Kiwi.com hires Frank

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Frank has been hired to handle the consumer and lifestyle PR for online travel business Kiwi.com.

Kiwi.com

Kiwi.com, based in the Czech Republic, has a global reach covering USA, UK, Western Europe, Asia, Australasia and LATAM. The site offers a way of simplifying the travel experience, allowing consumers to book individual flights to complete flight itineraries across multiple independent airlines.

The appointment was made by Alison Couper, formerly senior global comms director at Hotels.com.

Frank will work with Couper to grow awareness and consideration of Kiwi.com’s offering. Frank founder and CEO Graham Goodkind will lead the account.

Couper said: “We were looking for a partner who could work alongside us to develop a clear tone of voice for the brand and establish Kiwi.com among potential customers and our target audience. We were impressed with Frank’s strategy and creativity and felt they were the right people to work with us to get the Kiwi.com name out there. We look forward to working with the team and seeing the results that follow.”

Goodkind added: “We are excited to work with such a new and exciting brand. Travel is an arena ripe for creativity. We’re flying high after this win.”

Match Report: Hacks vs Flaks Easter Sports Day

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Suncream was the order of the day down at the Bank of England Sports Centre on Sunday as sizzling temperatures brought an added intensity to the latest Hacks vs Flaks Easter Sports Day event. It turned out to be a blockbuster, with a record £13,500 raised for charity WheelPower and an all star cast of Paralympians cheering on some tightly-fought football and netball games, which saw the Flaks come out on top. FTI Consulting’s Ed Berry reports…

Football

The Flaks took victory with a 5-3 win

The match got off to a blistering pace with a new look Flaks team ignoring the furnace-like conditions by launching wave after wave of attack orchestrated by Fidelity’s Craig Terrington.

The PR’s newly signed strike partnership of the two Toms (Nationwide’s Portingdale and Lewis from Finsbury) looked dangerous with every touch and it was Lewis’ pace that eventually broke the Hack’s steely defence with a neat finish under the keeper.

But, against the run of play, the Hacks were then able to take advantage of a loose pass. The Economist’s Hamish Birrell, a new face for the Hacks, pounced. He danced through two challenges and curled a lovely long ranger into the net to make it all square.

The breathless encounter continued to see-saw. Man of the Match Lewis struck a blow for the Flacks only for midfielder-turned-centre back John McDermott, also of The Economist, to cap an impressive display when he equalised from a set piece.

As the game opened up in the second half, the Hacks found their rhythm with the midfield well marshalled by The Times’ Alex Ralph, Matthew Pettipher and Ben McLanahan, both of the FT. They deservedly took the lead for the first time when MoneySavingExpert’s Callum Brodie rose to head in a goal at the end of a nicely worked move.

But it wasn’t long before the Flaks tested stand-in keeper and Captain Nick Clark (Freelance) who could only look on as Tom Hills from MHP struck a swerving shot low into the right hand corner. With shouts of ‘test the keeper’ Chris Wilson (PR Office) almost won it for the Flaks in the dying moments but could only watch on as his lob bounced off the top of the cross-bar.

Despite officially recognising the result as a thrilling 3-3 draw, the players couldn’t resist settling next year’s bragging rights via a penalty shoot-out, which saw the Flaks holding their nerve to record a 5-3 victory.

A full list of the football teams can be found here.

Netball

The Flaks trounced the Hacks in the A team match with a final score of 59-34



Out on the netball courts, for the first time in five years, the Flaks trounced the Hacks in the A team match with a final score of 59-34.

Becky Deeming, PR for the Toy and Hobby Association and Hannah Blackmore, Grant Thornton hardly missed a shot and Rebecca Gwilliam, Portland, won player of the match having shone in four different positions. Jodie McEwan, picture editor at The Times, was the stand out player on the Hacks.

Finsbury’s Lucy Noakes and Portland’s Charlotte Miller got the B team match off to a flying start with the Flaks up three goals after the first quarter. Heat exhaustion and a few late nights took their toll on the Hacks, but they came back fighting in the second quarter to even the match up.

It was the usual cat fight as The Mail’s Claire Ellicott drew blood against the Flak’s tireless centre Isobel Stoddart from Redwood, who bravely toiled on. The third quarter was a whitewash for the Hacks, who needed several water breaks and had to be coaxed out of prone positions to get back on the court for the fourth quarter.

