apt blog

Finalists announced for Britain's leading Beauty Awards 2017

Forty years of promoting, supporting and celebrating the beauty industry are being celebrated at this year’s sector-leading national beauty awards. Each year, the BABTAC (British Association of Beauty Therapists and Cosmetology) & CIBTAC (Confederation of International Beauty Therapy and Cosmetology) Awards recognise and reward outstanding contributions to the sector: the talented and the trail-blazers, from exceptional students to established business owners, from extraordinary therapists to the inspiring centres that train them. An impressive list of 61 finalists, each hoping to win one of the 40^th anniversary Awards, have just been announced in the run-up to the glittering award ceremony on 18^th June.

This year, to mark BABTAC’s special anniversary, the new award for ‘Lifetime Achievement/Contribution to the Industry’ throws the spotlight onto those people whose efforts, passion and commitment over the years have advanced the professionalism and status of the sector to the level it now enjoys. As a marker of how much support and commitment the beauty industry and BABTAC attract, there are seven finalists (normally categories have 2-4 finalists): Diana Jenner, Sally Durant, Suzanne Henson, Kim Ford, Julia Leone, Jenna Bailey and Carolyne Cross.

A number of other new categories have been introduced this year:

Business Management Award – in today’s digital world, what it takes to run a business changes rapidly, from how to keep accounts to how to advertise to potential clients. This award recognises how beauticians these days have to be masters of many skills, not just the beauty ones they trained in. However, for small salons and sole traders in particular, keeping up-to-date and learning new techniques and tools can be extremely hard. This award will not only recognise achievement but also provide role models and help to shine a path that other beauticians can follow. Finalists: Beauty at the Bay, HKBHA Academy, and The Foot Health Clinic.

Advanced Aesthetician – these therapists are non-medical skin care specialists who advise clients on the most suitable skin care regimes and products for their skin types, including skin problems such as acne or eczema. They assist with rejuvenating the skin, performing treatments such as skin peels, laser & light therapy, skin needling techniques (incl. Mesotherapy), advanced electrolysis, micropigmentation and microblading. Finalists: Jody Taylor, Martine Jarman, and Suman Jalaf.

Innovator Award – new ways to boost customers’ confidence and satisfaction with how they present themselves to the world are developing at a rapid rate. The finalists in this award are pushing back the boundaries of new techniques for rejuvenating ourselves, helping the sector keep fresh, meet customers’ needs, and ride the storm of the recession. Finalists: Katherine Tonkinson, Diana Jenner, and Martine Jarman.

Brow Specialist – customers’ fascination with the artistry of the eyebrow has rocketed so much in the past couple of years that BABTAC felt this category was needed to represent this new, burgeoning aspect of beauty therapy.  Finalists: Brittany Beck, Misty Crew, Suman Jalaf, and Sita Gill.

These new categories show how much the sector is flourishing and constantly responding to customers’ needs and new opportunities. BABTAC represents professional side of the industry and the practitioners that make it such a success. 

CIBTAC is BABTAC’s sister organisation, working with Governmental departments and professional organisations to develop qualifications that meet required standards, and provide the highest quality training at centres around the world for all aspiring therapists and those wishing to keep up to date with the latest techniques. CIBTAC offers a wide portfolio of courses including beauty therapy, spa, well-being, diet and nutrition, sports therapy, and a number of complimentary and holistic qualifications.

The CIBTAC award categories reward the best training centre, the most outstanding student, and the best inspirational tutor.

The winners will be announced at the beauty industry event of the year, with gala dinner and ceremony at Banking Hall in London at 7pm on Sunday 18^th June. The host for the evening will be Gill Morris, a well respected industry professional, responsible for introducing many new treatments to the UK including Blend electrolysis and gel nails.  Gill is currently the Director of Commercial Development for Sterex and has been a lifelong supporter of BABTAC.

SOHO Coffee Co. celebrates Bank Holiday with new store opening

SOHO Coffee Co. has this weekend opened its fourth store in London, at the O2 Centre on Finchley Road. The store, which follows just three weeks after the outlet on Baker Street, is the second opening in London this year, and the fourth store in the Capital. It is also the first London store to carry the SOHO Kids Range, with perfectly-sized sandwiches, fruit & veggie pots and the famous SOHO gingerbread figures. 

