The Gorkana Weekly Industry News Brief: 4 July – 8 July 2016
Missed out on this week’s PR News? Get your handy round-up of the essential highlights of PR and media stories, features and events content over the last seven days on Gorkana News.
Kindred used Instagram to help find new creative talent
People News
TalkTalk enhanced its external comms team with the appointments of Sky’s Coralie Frost as media relations manager, Nickelodeon UK’s Maxine Sackey as consumer PR manager and Bupa’s Lauren Young as CSR lead.
MGT Capital Investments appointed Tiffany Madison as director of corporate communications.
Clarion added to its advisory board, with the appointments of wine expert, TV personality and Saturday Kitchen regular Olly Smith, Condiment Junkie co-founder Scott King, and Springwise’s editor-in-chief, Chris Kreinczes. The new additions came as part of the agency’s increased investment in creativity.
MSLGROUP strengthened its UK corporate team through the hiring of Quintin Keanie as associate director.
Lesley McPherson took up the director of communications position at The Co-operative Bank, and is based in its Manchester head office.
Burson-Marsteller appointed Geoff McDonald, Unilever’s former global VP of HR for marketing, comms, sustainability and global talent, as a senior advisor on corporate purpose and organisational change.
Newgate Communications UK appointed Charles Chichester as a new senior partner to lead its financial PR practice.
Pitch Wins
Bike brand Raleigh appointed Conker Communications as its first PR agency.
Enterprise Ireland (EI), the Irish government body charged with the international growth of Irish enterprises, extended its contract with Eulogy for a further two years.
East Anglian PR agency Pier was chosen to raise the profile of independent marina Suffolk Yacht Harbour.
Global management agency Streeters London brought in Alexander PR to raise the profile of artist Gary Card’s inaugural exhibition.
Camden Town Brewery appointed W following a competitive pitch to handle its UK PR as it looks to move from a London brewery into a global brand.
Yellow Jersey was appointed by Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL), a junior oil and gas company, to deliver financial PR services, with a focus on driving awareness and investment.
Agency News
This week, W Communications launched a new agency division, W Influencer, as it looked to bring the benefits of “earned advocacy” to a wider range of brands.
Following Havas’ acquisition of London-based Just:: Health Communications in June 2015, the agency rebranded to Havas Just::.
Events
“We wanted to create a world of smart shopping. Gaining money back on the stuff you’re buying is pretty much our mantra”.
At a Gorkana media briefing, the core team from new smart shopping and lifestyle platform TBseen.com, including editor-in-chief Kate Thornton, shared their thoughts on what PRs could do to help “work in a smart way” for its audience, writes Gorkana’s Ben Spencer.
News Analysis
The PR opportunities at education conferences
As education conferences kick off for the year – with The Telegraph Festival of Education and the British Education Studies Association (BESA) conference just passed and the British Educational Research Association (BERA) conference to come in September – Mango Marketing’s managing director, Sue Murray, discusses the opportunities for PRs in the education sector.
Punch Comms’ Pete Goold: ‘Seize the opportunity of Facebook Live before it changes’
Facebook Live has benefited a range of Punch Communications’ clients, according to its managing director Pete Goold, but PRs need to make the most of the opportunity before Facebook changes its rules.
Journalist News
Ravi Mattu was appointed editorial director of the Financial Times content marketing suite, FT². Prior to this, he was the newspaper’s TMT news editor.
Bloomberg News announced the creation of its new Legal Enforcement Team to cover the application of financial law worldwide. The team will consist of the following journalists: Alan Katz, Hugo Miller, Liam Vaughan and Franz Wild.
Patrick Holland was appointed BBC Two editor. In his new role, Patrick will be responsible for creative leadership, managing and running the channel, commissioning and scheduling programmes.
Matt Tarr was appointed music editor at Capital FM.
David Bond was appointed media correspondent at the Financial Times. He was previously the BBC’s sports editor.
Paul Brand was appointed political correspondent at ITV News. Paul is currently political correspondent for ITV News, specialising in the north of England and Scotland and will be joining the national news team in August 2016, covering all politics across the UK.
Barbara Speed was appointed comment editor at i. She is currently tech writer at the New Statesman and will start her new role on 25 July.
Features
60 seconds with Joe Mitton, PLMR
Following a special advisor role at the Office of the Mayor of London, Joe Mitton has taken up a senior consultant position at political lobbying specialist, PLMR. Mitton divulges the motivation behind his move agency-side, the differences between British and Australian political communications and he reveals his favourite city.
Gorkana meets… Little White Lies
Adam Woodward, digital editor of Little White Lies, the bi-monthly print magazine which champions great movies and the people who make them, talks to Gorkana’s Niall Davies about creating a unique ranking system for the title, looking for new ways to connect with its audience and what PRs can do to help enhance its content.
PR Case Study: The re-launch of Virgin Radio
To mark the re-launch of Virgin Radio this year, Wireless Group’s in-house PR team partnered up with Virgin Trains to transform a Manchester to London train into a live music venue with the help of performances from Matt Richardson, Travis, The Feeling, Mystery Jets, Gavin James and Walking On Cars.