Great play from the Mail on Sunday’s Sanchez Manning and feisty defending from The Sun’s Lynn Davidson and The Times’ Lauren York failed to stop the Flaks’ energetic core team of Portland’s Rose Williams and Tahlie Cooper from Good Relations setting up the goals and the Flaks won 10 goals to 5. Sanchez “I can’t go on I’m knackered” Manning was named man of the match for sheer determination and feistiness.

A full list of the netball teams can be found here.

After the action, the players and spectators heard how WheelPower – a charity dedicated to providing opportunities for disabled people to find a sport they enjoy – had helped support Paralympians Jess Stretton (MBE) and Izzy Bailey and take them to the Games in London and Rio. The WheelPower ambassadors then posed for photographs with the Paralympic torches from three different Games and Jess’s gold medal.

The event raised funds for WheelPower – a charity dedicated to providing opportunities for disabled people to find a sport they enjoy

The real winner this year was the event itself attracting more players and sponsors than ever before.  The day simply wouldn’t have been possible without corporate support and the HvFs committee would like to thank lead sponsors Amazon and Nationwide and co-sponsors EY, Direct Line, FTI Consulting and Vismedia for their generosity.

Nordoff Robbins Scotland engages Material UK

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Nordoff Robbins Scotland (NRS) has engaged creative communications agency Material UK to drive awareness of the charity’s work, and increase fundraising opportunities.

Nordoff Robbins Scotland

NRS provides specialist musical therapy services to people across the country. Through the delivery of fundraising events and initiatives, NRS aims to change lives through music. Material UK will deliver the campaign surrounding the charity’s Nordoff Robbins SSE Scottish Music Awards.

This is the first time that NRS has worked with an agency on a long-term basis.

Donald MacLeod, chairman at NRS, said: “To have Material UK on board for this year is fantastic, they have come up with a fresh, relevant and engaging campaign strategy. Their ideas throughout the process so far have been creative and thoughtful and I’m very much looking forward to the year ahead.

“NRS has achieved so much over the past 20 years and this is partly down to our commitment to always embracing innovative ideas, something with I believe Material thoroughly understand. I think we can achieve some great things together.”

Material UK has developed a year-long creative and strategic communications strategy aimed at driving donations, engagement and the profile of NRS.

Gillian McCormack, managing director at Material UK, added: “We are thrilled and very excited to be working with Nordoff Robbins Scotland throughout 2017, working in the music industry in Scotland, the work the charity does has always been very close to our hearts here at the agency.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to work closely with Nordoff Robbins Scotland, across all of their events, to develop a year-long, consistent campaign strategy and ultimately help the charity achieve their goal to make music change more lives of some of the most isolated people in our communities. It has been a great experience so far and we’re really excited to roll out the campaign across the year.”

Typically, NRS offers music therapy to a range of people including children with autism, older people and babies with complex health issues. Material UK’s communications strategy will encompass each of these age groups.

 

 

Opinion: The press release isn’t just alive and kicking – it’s in rude health

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David Walker, senior account manager at creative communications consultancy Beattie, explains why the press release remains a PR staple. 

David Walker

It’s fashionable in PR circles to say that the demise of the humble press release is no longer even a debate, but so much of a certainty that it’s barely worth talking about.

We’ve become accustomed to a wide variety of last rites being read in the media by commentators with no greater clairvoyant powers than a brick, yet we’re supposed to routinely swallow their bunkum.

Those broadcasting their belief that press releases have already gone the way of the dodo and Maggie Thatcher insist that the format’s passing occurred not in recent times, but in fact many moons ago. Just after the discovery of fire, or something.

They believe that those still churning out press releases are akin to some lost tribe, living happily without selfies and Ed Sheeran.

Worse, we’re told that modern journos are so time-poor that they can barely risk the gratuitous self-indulgence of a toilet visit – never mind the inordinate effort of reading a press release with all of its challenging paragraphs, commas and full stops.

Meanwhile, bleeding-edge future-gazing sophisto-knobs insist that if you’re exceeding 140 characters and there’s no trace of a snappy hashtag or emoji, then you might as well crawl back under your rock. Frankly, granddad, you’d be better off sending a telegram – more people might read it out of sheer pity.

