists.
Midnight has two female owner-MDs. Does this make a difference to your agency’s culture?
Alex Hankinson and I have worked together for nine years, first as Account Directors, and since our MBO in 2018 as co-owners and Joint MDs. We’re yin and yang – we share the same values and our skills and personalities fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Highlights of 2021 and 2020 so far?
We’ve recently won several new clients and have grown existing contracts. Key wins include A-Plan (insurance broker), Moda Living (property developer), Sussex Archaeological Society (owners of eight properties including Lewes Castle and Fishbourne Roman Palace), Eastbourne College, Stakester (gaming app) and Mayo Wynne Baxter (solicitors); and we had two longstanding clients return to the fold, including the Youth Sport Trust.
We also made two key hires: Rose Lock who joined us from The Argus, and Meganne Tillay, who’s spent the past couple of years as a reporter at Law.com.
You have an impressive staff retention rate – what’s the secret?
We look after our Midnight family, and we bring our team in on big decisions. Plus we have great staff benefits – private health care, face-to-face counselling and a 24-hour support line, gym membership, Christmas off on top of holiday allowance, birthdays off and loyalty days. Our salaries are competitive, and we’ve always offered hybrid working.
We also like to take our team away every year. Our last foreign trip was in Palma in 2019, and we managed a trip to Rye in November. We’re hoping for sunny climes in 2022.
Despite pandemic challenges, Midnight has grown by 30%. How has bringing on a business mentor helped?
Midnight has a long history of growth and success, but we don’t want to stand still – and we were delighted that our turnover reflected that last year with a jump of more than 30%.
One of the things we’ve added to the mix is a Non-Executive Director with experience of running and growing national PR agencies. She’s helping us streamline our processes.
The workforce has changed over the past 24 months. How have you adapted to support your team while preserving agency culture?
Although Midnight has always had a hybrid approach, as a creative agency we value being together. We believe the best ideas come from in-person brainstorms rather than video calls.
The pandemic has, therefore, been tough – not least because, like everyone else, team members have sometimes struggled on a personal level. Our family-feel culture came into its own and we looked after each other as much as we could.
We introduced a 24-hour phone support line and switched out gym memberships for monthly wellbeing vouchers, which the team used for things like exercise equipment.
Your Instagram is full of pictures of you picking up awards – which mean the most to you and why?
I’m very proud of the awards that Midnight has won, which number more than sixty. Last year, we took home the CIPR Pride Award for best Public Sector Campaign for Boundless, which was our first big client win after Alex and I bought Midnight in 2018.
What really warms our cockles are the awards we win for Young Communicator of the Year. In 2019, just before the pandemic hit, I drove Account Manager Emma Hynes to Bristol to pick up that award, and it’s a memory I shall treasure forever.