Penny Manuel, Managing Director, SOHO Coffee Co. comments “Openings in London are a recent undertaking for the brand, but ones which are outperforming expectations and targets. We’re delighted with the positive responses from our customers to the design of the stores, our signature food-led coffee offering, and our in-store teams who are working hard to create the right atmosphere.” 

The artisan coffee brand continues to eye expansion across London in 2017, with fitting already underway in yet-to-be-revealed new locations for the owner-managed chain. SOHO has eleven outlets opening this year, of which O2 Centre is the fourth.

Book an easy, fun cycling holiday to celebrate National Bike Week 2017 (10-18th June)

National Cycling Week this June is encouraging everyone to get on their bikes and experience the fun, energy boost and feeling of freedom that travelling on two wheels can offer.  This doesn’t have to be the hard work it often appears to people more used to driving everywhere, or be confined to weekdays cycling to the shops or to school. Compass Holidays (www.compass-holidays.com) has a range of weekend breaks and holidays which combine easy cycling with getting under the skin of the history and culture, and enjoying the natural beauty, of some of England’s most iconic and stunning locations.

All the routes offered have been cycled by Compass’ staff and are along quiet, back roads making them perfect for people who haven’t been on a bike since childhood or for families trying to encourage their children to get more exercise and fresh air. Optional short-cuts allow the daily cycling distance to be adapted according to energy levels and what customers want to do that day.  All the UK holidays are graded as easy so no strenuous ‘peddle power’ is needed and Compass staff can advise anyone who’s not sure which holiday will suit them – they don’t want any sore bums on these breaks and holidays!

All holidays are self-guided and a comprehensive tour pack highlights all the visitor attractions plus special historical and cultural places en route. This allows a personal bubble of time and experience to be created for all customers according to their own interests or hobbies, and helping families plan a day to please everyone, creating fun quality time together.

The length of the short breaks is between 2 – 4 days, and 7-11 days for holidays. Examples of holidays offered:

Cornish Contrasts – Cornwall Cycling Short Break runs along the Cornish coastline with its rocky coves, spectacular cliffs, creeks, and the dramatic beach of Kynance Cove. En route are old Cornish fishing villages; Goonhilly Down satellite tracking station; the National Trust owned country estate of Loe Pool; a reconstructed mining village; the National Seal Sanctuary at Gweek; St Michael’s Mount; Praa Sands’ mile long sandy beach which is fantastic for families and surfers.  The route passes through Falmouth with the chance to visit the maritime museum, Henry VIII’s castle (Pendennis Castle), exotic gardens and lovely beaches.

Wheeling on the Wolds - Cotswolds Cycling Short Break takes cyclists through old, charming Cotswold villages and Stow-on-the-Wold with its market square where up to 25,000 sheep a day used to be sold.  Children will love the chance to see the cute farm animals at Cotswold Farm Park (belonging to Adam Henson, presenter of Countryfile on BBC1); and at the National Trust’s Snowshill Manor crammed with historical artefacts from Samaria warrior armour to Victorian children’s toys and much more, children can try on clothes from past ages from the dressing-up box. Everyone will surely be fascinated by the mosaic floors, bath houses and heating system on display at Chedworth Roman Villa, the most complete villa of the period remaining in England.

Other holidays in the UK let cyclists discover the wonder of Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. European destinations include the Balkans, the Danube, France, Majorca and Italy.

A 'Phreaky Friday' could cost companies thousands this coming Easter

Talk about protecting companies from hacking and the focus will immediately shine onto cyber security. However, there’s another threat which can cost companies tens of thousands of pounds and, thanks to Internet technology, is now much more of an issue than when it first appeared in the 1960s. One of Gloucestershire’s leading telecommunication companies is warning companies that they’re at particular risk this coming Easter holiday, and is urging them to take protective measures.