Well, I don’t know what industry they work in, but in the PR world I know, the press release remains just as relevant as ever, and continues to adapt to changing demands with a place right at the heart of integrated strategies. The tried-and-trusted, yet versatile, press release format offers everything that you need to get your message across effectively.

Very occasionally, I’ve encountered a journalist who simply wants nothing to do with a press release, no matter what it contains. That attitude never ceases to amaze me; it can only mean that they’re missing out on a lot of quality content that their competitors are happily taking advantage of.

Some believe that, when compared to streamlined social media, releases have become flabby and full of their own self-importance.

Like any form of written communication, however, a press release is only as good as the person who’s created it. A concise, informative piece that immediately captures a journalist’s interest is therefore perfectly achievable for those with a degree of ability and a decent awareness of what our friends in the media actually want.

If you can write an engaging headline and craft pinpoint copy that fits right into a target publication, then all the better – and in doing so, you should be able to overcome the shortest of attention spans. Throw in a compelling covering note and a striking image, and you’re halfway to securing coverage.

Social media’s speed and brevity has its advantages of course, but when you’re an under pressure journalist, a Tweet just leaves more questions than answers. Social media posts must link back to something more tangible if they are to communicate successfully – and that’s where the press release comes in.

There’s no doubt that the way people consume news has changed but, hackneyed or not, releases still form the backbone of PR communications, and have successfully adapted to changing digital demands. It’s no coincidence that they’re shared in their thousands across social media.

Today, the mark of a good release is that its content can be easily extracted into bite-sized chunks and adapted across the likes of LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook with accompanying multimedia uploaded to YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr and more. It all serves to feed into, and reinforce, the original release, while driving web traffic back to the client.

Fundamentally, the humble, dependable press release still remains a fantastic tool for informing, or simply just entertaining. Such has been the case for over 100 years.

In 2017 then, the press release is to be celebrated rather than eulogised. Call off the mourners – there’s plenty of life left in the old format yet.

 

 

Finsbury makes Sara Evans partner

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Finsbury has named Sara Evans as partner in the company’s growing capital markets and transaction communications practice in the United States.

Sara Evans

Paul Holmes, CEO, North America at Finsbury, said: “In the course of her career at Finsbury, Sara has played a significant role in winning and advising on a number of important mandates across a range of clients and communications disciplines. With deep experience in both the US and UK markets, she brings a valuable global perspective to all Finsbury clients.”

Evans advises clients on strategic corporate and financial communications, including high profile transactions, shareholder activism, management transitions, corporate governance matters and legal and regulatory affairs. She has provided communications strategies and support for global companies, including Aviva, EY, Royal Bank of Scotland and Viacom.

Upon joining Finsbury in London in 2011, Evans ran the UK financial services team, and moved to New York in 2013.

Prior to joining Finsbury, she worked in corporate communications at Lloyds Banking Group, managing a range of financial communication and reputation matters for the bank throughout the financial crisis.

RAM Active Investments appoints Peregrine Communications

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RAM Active Investments (RAM AI), a boutique asset management company, has appointed Peregrine Communications to help build its brand in the UK, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Anthony Payne

The RAM AI brief includes strategy, messaging, thought leadership, media relations, design and video.

Thomas de Saint-Seine, CEO and founding partner at RAM AI, said: “As we are growing our investor base and promoting our profile as an active asset manager, it is critical to have an effective partner executing our marketing communications strategy. Global investors are searching for active-specialist managers, like us, who aim to deliver high risk-adjusted returns, diversification benefits, and liquid products. We entrust Peregrine with the task to convey our value proposition to our investor base.”

Anthony Payne, chief executive at Peregrine Communications, added: “We are working hard to carve out a new space among European asset managers for RAM AI’s unique strategies and disciplined approach; two factors that have been critical to RAM’s success to date.”

Culture Trip appoints PR managers from Sky and BuzzFeed

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Global media-tech startup Culture Trip has brought in Sky’s Maddy Chambers as a UK-based PR manager and BuzzFeed’s Stephanie Kennard as a PR manager in the US.

Maddy Chambers

Chambers (pictured) previously worked in-house at European broadcaster Sky and will be based in London. Kennard previously worked in the comms team at BuzzFeed and will be based in New York.

Both Chambers and Kennard have been briefed to help drive global awareness for Culture Trip, which has more than 100 editorial hubs spanning 200 countries. It sources online content from local experts across 12 cultural genres, including travel, art, sport, music and entertainment.

