Black Diamond

Key areas of expertise:
Black Diamond has 19 years of representation, marketing and brand management experience and offers clients an unrivalled set of expertise for representation in the UK and Ireland. Distinctive within the industry for its creative approach and variety of services offered from travel trade representation and PR, all the way to technology, brand advertising, research, design, TV production and editing, Black Diamond has a client base including many leading US and Canadian destinations. 

Read the interview with Managing Director, Guy Chambers

What services do you provide?
Black Diamond specialises in: Brand development / strategy planning • Travel trade sales, marketing and training • Public relations campaigns and strategy • Social media strategy and campaign • MICE • Co-op marketing • Crisis management • Online creative development and management • Media planning and buying • Research – consumer / trade • Event management • Award winning creative services team • TV production

“Black Diamond really go beyond the call of duty to make things happen. Their passion, knowledge, diligence and commitment to promoting California has been absolutely invaluable.”
Leona Reed, Senior Director of International Marketing, California Travel & Tourism Commission

How do you work with the travel trade?
The key to our success in representation is the strength of our relationships with both the UK media, travel trade and overseas client suppliers, creating a b2b environment that benefits client and customer alike. Calling on years of travel industry expertise our active representation team provides a comprehensive programme of activities and puts on events that have become a part of the tourism calendar.

What do you do for agents?
Our representation team provides a full-time resource for the travel trade. We have worked with clients to introduce high profile and high impact activities including Superfams as part of their campaigns in this market as well as developing online training programmes for global roll out.

Interview with...

Guy, Chambers
Managing Director,
Black Diamond

Tell us a little bit about the history of your company and its key personnel?
I founded Black Diamond in 1990 as a video and TV production company. Within a year the company had established itself as a niche marketing agency working with brands such as Labatt’s beer, Drambuie, United Airlines and destinations in North America. Some 19 years on Black Diamond continues to develop its marketing as well as our TV production, representation and PR divisions. We are widely regarded as innovative, creative and professional in the delivery of any service, event or project and have a talented team who really know their stuff!

How do you go the extra mile for your clients?

We offer a varied range of services and skills under one roof and are able to bring these together to deliver integrated campaigns over and above the expectations of any client. We are also able to take advantage of our consumer marketing heritage to align clients with high profile brands to extend the reach of any campaign.  We pride ourselves in proactively seeking out such opportunities and offering clients a regular and wide ranging set of creative solutions.

Tell us about some of your key achievements?

We were initially involved in the marketing of North American skiing to the UK and were instrumental in establishing some of the key resorts and increasing visitor numbers. We’ve also worked with California Tourism for over 10 years and recently created 2 powerful campaigns in association with Nissan and BBC World News which leveraged additional funds from complementary brands. Over the past 3 years we have increased visitor numbers to California by over 10% in a highly competitive environment.

What are your team’s specific strengths?
We are passionate, creative and forward thinking in our approach to everything we do and pride ourselves on our first-hand knowledge of all our clients. We have brought together a team of individuals who are experts in their respective fields. By working closely together we are able to maximise the cross-over between disciplines at every step of a campaign. Black Diamond is also able to utilise its experience marketing brands outside of the tourism sector to offer a broader understanding of marketing initiatives.

What are the key considerations that make or break a client account?
Clients must be 100% confident that the team representing them can be relied upon 24 / 7. They need to know that they can trust their agency to deliver on time and on budget and with a dedicated team who are not pushed and pulled on other accounts or potential pitches. We also understand the need for showing return on investment and supply qualitative and quantitative data as well as showing a pioneering attitude towards marketing, PR and representation. Black Diamond has prided itself on providing such a service for the past 2 decades – and having fun whilst doing so!