‘Phreaking’ is essentially a telephone fraud scam where an external party hacks into a private telecommunication systems in order to make free calls, typically international ones or high-cost phone numbers. Characteristically, the hacker picks a weekend or bank holiday when the company’s premises are unlikely to be occupied and, therefore, the activity will go undetected.

“Companies don’t realise that phreaking can have serious consequences” said Claire Maddox, Company Director of Eurolink Connect, the Stonehouse-based telecommunications specialist. “Unlike credit card fraud, no compensation is available because the calls originate from their own, registered phone numbers. The current cost of a phreaking attack averages between £10,000 - £16,000. Even Scotland Yard has been subjected to phreaking.” She continued.

Phreaking began in the 1960s and hacked into the old landline systems but was a low-level risk. Some of the figures who are now reputable members of the corporate world, such as Steve Jobs (his hacker name was Oaf Tobar), Steve Wozniak (aka Berkeley Blue), and John Draper, were involved in those early days of phreaking. John was known as Cap’n Crunch and used nothing more technical than a toy whistle given away in cereal packets in America during the mid-1960s to meddle with AT&T’s long-distance trunk lines.

Since then, the introduction of broadband, VoIP and new technology means the hacker can gain access in a matter of minutes to a phone system. Companies are particularly vulnerable if they use multiple phone lines, have part-time staff, or are closed for long periods of time. The latter instance makes schools and colleges especially at risk from phreaking, not good news given the recently announced re-organisation of school funding from Government.

Eurolink Connect is offering advice to help companies protect themselves. There are straight-forward ways to greatly reduce the risk of a phreaking attack:

• Choose strong passwords with numbers and letters and remember to apply this to voicemails
• Bar specific numbers in order to block premium rate calls, calls to overseas numbers etc
• Set up a call recording system which produces daily records or alerts that enable tracking of calls and highlight unusual call patterns
• Avoid trunk-to-trunk calls (used for conference calls and direct dial to voicemails) if these facilities aren’t needed

Claire highlights that there are also technical processes that can be added to telecommunications’ systems to provide improved protection:
“Woodford Medical Centre in Loughborough was subject to a phreaking attack on a bank holiday Saturday but special threshold controls that we’d introduced on the phone lines detected the threat. We were able to prevent the criminals from running up a bill of thousands of pounds. This was obviously much appreciated by an organisation juggling their NHS funding.”

SOHO’S new Flagship store to open in its home town of Cheltenham

Eighteen years ago, a fledgling SOHO Coffee Co. opened its first store just off the High Street in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, serving the best quality organic, Fairtrade coffee – years in front of the mainstream coffee chains. This week, the 32^nd store to be spawned from this humble beginning has been opened in the very same town. As a mark of the company’s origins and success, the store will be its regional flagship outlet, located in the prime position welcoming shoppers to a 21^st century re-development in the heart of the spa town. This latest store, the first of eleven planned for this year, reflects the changing trends in consumer demands, focusing on health and the requirement of customers to choose how and when they eat and drink.

The Brewery Quarter is a multi-million-pound development in the centre of Cheltenham’s shopping centre, based around the old Cheltenham Brewery. It’s a state-of-the-art entertainment complex with a variety of restaurants and bars, 10-screen IMAX cinema, gym, bowling centre, and children’s soft play centre. SOHO’s latest store will be 1,300 sqft in area and enjoys the prime corner pitch, greeting shoppers as they approach the new Brewery Quarter.

‘We are hugely proud of the quality and variety of food and drinks we offer our customers. We have a team of passionate foodies whose mission is to ensure our customers can choose food to match their lifestyle and mood – whether that is protein- based, less meat or a need for a Friday sticky treat. We are introducing hot grain pots, baked sweet potatoes and tacos as part of the new store launch to allow customers to customise their lunch choice. Breakfast is big on our menu – our bacon and egg sandwich using happy eggs and freshly baked, hand-cut bread is just great.’ said Penny Manuel, Managing Director.

“We’re extremely delighted to be opening our latest outlet in the new Brewery development in Cheltenham. We will always have a soft spot for Cheltenham, it’s where SOHO began and is the heart of our company operation”

The Brewery Quarter store will create 15 jobs and promotional opportunities for three of SOHO’s loyal family.

