BigChange hires Francis for corporate PR

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Mobile workforce management business, BigChange has appointed Francis, the corporate division of Frank, to raise its profile among UK businesses.

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A mobile worker uses BigChange technology

BigChange CEO, Martin Port, said: “We need to make noise that matches our results, and this is why we have chosen Frank’s corporate team to help drive the talkability we need and showcase our 3-in-1 revolution for mobile, tracking and back office benefits that firms of all sizes are recognising the need for.”

Francis will help BigChange to achieve its goal to reach £110m turnover within the next five years. BigChange uses a JobWatch system to help improve management and communication between businesses’ back offices and mobile employees.

Director at Frank and head of Francis, Richard Medley, added: “Martin and team are high on ambition, have a system that makes total sense for any business with a mobile workforce to adopt and have an impressive list of sign ups that will help us tell their story. It’s always exciting to get on board with a game-changing business, and the journey BigChange have ahead of them marks them out clearly as one of those.”

Push PR names editorial content director

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Push PR has promoted Daisy May Sitch to editorial content director, with a brief to drive the agency’s digital  growth strategy.

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Daisy May Sitch

Sitch joined Push PR as digital and social media manager last June. Before that, she was a senior fashion, news and features writer at MyDaily.co.uk and Huffington Post UK Style. She also freelanced for Metro.co.uk.

In her new role at Push, Sitch will head up creative social campaigns across the agency’s retained clients, working directly with its PR teams.

Alongside the news of Sitch’s new role, Push has also promoted Bex Broughton to senior account executive. Broughton works across the agency’s fashion and jewellery accounts, managing clients including Dinny Hall, Daisy London, Les 100 Ciels and Selfish Mother.

Despite Brexit, M&A activity in PR continues

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Marketing, tech and healthcare M&A adviser, Results International has compiled research that shows sustained M&A activity in the PR industry for the first half of 2016.

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Keith Hunt

The analysis shows that there were 36 deals in total, six more than during the same period in 2015, and more than a quarter of the activity (28%) involved cross-border transactions, despite uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

Of the 36, 10 involved UK businesses, up from eight last year, suggesting that key drivers for M&A in the marcoms, tech and healthcare sectors remain solid.

Keith Hunt, managing partner at Results International, said: “There’s no real sign of Brexit impacting the market as yet, even though there is some uncertainty in the UK in particular. Yet deal volumes are still very robust both in the UK and globally.

“The big groups mostly have their general PR requirements covered. As a result, content-based businesses, notably those with a technology offering, and specialist PR businesses remain the most attractive targets. This is especially true in vertical niches such as healthcare.”

There were no repeat acquirers of PR assets, but Edelman, Groupe Conseil Res Publica, WPP, Publicis and MDC Partners made single acquisitions, adding to deals completed in 2015.

PR agency M&A activity rose by 54% in the first quarter of 2016.

Dating site eHarmony names senior PR manager

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Online dating platform eHarmony.co.uk has appointed LighterLife UK’s Rachael Lloyd as senior PR and comms manager.

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Rachael Lloyd

eHarmony, which first launched in the US in 2000, entered the UK market in 2008 with a vision to “create more lasting love in the world”. It claims to use a “scientific compatibility matching system” to match members on 29 dimensions of compatibility, which it says is needed for a long-lasting relationship.

In her new role, Lloyd has been briefed to increase brand consideration and achieve commercial goals for the relationship site. She will also work closely with the brand’s PR teams in the US and Australia.

Before joining eHarmony, Lloyd headed up PR and comms for weight-management specialist LighterLife UK. While there, she worked on a rebrand that aimed to shift emphasis onto the creation of contemporary, compelling content across its print, digital and social channels.

A former national news and magazine journalist with more than 15 years of experience, including three years as a commissioning editor at the Daily Mail, Lloyd also worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Really Useful Group on a number of arts and comms projects in a previous role at comms agency BLJ London.

At eHarmony, Lloyd will report to UK country manager Romain Bertrand.

Bertrand said: “With an impressive mix of journalistic and communications experience, we are thrilled to welcome Rachael to the team and feel confident in her ability to transfer a passion for storytelling into the creation of innovative content for the media and across all of our channels.”

