Department for Business, Innovation and Skills hands Fishburn Hedges SME brief

The agency has been called in by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) following a pitch process revealed earlier this year.

Fishburn Hedges will be working on the Business in You campaign, which promotes the public and private sector help available to small businesses and start-ups.

The work forms as part of the Government’s wider efforts to support SMEs as it strives to stimulate economic recovery.  

Fishburn Hedges director Martin Brown will lead the work. He said: ‘We will be combining digital, media and political comms to get the message out that there is a lot of help and advice available, and that businesses which take advice are more likely to succeed.’

It is understood the brief will be based primarily around local and regional media, though there will also be a focus on broadcast and national print.  

Included in this will be generating coverage of the Local Business Accelerators competition run by regional press trade body The Newspaper Society. The competition celebrates successful local businesses while highlighting the advice available through Business in You.

The scheme was launched in January 2012 and sits alongside a number of other government-backed efforts to stimulate the success of SMEs.

It was recently announced that the Government’s own spending with this group had increased from £3.2bn, or 6.8 per cent, in 2010-11, to £4.4bn, or ten per cent, in 2011-12.

This article was first published on prweek.com