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION, BABTAC RESPONDS TO C4 PROGRAMME ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Following last night’s (Tuesday 31^st January 2017 at 10pm) programme on Channel 4, which exposed the evil trafficker who held vulnerable Vietnamese immigrants and forced them to work in his beauty shop, beauty industry association BABTAC has long held major concerns regarding modern slavery.

The documentary highlighted the vulnerability of non-English speaking immigrants desperate to work encountering people like Hong Chuong Dang who exploit them for his own gain, in this case the 16 year old boy didn’t even know where he was and that he might be entitled to more than just pocket money.

Lesley Blair, Vice-Chair, The British Association of Beauty Therapy and Cosmetology (BABTAC) comments:

“In 2013, we worked closely with The Times to support their story highlighting the extent of Human Trafficking in our industry, and we also made a subsequent submission to the consultation on a Human Trafficking Bill lead by Jenny Marra MSP. This story highlights that despite the high risk our industry represents, little has changed in just over three years, and the low barriers to entry including low start-up costs and a lack of formal regulation mean that our industry is still targeted by unscrupulous criminals.”

She continues “As well as highlighting ways to identify possible human trafficking and encouraging industry professionals and consumers to report possible cases to their local police or to Crimestoppers, we also drafted and have lobbied for a simple, cost-effective licensing system that reduces the likelihood of human trafficking, without adding extra significant costs for legitimate therapists. Not only would the regulatory model that we propose considerably reduce the likelihood of human trafficking, but it will also help to make the wider industry more transparent and accountable, a key shortcoming that is regularly highlighted by the media.”

As part of their on-going campaign for industry self-regulation, BABTAC continues to lobby the government, promoting an industry-wide model, as well as contributing to specific incidents such as human trafficking. Whilst the organisation cannot actively provide support for victims, BABTAC is still working to raise awareness of the problem through their magazine and website, as well as driving for industry regulation or self-regulation. The human trafficking campaign specifically, encourages customers and beauty professionals to look out for typical trafficking signs including:

• Therapist reluctance to build relationships with customers
• People who live in the same premises where they work
• Technicians who are unable to leave without their employer

The organisation is also encouraging the public to check whether their therapist is qualified, verified, and insured. At BABTAC, they ask for a therapist’s qualifications, check whether they are reputable and valid and then provide insurance. When visiting a salon, ask to see their certificates and check if they have insurance. If they can’t produce them or don’t have any, steer clear; this is good advice regardless of the origin of the therapist and will help keep you safe.

Anyone concerned about potential trafficking victims should contact their local police or Crimestoppers.

apt at the Olympia Beauty Show

The team at apt will be attending the Olympia Beauty Show on 2^nd - 3^rd October 2016 at the Olympia Exhibition Hall in London. The event is one of the biggest on the beauty calendar and beauty business of all sizes will be there including big brands such as OPI and Cyrano Sunbeds.

The team at apt will be helping IBHA Training Academy promote their Amethyst Trust Cancer Massage Course on stand G166 and will also be conducting that all important retail therapy!

Here at apt, we specialise in providing affordable and reliable marketing support for the beauty industry. Find out more on our Beauty Marketing Help website.

apt attend clients Gala Awards and Training Congress

For the past few weeks the team at apt have been hard at work securing sponsorships, preparing various marketing collateral and other important information for our client The Federation of Holistic Therapists and their upcoming events. Last weekend, the apt team travelled down to Stratford-Upon-Avon to attend both the Gala Awards Dinner and the full day Training Congress events!

Both events were absolutely brilliant and were held at the Holiday Inn in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Luckily for everyone, the weather was great allowing the grassy banks along the canal to be enjoyed in the (dry) sunshine. Upon arrival, the apt team received a wonderfully warm welcome from our valued client and with hard work delivered from both sides we all looked forward to the evening’s celebrations!

