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Seattle-based US pizza brand MOD has brought in Gabrielle Shaw Communications as it launches in the UK.
The MOD brand is moving into the UK market in a joint-venture between its US founders, Scott and Ally Svenson, and Sir Charles Dunstone and Roger Taylor.
Gabrielle Shaw has worked with the Svensons over a period of more than 20 years on launches and brand comms of several projects including Seattle Coffee Company – later sold to Starbucks – Carluccio’s and Triyoga.
The team aims to open five UK MOD sites by the end of 2016.
Headland, the corporate and financial communications consultancy, has made three new hires following a series of client wins.
Paul Crayston
Paul Crayston, formerly head of communications at MarketInvoice, has joined the Headland team as an associate director. David Chambers also joins as an associate director following a decade at Hill+Knowlton Strategies, where he worked in both the London and New York office.
Rob Walker joins Headland as an account manager following two years at financial PR firm Tulchan.
Chris Salt, CEO at Headland, said: “Paul, David and Rob individually bring weighty and wide-ranging expertise to Headland, spanning the breadth of corporate and financial communications. We aim to bring a more rounded advisory and delivery approach to our clients, and these new members of the team fit perfectly into that offer.”
Headland’s recent wins include banking group MUFG, major food and beverage brand PepsiCo and the AA’s financial services arm.
Home Retail Group has hired specialist toy sector PR agency Playtime PR to handle campaigns relating to Argos’ toy offering in 2016.
Playtime PR’s PR consultant, Venetia Khosla, PR assistant, Georgina Beccan, account director, Alex Frith, MD, Lesley Singleton, and media director, Peter Jenkinson
Playtime PR has been briefed to raise the profile of Argos’ toy offering, with a particular focus on the retailer’s own toy brand, Chad Valley.
Vikki Kirby, head of comms at Home Retail Group, said: “As the UK’s biggest toy retailer by sales value, it was vital for us to have an agency on board with a specialist understanding of this incredibly important market, to assist in maintaining this position for Argos going forward.”
“We were impressed by Playtime’s knowledge of the industry and the creative way in which they gain cut-through for their clients in a fairly noisy media landscape. Chad Valley is a multi-million pound toy brand with over 400 products in the range – working hand-in-hand with our in-house PR team and broadcast agency, Markettiers, the team at Playtime has helped shape a truly exciting activation for the brand.”
Playtime PR’s MD, Lesley Singleton, added: “As an agency devoted wholeheartedly to the world of toys and play, we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the UK’s biggest toy retailer. We’re looking forward to delivering a really impactful campaign for Chad Valley and to working with the in-house team on various toy-related spikes throughout the year.”
Previously, Ensor was a director at Good Relations and has worked as director of external relations at MIDAS, Manchester’s investment and development agency. She has also worked in communications at Manchester Airport.
Ensor said: “I am incredibly excited to be joining the PPS Group, and, in particular, the Manchester team – right in the heart of the Northern Quarter of the city that I am proud to call home. These are exciting times for the north of the UK as we start to see the true impact of the Northern Powerhouse -which stretches from Sheffield and Leeds City Regions, right through Manchester and Liverpool and the whole of the northwest. PPS has the gravitas, innovation and scale to be able to help our clients take full advantage of this period of growth.”
Ensor, who joined PPS in May, will lead the existing client portfolio that includes National Grid, Peel, Himor, Jaguar Landrover and Electricity Northwest.
Andy Martin, managing partner at PPS Group, added: “Zoe has an excellent track record and we’re delighted to add her to our brilliant team. The – often talked about – offer of integrated communications across the business is something she truly understands, and we’re delighted to be delivering.”
For the third year running, Bloomberg Media has been named the number one business media brand in the Ipsos Affluent Survey Europe 2016.
Viktoria Degtar
The survey, which interviewed 27,751 Europeans across 21 countries, covers the top earning 13% of adult European consumers and took place last year. According to Bloomberg Media, the latest figures show it has the highest reach of any business media brand among high net-worth individuals.
Viktoria Degtar, head of sales at Bloomberg Media, EMEA, said: “Maintaining our position as the number one business media brand in Europe for the third year is an immense achievement and something we are very proud of. These results prove the strength of our brands in engaging an affluent, influential, yet hard to reach audience across the continent – one of the key benefits for commercial partners working with Bloomberg Media on powerful multiplatform campaigns.”
According to the survey, 86% of all ‘affluent’ Europeans consume at least one international media brand in an average week.
Other international news and business brands mentioned in the survey include Al Jazeera English, BBC World News, CNBC, CNN, euronews, France 24, i24news, NHK World TV, RT and Sky News.
Research for the Ipsos survey, released on 9 June, was conducted between January and December 2015.
In the week of the AMEC Summit in London, Ben Levine, vice president at Ketchum, shares a reminder that measurement should not be viewed as a single, isolated step in a campaign strategy. It should be integrated, and applied on an ongoing basis, to inform and improve future campaigns and to further the progression of the wider PR industry.
