Rain to launch new “home wellbeing” brand

New luxury “home wellbeing” brand TINCTURE has appointed Rain Communications to handle its UK launch, which is set for October 2016. Founded by sisters Anastasia Brozler and Angelika Davenport, the “all-natural” TINCTURE brand aims to protect against the “harms of modern day living”, with cleaning products including surface cleaners, washing up liquids, hand lotions and room sprays. […]

PR Case Study: GrandFest 2016

In 2015, TVC launched GrandFest, a one-day festival for the “older people’s” charity Royal Voluntary Service (RVS), to showcase the craft skills of talented older people. This year, to make the event bigger and better, the agency drafted in a host of volunteers, all aged 70 or more (dubbed ‘GrandMakers’), to host masterclasses for “hipsters” and managed to […]

Tesco appoints group comms director

Tesco has appointed Coca Cola’s Jane Lawrie to its executive committee as group comms director. She will join the retailer on 10 October 2016. Lawrie has more than 25 years’ experience in corporate, financial, colleague and digital comms. At Coca Cola, she has been leading European public affairs and comms since 2011, having first joined the […]

Redleaf appointed by LyteSpark

Cloud-based video conferencing platform, LyteSpark, has appointed Redleaf Communications to deliver its comms brief. Rishi Banerjee, senior account manager at Redleaf Communications, Roy Turner, media relations manager  and account executive Sofie Ford will work on the account. Emma Kane, Chief executive at Redleaf Communications, said: “We are delighted to have been appointed to work with […]

Smithfield supports Dragon Capital listing

Smithfield, the financial PR consultancy,  supported Dragon Capital, a Vietnam-focused financial institution, as it listed its flagship fund on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The asset manager is listed as Vietnam Enterprise Investments Limited (VEIL) on the main market of the LSE. A three-month campaign involving global road shows led to the fund listing on 5 […]

Virgo Health makes digital and design hires

Virgo Health, the Golin partner and healthcare communications firm, has appointed Nicole Burns as social strategist and Paul Andrews as head of design. Both Burns and Andrews will work in the ‘Virgo Pharmacy’ – a creative studio for Virgo’s digital, design and innovation content. Rebecca Rhodes, chief global creative officer at Virgo, said: “Like any other, […]

Behind the Headlines with Finn’s Matt Bourn

Leeds-based Finn officially opens its new London office this month, so Gorkana goes Behind the Headlines with London head Matt Bourn to talk about cutting his teeth as a children’s entertainer, his thoughts on reinventing PR for the digital landscape and what happened when he first pitched to a journalist. Before I reach the office in the morning, […]

Splendid promotes Niki Hunter-Ekins to MD

Niki Hunter-Ekins, previously operations director at Splendid Communications, has been promoted to MD and head of client partnerships, 11 years after joining the company. Hunter-Ekins joined Splendid Communications in 2005 as a senior account manager, following five years at Gabrielle Shaw Communications and one year at Exposure. In the past two years she has helped Splendid win leading brand […]

Richard Dutton named CMO at Engine

Engine, which includes PR firms MHP and Mischief amongst its roster, has brought in Leo Burnett’s Richard Dutton as its new chief marketing officer. Dutton will move into the role at the end of July. Dutton has spent the last seven years as business development director for Leo Burnett’s integrated marketing practice, Arc Worldwide, where […]