Lloyd added: “I’m delighted to join eHarmony, which is obviously an established and exciting international brand. I’m going to be focusing on helping differentiate eHarmony from other sites, drawing on the high level of investment in science and psychology that supports its unique Compatibility Matching System. In an increasingly dense market, eHarmony offers so much more than a swipe and is committed to helping people find lasting relationships.”

Paul Charles launches The PC Agency and buys Angel Publicity

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Richard Branson’s former comms director, Paul Charles, has launched a new travel PR agency, The PC Agency, and bought travel consultancy Angel Publicity, with its founder, Emma Cripwell, taking the helm as MD.

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Emma Cripwell with Paul Charles

Charles created The PC Agency after co-founding his previous agency, PCC, with Julia Perowne in 2011, having previously worked with her at LEWIS PR, where he was COO. Before that, he was comms director for Sir Richard Branson at Virgin Atlantic, and comms lead for Eurostar.

Before moving into PR, Charles worked as a radio and TV presenter at BBC News, where he reported for programmes including BBC Radio 4’s Financial World Tonight, Today, Money Box, Inside Money and BBC World Service’s World Business Report.

Cripwell created Angel Publicity in 2011, having previously worked in a freelance capacity for Western & Oriental Travel. Before that, she was at Ann Scott Associates, where she handled the publicity for Mandarin Oriental London, Oberoi Hotels and Greaves Travel.

The combined new 21-strong team, based in London’s Notting Hill, aspires to be the ‘go-to’ consultancy in the travel and lifestyle sector representing airlines, hotels, tour operators, tourism boards, spas, cruise lines and restaurants.

Clients include The Pig Hotels, Lime Wood, Portetta, COMO Hotels and Resorts, Le Sirenuse, La Sultana Hotels, The Arts Club, Hartnett Holder & Co, The Wild Rabbit, Bamford Haybarn, Tourism New Zealand, Tourism Ireland, Aer Lingus, Finnair, Visit Finland, Silversea, Monaco Tourism, Peligoni Club, Kamp Collection Hotels, Oliver’s Travels, ITC Hotels, Lower Mill Estate and Blue Chip Holidays.

The senior team at The PC Agency consists of associate director Philip Allport, formerly a media relations manager at British Airways, and account directors Sarah Potter, Charlie Dyer and Sarah Puddle.

Cripwell said: “I feel extremely flattered that Paul Charles has chosen to acquire Angel Publicity. Having tracked Paul’s career over the past few years, he is one of the few people within our industry who has the same working ethos as Angel. Together, our respective client list offers traditional and social media, and future partners, a huge variety of stories, respected products and industry-leading figures.

“We aspire to create a “go-to” consultancy which offers not only the finest advice but also a vibrant atmosphere for our teams, clients and journalists to enjoy.”

Charles added: “I’ve always wanted to create the best team possible in this sector and combining great colleagues at The PC Agency with Angel Publicity is a real dream. Emma Cripwell and her team are hugely admired by the best journalists and hoteliers alike. Together, we’ll be able to offer in-depth consultancy to the finest hotels, airlines, tour operators, tourism boards and cruiselines based on years of experience, crucially in-house as well as agency-side.”

Rede Partners appoints Instinctif Partners

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Nick Woods

Rede Partners, an independent fundraising advisory business for the private equity industry, has appointed Instinctif Partners as its retained corporate PR adviser.

Instintif Partners will support Rede Partners as it continues to raise its profile among the private equity and investment communities. The proposition will include media relations, thought leadership, digital communications and strategic marketing initiatives.

Nick Woods, partner at Instinctif Partners, said: “With a specialist client proposition and an enviable client list, the Rede Partners team has built a successful business that we are delighted to be working with. Moreover, the multidiscipline brief covering corporate communications, digital and strategic marketing is exactly the sort of multi-layered challenge the Instinctif Partners proposition is designed to tackle.”

The Instinctif Partners team will be led by Nick Woods, senior consultant Ross Gillam, junior account executive Ambrose Fullalove and managing partner at Instinctif Partners, Mike Davies, who will provide strategic counsel.

