Meet Clearbox, Laika Communications's Irish partner PR agency.

This year Laika will be hosting the Summer Bash together with our partner Agency Clearbox. To give you a better understanding of who they are, how they work and what challenges one has to deal with currently in the UK market, we interviewed John Megaughin, Director at Clearbox.

1. Please tell us a bit more about you: What’s the story behind Clearbox?

Clearbox was launched almost 10 years ago by my business partner and I. We wanted to create a consumer PR agency in Northern Ireland that had what we called a ‘London' vibe. Progressive, forward-thinking, and inclusive, while working with great clients and having a laugh along the way.

If I could sum up our agency, I’d say that we take our work extremely seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously. Spend a day in our office and listen to the (in my opinion) awful songs that our team plays or hear about the (also in my opinion) terrible TV shows they love, and you’ll see what I mean. They think Harry Styles is bigger than Elvis and they’d never heard of Johnny Rotten!

2. Why did you decide to partner with the Laika Space Dogs?

Laika has great people, a strong culture and the same approach to life and work that we have at Clearbox. The first time I met Ela and Zelda, chief and deputy Space Dogs, I thought we had a lot of similarities, and everything just took off from there. No pun intended.

Partnering with Laika has been one of the best things that’s ever happened to our agency and I’m truly grateful for everything they’ve helped us achieve. From shared clients to new ideas, we love working with the Laika team and I hope for more of the same for many years to come.

Also, our partnership gives me another reason to visit Berlin – my favourite city in the world. If I’m not in a bar in Kreuzberg, you’ll find me sitting on the step outside the apartment where Bowie used to live, wishing he was still with us. Or trying to get on a tour of Hansa Studios.

3. What drives you personally and what drives Clearbox?

At Clearbox, we simply want to do a good job. We want to make the lives of our clients easier, and we want to do good work. If you achieve both of those things, everything else follows.

Personally, I’m driven by the need to fund an expensive record habit. The prices are shocking these days, honestly!

4. What does your typical client look like?

Our typical client is one that embraces us as an extension of their team.

We’ve never had a ‘them and us’ approach to our work. We work together with our clients to help them achieve their business goals and we don’t stop until the job is done. I don’t think many, if any, of our clients would see us as ‘the agency’ – we’re more ingrained into their team than that.

With regards to an industry, we don’t have a type. We work across lots of different sectors. However, the vast majority of our work is consumer focused.

5. What makes Clearbox Clearbox? What are your values?

The team makes Clearbox. They are energetic, full of ideas and determined to deliver. I can’t ask for any more than that. They teach me new things all the time and I couldn’t be happier with the group of people we’ve assembled. They all have bright futures in the PR industry and, most importantly, they’re all brilliant people.

Clearbox has seven company values, and my personal favourite is the first one – ‘don’t be a dick.’ Words to work and live by.

6. What do you like about Belfast? What about Berlin?

Belfast? The gallows humour. We experienced some well documented difficult times in Northern Ireland, but one good thing to come out of that period was our sense of humour. People will have a laugh about anything here, and it’s often a great way to lighten the mood, even if it’s during a negative situation. I also really love vegetable roll, which you can’t get anywhere else. Google it!

The thing I love the most about Berlin is how free it feels. Bars close when people go home. You can enjoy a beer on the street. Dogs can go anywhere. Public transport is well priced and works. The people are not judgemental. Everyone is welcoming.

7. What’s your team like?

They’re progressive, forward-thinking, inclusive and full of great ideas. While their taste in music is questionable, their work ethic and knowledge of things I know nothing about are not. They’re a clever group of people and I’m lucky to call them colleagues.

8. How does media “tick” like in your home market?

Generally speaking, journalists in the UK and Ireland are a lot more time poor than they were when I started out almost 20 years ago. There are fewer reporters covering more stories, so they’re stretched.

It’s never been more important to pitch relevant stories to journalists who will be interested in the topic you’re pitching.

That’s something we’re big on at Clearbox. Every media list is bespoke to each story. We never want a journalist to get a story from us that’s not relevant for them. I know it must be infuriating for them to get bombarded with stories that aren’t relevant and we’d never want to add to that pile.

Michaela Krause & John Megaughin in Berlin

9. What do you currently see as the biggest comms challenges in your market and industry?

Two challenges – the first is simple – trying to get journalists on the phone these days is almost impossible. Many of them haven’t returned to offices following the pandemic, so if you don’t have a mobile number, then you’re going to struggle. If the PR industry can’t talk to the press, then we’re all running the gauntlet of email pitching. May the odds be ever in your favour.

The second challenge is dark social – the growing trend among some audiences of engaging with content in private groups, channels, WhatsApp chats – that sort of thing. None of the marketing disciplines, including PR, can track or penetrate that so it’s going to become harder to influence opinion as the consumption of news and content becomes even more fragmented than it already is.

10. What’s your advice for German companies to conquer the UK and Irish markets?

Understand that you’re effectively dealing with five different countries. The biggest mistake I see brands make is to group the UK and Ireland together.

There are differences in culture, language, and attitudes to news across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Trust me, there’s nothing that will sink a great campaign quicker than believing that Ireland and the UK are the same country. For example – this caused havoc on social media!

11. What’s next for Clearbox?

We’ve got a lot of new things happening. We’re just putting the finishing touches to our new office space, we’re training the first apprentice who joined our Absolute Beginners programme and we’ve recently announced some investment in new jobs too. It’s probably the most exciting time we’ve ever had as a company, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for us. I also hope for many more happy years working with the Laika team.

12. What dance moves can we expect from you and your team at the Summer Bash?

We have more than one champion dancer at Clearbox, so I think our team will be putting on something of a show…

For me, I’ll be doing my familiar shuffle to the bar to get another bottle of Berliner Kindl. I know I probably shouldn’t love that stuff, but I really do…

13. If Clearbox had a mascot, what would it be and why?

I have to say something from the 90s. The Clearbox team LOVES the 90s, even though some of them were babies back then, and others hadn’t even been born. Let’s go for Marcel, the monkey from Friends. He’s cute, and it’ll keep the team happy that I’ve mentioned the TV show that most of them say is their favourite of all time. I don’t really like Friends though. Yep, I’m one of those people…

LAIKA: Thany you, John! It was a pleasure to talk to you. Even though, you are one of those people. We are looking forward to shuffling to the bar with you to get a beer and talk about the good old time, when we were still able to reach journalists via phone.

Meet Clearbox, our Irish partner Agency with the ‘London’ vibe