Founded by former academic psychiatrist turned media entrepreneur Dr Kris Naudts, Culture Trip now attracts nearly six million monthly unique visitors and has more than doubled its website traffic in the past two years. Social reach on Facebook is said to have grown 400% in the past two months.

Museum of London tenders PR brief with “significant budget”

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The Museum of London has put a PR brief out to tender, as it looks to generate affection and advocacy from its “most important stakeholders: Londoners”.

Museum of London

The museum is looking to raise awareness of its brand and ‘We Are London’ vision to lay a “strong foundation” ahead of its relocation to West Smithfield in 2022.

The chosen agency will be expected to deliver a campaign that will:

  • Significantly raise awareness of the Museum of London brand
  • Increase endorsements from Londoners
  • Build advocacy from high profile ambassadors
  • Create strong foundations for fundraising and stakeholder engagement campaigns
  • Be firmly rooted in the Museum of London’s brand personalities and content framework

Activity is expected to kick off this summer, with the brief running through to December 2018.

The deadline for submission of PQQ is 12 May. Full details of the tender can be found here.

Last month The Museum of London hired Pagefield to work on its upcoming City Now City Future season.

New One condom brand chooses Well Hello for UK launch

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Well Hello has been retained by Karex Berhad-owned condom and sexual lubricant brand One, as part of a six-figure UK launch brief.

One

The brief will see Well Hello deliver a brand newsroom, a number of creative projects and run digital activity across paid, earned and owned spaces ahead of One’s launch later in the Spring.

One marketing manager Louise Ball said: “We wanted a partner we felt comfortable with, who was exactly right for us and who would both love us and surprise us. Well Hello’s entire approach was based on not just talking, but doing too, which is both a brilliant approach to brand communications in 2017 and an excellent analogy for a healthy sex life.”

Well Hello partner Nick Woods added: “Well Hello shares One’s view that many of the world’s sexual health issues are best served by conversations and engaging people. We want to help make people comfortable expressing themselves and create evermore safe spaces for people to explore and celebrate their identities.

“This campaign is, as with any good sex-life, going to be a lot of fun. We anticipate coming together with a number of influencers, look forward to getting in front of the issues and to delivering a campaign with regular climaxes through the year.”

Fever named consumer PR agency for Flower Council of Holland

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Flower Council of Holland has appointed Fever as its retained integrated consumer agency, with a brief to handle all social, content and PR activity across the UK. The appointment was made following a competitive tender process.

Flower Council of Holland

Flower Council of Holland promotes flowers and plants to consumers in a number of European countries. In the United Kingdom this is carried out through its Funnyhowflowersdothat.co.uk, Thejoyofplants.co.uk and Thegreengallery.com sites and platforms.

Fever has been brought on board as Flower Council of Holland looks to integrate all consumer comms activity under a unified planning and creative process. The agency will develop integrated, through-the-line campaigns designed to keep flowers and plants top-of-mind for UK consumers.

Fever’s remit includes press and influencer relations, the development of video, editorial and social content, and community management across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

Its social strategy will place an emphasis on bigger campaign-led creative executions that generate awareness and engagement in-channel, complimented by a content programme.

The agency’s first integrated campaign, Spring Senses, launched last week and used taste, touch, sight, smell and sound to showcase the positive impact and happiness flowers can bring to people’s lives.

Fever’s MD, Bruce McLachlan, and head of social, Thom James, will lead the account.

Chanel de Kock, Flower Council of Holland’s UK marketing manager, said: “We set out primarily looking for a new PR agency, but with a display of skills across social and content, and a strong viewpoint on how to integrate our communications even further, we made the decision to have Fever take the lead across all of our UK communication.

“We were really impressed with Fever’s ability to take a channel neutral approach to planning and creativity.  It’s going to be a big year for us as we look to roll out ambitious campaigns to drive excitement around flowers and plants and we are delighted to have Fever on board right from the start of 2017.”

McLachlan added: “This is an account brimming with creative possibility, and we’re really excited to be able to develop campaigns for the Flower Council that can work efficiently – and cost-effectively – across all their earned and owned channels.

“We’ve dedicated a lot of our energy of the last few years to building out the Feveroffering, hiring people from non-traditional PR routes and investing in our creative studio team, so adding a client to our roster who is immediately keen to take advantage of each element of the agency is really gratifying.”