Kristina Widegren, principal at Rede Partners added: “Rede Partners aims to deliver exceptional strategic advisory and placement services to our clients through a differentiated model, so we were particularly pleased by Instinctif Partners’ fresh-thinking and creative approach throughout the pitch process. We now look forward to working with the Instinctif Partners team as we continue to grow our international presence and build upon our existing track record as a leading fundraising and secondary advisor firm.”

Rede Partners was founded by Scott Church and Adam Turtle in 2011.

Behind the Headlines with Bauer Media’s Effie Kanyua

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Effie Kanyua, comms director for London Lifestyle at Bauer Media, on how she battled her way into the BBC to launch her media career, the best creative partnership she’s worked on, which featured Craig David, helping to lobby for fair rent and gender pay equality and why she thinks journalists can smell fear in a pitch.

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Effie Kanyua

Before I reach the office in the morning, I’ve already…
Gone through my emails and checked what our magazine brands have been up to, which is the part of the business that I look after (our current portfolio includes 94 magazines). Our brands across magazines, radio and digital are hugely influential and reach over 25 million UK consumers, so I have to constantly keep on top of what our brands are saying, doing and how they are being talked about in the media.

You’ll mostly find emails about…in my inbox.
The types of emails I get are varied. We run a busy ongoing press office, and also have key campaigns and events, which I focus on. My next big event, which is really exciting, is called Empire Live, from EMPIRE – the world’s biggest  film magazine. It’s going to be the ultimate film and entertainment weekend taking place at The O2 from 23 to 25 September.

I know I’ve had a good day if…
I’ve managed to touch in with most of my brands. We get daily requests for our editorial teams, who are experts in their fields, to comment on key stories across the media. Last week I was filming a piece for heat magazine to comment on a current big topical entertainment story, Grazia is often asked to give its views on key women’s issues or on fashion stories, Mojo and Q are always the first port of call for music related stories, and our award-winning team at The Debrief are called upon to give Millennial insights (their recent Make Renting Fair campaign has meant that the team has been kept busy proactively lobbying MPs to revise the law, with great success).

My first job was…
In media, working for the BBC. I bombarded them for four years, getting as much work experience as I could before I made it in. I actually got my ‘in’ through an admin role in the legal and business team and volunteered for everything that I could to get PR and broadcast experience. After two years, I landed my dream job as a broadcast journalist.

I can tell a campaign is succeeding when…
My friends within PR, or people within the industry, comment on the good work that we do, and when our brands make a tangible difference.

Grazia recently launched its first real time community issue, created and built exclusively by the Facebook community via Grazia’s Facebook page. The team produced the issue from Facebook’s London HQ and readers got the chance to help shape and edit the magazine. We had a really successful interactive Brexit debate with leading politicians being quizzed by our readers and Craig David dropped in for a live music session, which had 344,000 views. The audience engagement was phenomenal and it was one of the best creative partnerships that I’ve ever worked on on.

Over the week we saw over 867,000 video views with a reach of over 7.3 million. The team was also responsible for lobbying politicians to address the issue of gender pay equality with the influential and successful ‘Mind the pay gap’ campaign – Grazia played a central role in changing a law that paves the way for equal pay for women in the UK. The law is expected to come into play later this year.

I eat….when nobody is watching.
Chocolate…M+Ms are my weakness, particularly the peanut butter ones. I brought back three family packs for my colleagues from New York…and then ate most of them.

The first time I pitched to a journalist…
I was scared to death. It was a survey sell-in, and trying to cram my pitch into 30 seconds before the phone got dropped on me was the most nerve-racking thing ever. I think journalists could smell my fear so they let me rattle on before they used the deadly phrase: “Sorry I don’t think it’s one for us unfortunately.”

The worst thing anyone has said to me is…
I think as a PR you develop a thick skin, I tend to take stuff on the chin. Hearing that your story doesn’t work, I think, spurs you on to do better. I’m one of those annoying people that if someone says “no” or “you can’t do something”, then it makes me more determined to find a solution until they say yes.

The last book I read was…
My boss (Anne-Marie Lavan, group marketing director at Bauer Media) has been inspiring me to broaden my reading repertoire and suggested that I read Douglas Kennedy, so I’m reading The Big Picture and I have a couple of his other books to get through this summer.