Ben Levine
When it comes to measurement, people often think of it as the exercise you end with, as if its sole purpose is to determine the success or failure of a campaign. They’re wrong. Real measurement should be a continuous process that not only provides success indicators, but also insight into how to improve performance.
Yes, the summit takes place over two days, where lots of experts will be talking about ideas and offering case studies, before finishing with an awards gala on the Thursday night.
Yes, it can be defined by its start and end points, by how many people were there, how many people were tweeting and much more.
But it would be wrong to leave what we have learnt during this time at the door and not allow it to continue to play an important role in our jobs and within our companies long after the summit closes. To do so would undervalue the entire event.
I believe it is the same when it comes to PR campaigns. To think of them as standalone events is wrong, even if clear goals and measures have been set, because we lose the value they offer to inform our decisions both in PR and at a wider business level once they are finished.
If looked at properly, measurement of our campaigns offers us insights into how our next campaigns should be run, who we should be targeting and what areas of the business need further amplifying. It also allows us to see what impact the campaigns are having in the long run and enables us to justify our skills, making an important business argument for the effectiveness of public relations.
The long-term view provides both hard and soft data that demonstrates PR’s real value at the c-suite level, earning it a place at the boardroom table (where it rightly belongs). Measurement is helping us to stop being overlooked in favour of those more easily able to demonstrate their ROI (or so they claim), and to show our worth by creating strong plans on how to tackle issues that businesses face.
It’s time that we all stop thinking of measurement as a stand-alone moment in time, and instead approach it as a continuous cycle of improvement.
Neil Gordon-Henderson, head of media content at Which? on his switch from journalism to PR and working for a campaigning publication.
Neil Gordon-Henderson
What made you decide to switch from journalism to PR?
Broadcast was largely underserved for clients, and they had a fear that every interview would be Paxman or Marr. PR agencies would generally concentrate on print and trade but wouldn’t be comfortable challenging their clients to push themselves into new spaces like TV or Radio.
This was in 2007, well before the explosion of social media. So the work I did nearly 10 years ago was similar to the education brands are gaining from using social.
When I moved first to Wriglesworth and then to Red, I challenged clients to use data and case studies on TV and Radio. Once they’d got that bug by appearing on Working Lunch or BBC News 24 they loved it and didn’t feel like it would always be an interrogation.
What was the most difficult aspect of that switch? (Or the hardest part to adapt to?) And how would you advise others making the same switch?
Journalists are very opinionated and always have been. The transition from a busy play hard and work hard environment can be tough. You’re going into some offices where you can hear a pin drop, some projects have taken hard-working teams months to put together. Initially, it’s being able to give good counsel and showing your added value. Starting the conversation with “That’s rubbish, it won’t work on TV or in the Daily Mail” is not good. Learning to bite your tongue with clients is also very important.
Immersing yourself with some very bright, talented people and being one of the team helps. Having mentors like Neil Mackwood, John Wriglesworth, Andrew Baiden and Mike Morgan also helped.
What is the most exciting part of your job at Which?
Which? is nearly 60 years old and we are more than just a magazine. We are a campaigning consumer association. We defend the consumer and we challenge businesses to be better. I am very proud working with our press office, led by Abbie Sampson. The coverage we deliver in broadcast and print is immense. Over 60 front pages last year, more than 1000 broadcast appearances and in the media seven days a week. Being in-house with one client, rather than several, is fun.
What are your aspirations for the company’s corporate communications strategy?
We are 60 next year. I am looking forward to working on some amazing stories on our history.
What is your personal best buy following a Which? recommendation?
My personal best buy is the child seat for my daughter. Vital piece of kit to keep her safe.
Are you working in one of the more interesting, or unusual, roles in PR? Or, do you have some strong views on the industry you want to share? If so, please drop Emily Andrews a line.
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.
People News
As part of the agency’s international expansion plans, Hanover names Blue Rubicon’s former chairman, Alastair Gornall as its first non-executive chair.
Sophie Raine
W promotes its head of brand, Sophie Raine(pictured right), to director, just over two years since she first joined the agency.
Sue Neilen joins Virgo Health as head of the communications division. She joins from specialist health advertising agency, Langland, where she headed up corporate communications.
Chris Mostyn joins J. Murphy & Sons Limited (Murphy), the engineering and construction company, as head of marketing and communications.
Frank PR’s Bianca Lee-Chang joins creative comms agency Lexis as head of consumer, with a brief to drive growth and lead on some of the agency’s key clients.
Pitch Wins
Lloyd’s of London hires Harvard PR, part of Chime, with the aim of positioning the insurance giant as a global leader in cyber insurance.
Pearn Kandola appoints Bottle, a comms agency specialising in content-driven PR, to increase its profile within national and trade press, including the HR, business and wellbeing sectors.