Victoria and Kelly at the Gala Awards 

The boardroom, in which the Gala Awards were being presented, was set up beautifully by The Federation of Holistic Therapists team and it was excellent to see all hands on deck to ensure a fantastic setting for all of the guests. With apt Account Manager, Victoria as MC for the evening and presenter of the awards, industry leaders were rewarded and recognised by their category judges. It is safe to say that the evening went without a glitch followed by a lively disco, in which the guests could let their hair down, although we imagine that many guests tried not to let their hair down too much in order to be as alert as possible for the Training Congress the next day...

The Training Congress was also an excellent day; the exhibit and sponsor areas were busy and the training sessions and seminars flowed perfectly too with speakers presenting everything from Effective analysis and treatment of darker skin shades with Kim Ford to Getting to the root of the pain with John Gibbons.

Here at apt, we loved working closely with The Federation of Holistic Therapists to help ensure that both events were the best they could possibly be. We also enjoyed attending the event and supporting our client too; after all, for us it’s all about relationships!

Travel the extra mile with your PR…

You’ll have heard us talk about the ‘so what’ factor before, which encourages you to question what is interesting about your story and why people might want to read it! You’ll also know we encourage you to ‘think outside the box’ when it comes to identifying an angle and look at what you could make a story out of!

Travelodge has done just that and every year, they publish a list of the mundane, quirky, unusual and sometimes downright odd items that grace their ‘lost-and-found’ boxes. This year £3,000 in £1 coins, a freshly-baked gingerbread village and even a husband made it onto the list, alongside more than 12,000 smartphones and tablets. Now this isn’t perhaps an ‘obvious’ story, one you would think of immediately when you think of corporate PR, yet it’s one of the more popular ones with consumer and trade publications alike! Our seemingly un-stoppable demand for an insight into the lives of others leaves us questioning just who would take a pink, electronic children’s Porsche into a hotel in the first place, and then even more bizarrely, leave it behind! The same premise applies to the ‘feng shui’ fishtank complete with nine fish and an inflated six-foot bouncy castle! Bonkers!

Anyway, we digress; here’s what you can learn from Travelodge with this #PRExample…

• Think outside the box; reiterating what we say time and time again, think outside the box. Lost and found has absolutely nothing to do with the service Travelodge provide, or the quality or calibre of their holiday portfolio, but it does provide interesting PR content that they can leverage. Significant amounts of coverage mean this simple story is worth its weight in gold (or maybe pound coins in this case), and it’s a simple case of identifying an appropriate angle. Go through your daily processes and see if there is something interesting, innovative or unusual that you can make the most of!

 

• It doesn’t have to be new; just because you did it last year, doesn’t mean you can’t do it again; in fact in some cases you can make it a tradition and a memorable ‘date for the diary’ as you release a sought-after story. Obviously, there is also the possibility of ‘too much of a good thing’ if you overdo it, but quarterly, bi-annually or annual releases can be great. In this case Travelodge release an annual list of lost-and-found, which gains coverage every year. Whatever your idea, it will have to be a regular occurrence and interesting enough to keep gaining the coverage.

 

Although many of these stories will ‘stand-alone’, a great way to take advantage of regular or annual releases is to link them to a topical event or national ‘day’. Sit down with a calendar and look at what you can do with key dates like Valentine’s for example; it doesn’t matter if you did something last year, as long as the content is suitably different and remains interesting, you’re bound to get coverage again. 

Printwaste’s fourth consecutive win at the DM Awards!

We are proud to announce that our client, Printwaste Recycling & Shredding, has won the ‘Data Destruction & Shredding Company of the Year’ award for the fourth year running!

Tom and Hannah Robins collected the award on behalf of the company at the ceremony which took place at Hotel Russell in London on 23^rd October.

Don Robins, Printwaste Director, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have won this award; it is such an honour to have won it for the fourth year in a row! To be nominated again was an honour in itself so winning the award is fantastic! I am extremely proud of all of the team who have worked so hard to ensure that secure shredding takes place, destroying documentation effectively and worry free for our clients who rely on this service and trust us to keep documents safely until destroyed.”

From all of us in the apt office, we would like to thank everyone who voted for them and offer a big congratulations to Printwaste!