I’ve never really understood why…
People do jobs that they don’t love. A lot of my friends work in the city and hate it. I’d rather be paid less and do what I truly love than be paid a lot and do what I hate…life’s too short!

If I could go back and talk to my 10-year-old self, I’d say…
“You might want to rethink your career choice.” I was stuck on becoming an astronaut or a fighter pilot despite suffering from vertigo and not really liking planes. I actually wrote my first play aged ten, so I think I was always going to end up working in the media industry somehow – once I’d realised that I was not destined to be in space!

This time next year, I’ll be…
Hopefully at a music festival. I LOVE music and a lot of our brands across radio and magazines work with some great festivals, so I’ve been really lucky to go to some great ones. My favourite ones to date are: Kendall Calling, which I’m going back to this year and one in Berlin in September called Lollapalooza. So this time next year I hope to be dry (!) in a field, with a drink in my hand, enjoying good music!

Fancy featuring in a Behind the Headlines interview? Please email [email protected]

Verseon hires Buchanan for financial comms

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Pharmaceutical company, Verseon Corporation, has appointed Buchanan as the group’s financial PR and investor relations adviser.

pharma 1The account will be led by Buchanan partner, Henry Harrison-Topham, and will be supported by Mark Court, also a partner, account director Sophie Cowles and account manager Stephanie Watson.

Harrison-Topham, said: “The Buchanan team is really pleased to have been appointed by Verseon. With such a compelling story, Verseon is at the forefront of modern drug discovery and is well placed to potentially change the drug discovery landscape. We look forward to assisting the management team in enhancing their message to their current and future investment audiences.”

Verseon employs a computational drug discovery platform to develop therapeutics for challenging diseases.

FTI Consulting tops AIM client ranking

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Adviser Rankings Ltd, a financial data publisher, has revealed its quarterly AIM Advisers Rankings Guide.

FTI-consulting-logo 1The lists rank professional services firms according to the number of AIM-listed clients they service. FTI Consulting retained top position in the Total AIM Clients list with 69 clients, five more than last quarter.

In the same list, Buchanan moved up to third position with 43 clients, after gaining five, and made first position in the FTSE AIM UK 50 ranking, with six clients. Buchanan also moved up to joint third position in the Financials ranking table.

Also in the Total AIM Clients table, Walbrook PR retained second place, Newgate Communications ranked fourth and Yellow Jersey PR ranked fifth.

The Q3 2016 rankings are based on data as of 6 July, 2016, and rankings are compiled by Adviser Rankings Ltd, using its own database.

Way To Blue appoints Claire Slight to group digital role

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Way To Blue has brought in Edelman’s Claire Slight as group digital and social director, as part of a major restructure that will create a new specialist global team across the company’s offices in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and across Europe.

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Claire Slight

Slight has worked with Edelman Digital over the past two and a half years across its Unilever and HP portfolio.

Before joining Edelman, her experience included contract roles both agency-side and in-house for brands including M&S, John Lewis, BMW and L’Oreal Paris. Prior to that, she was at The Red Consultancy’s digital arm, Shiny Red, where she worked across several FMCG brands.

She will take up her new role later this month (August) to work with clients including NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, Endemol Beyond, Amazon, Hamleys and Yo! Sushi.

She will also head up Way To Blue’s dedicated influencer business, iN.

Slight’s appointment is part of a wider group restructure designed to enhance the 120-strong agency’s global capabilities across film, home entertainment, television and consumer brands.

LightBrigade founder Alan Twigg, who joined Way To Blue in March, becomes group director of consumer with global responsibility, Holly Larsen becomes regional director for the UK, James Everard becomes group head of research and insight, Giles Hadman becomes group director of media and Rebecca Winch becomes group director of creative production.

The agency is currently looking to fill the role of global head of entertainment.

Way To Blue CEO Adam Rubins said: “Our business has grown significantly in the last three years and this restructure is designed to maximise opportunity within the group, both for our clients and our talent.

“The goal here is to create a fully global and integrated structure, one we believe will be a footprint for all agencies moving forward. We are also delighted to welcome Claire who bolsters our digital, influencer and social capabilities worldwide.