We are 18 – again.

Ethos public relations is celebrating 18 years in business today. Over the past 18 years, we have worked with a huge range of businesses, charities, individuals and others to help them get their message out to a wide variety of audiences.

We have helped our clients launch new products; deal with a number of crises; produce videos, magazine and leaflets; create new websites; manage social media; prepare for newspaper, TV and radio interviews and engage with their employees.

The list of clients we have worked with over the years is a long one and the number of passionate individuals even longer. With hardly an exception it’s been fun, fulfilling and worthwhile.

We have helped raise awareness of issues as diverse as knife crime, disability, co-operation, Fairtrade, products made in the UK, tourism, credit unions, social enterprise, vegetarianism, local food, recycling, social housing and the closure of pubs.

Each of these issues required differing approaches but we hope we dealt with them all with the same commitment both to the subject, and as importantly, to the ethics with which we were founded back in 1998.

Our ‘ethical’ approach was adopted to try and counter some of the perceived negativity towards the public relations industry. Our approach was based on honesty and having an open dialogue with clients and the media. At times this was tested and back in 1998 we couldn’t have imagined how it would be the media itself that would become the focus of unethical practice. It seems both sides of our industry have work still to do.

We have written before about how things have changed, almost unrecognisably, since we first started trading. Posting out press releases and photos being replaced by email, faxes now defunct, far fewer local (and a couple of national) newspapers, not to mention the rise of bloggers and social media – the PR landscape is very different now.

However, our honest and ethical approach to the way we undertake PR has remained the same, and is so much part of who we are that it will remain. As we get near to the end our teenage years, we are wiser and a very different ‘person’ to the Ethos public relations of 1998, but hopefully our friends and colleagues will still recognise us.

So thanks to all our previous and current employees, clients and suppliers. We’ve had a great first 18 years. Time to crack open the fizzy wine – Fairtrade of course.