Sports nutrition brand Optimum Nutrition chooses Speed Communications to deliver a number of campaigns for the brand, ahead of a new initiative launch for its consumers to mark its 30th anniversary this year.
Nabarro, the international law firm, appoints Rostrum to assist with a project that will raise its profile among technology companies in the UK.
PHA Media is chosen by make-up brand Look Fabulous Forever to manage its comms activity throughout 2016.
Agency News
David Fraser, former deputy MD of Frank PR and publicist for Lord Sugar, launches a London-based PR and SEO agency called Ready10.
Handpicked Media founder Krista Madden joins forces with editor and journalist Emily Seares to launch a creative SEO agency, We Elevate.
Events
Media briefing with BuzzFeed
“BuzzFeed content needs to be incredible, unique and not seen anywhere else.” At a Gorkana media briefing this week, a trio of BuzzFeed’s editorial team shared their thoughts on what PRs could do to help create something “relatable and shareable” for its audience.
Metrics matter
This week, Gorkana hosted its third and final Metrics Matter webinar. The series, centred on presentations from Paul Hender, Gorkana’s head of insight, advises communciators on why they should lookto set-up a measurement and analysis programme and how to make it work. All three webinars in the Metrics Matter series can be found on Gorkana’sYouTube channel.
A White Paper featuring insights and case studies from the webinars will be published on Gorkana.com on Tuesday 14 June.
News Analysis
Is Tuesday the best day to pitch to online titles?
New research from digital market intelligence firm SimilarWeb shows that top news sites get the highest amount of traffic on Tuesdays. Gorkana asks Punch Communications, Fleet Street Comms and W if the amount if traffic a site receives on a specific day of the week has any bearing on the timing or content of pitches to journos.
Journalist News
At Bloomberg News, Chris Kay is appointed to Pakistan bureau chief and is responsible for coverage of the country and Afghanistan. Sophie Mongalvy is the new Nigeria bureau chief, based in Lagos.
Robert Thompson joins the team at BBC General News Service as editor. He was formerly deputy editor at the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme.
Formerly tablet editor, Wesley Rock is appointed as smartphone and website editor at The Times and The Sunday Times.
Michael Moore is appointed tech reporter at the Daily Express. He is currently tech reporter at TechWeekEurope, and will start his new role on 15 June.
Caitlin Morrison moves from night production editor to deputy digital editor at City A.M.
Features
Behind the Headlines with 3 Monkeys Zeno’s Tristan Pineiro
Tristan Pineiro, head of 3 Monkeys Zeno’s consumer practice, reveals how he got a starter lesson in the importance of branding, recalls his first, unintentional, pitch to a journalist and wonders why “street food” is a thing.
Nissan’s Stuart Jackson: ‘Tell a story well and it will fly’
Stuart Jackson, Nissan’s VP of comms, tells Gorkana about the lessons that have stayed with him since helping to launch the joint venture between Orange and T-Mobile in 2012 and explains why he co-authored the soon to be published The 4G Mobile Revolution: Creation, Innovation and Transformation at EE.
Gorkana meets… Professional Photography
In October, Future launched Professional Photography magazine – its latest offering in the photography sector. Gorkana’s Sam Willis caught up with group editor-in-chief Chris George (pictured) to find out, eight months in, how the market has reacted, why Future wanted to add to its existing photography portfolio and what he wants in content ideas from PRs.
Mark Antelme, managing director, Joanna Boon, director, and Jimmy Lea, associate at Celicourt Communications are handling both accounts.
Gem Diamonds is an LSE-listed company with diamond mining operations in Lesotho and Botswana. An AIM-listed company, redT Energy offers technology developed over the last 15 years.
Antelme said: “We’re extremely pleased to add both Gem Diamonds and redT to the Celicourt client list, both of whom are clear leaders in their respective fields.”
Celicourt, a new corporate and financial agency, launched 18 months ago.
The PR industry is estimated to be worth 34% more than in 2013 according to the Public Relations Consultants Association’s (PRCA) Census report, but it predicts salaries will drop and it continues to see challenges with diversity and equal pay.
In 2016, the PR industry is estimated to be worth £12.9bn which is up from £9.62bn, reported in the PRCA’s last census in 2013. The industry has grown from 62,000 employees to 83,000.
Francis Ingham, PRCA’s director general, describes what the PR industry is doing right. He said:”At a time when any small sign of growth is impressive, PR is growing by 10% every year. Why? Because we are a strong, important sector that provides huge value to every kind of organisation.”
The technology and health sectors are predicted to draw the biggest increase in investment for PR. Respondents voted the tech sector 49% most likely to attract investment – the health sector drew in 34%.
Other popular sectors expected to draw investment include the food, beverage and tobacco sector at 28% and finance or financial services at 27%.
The growth in the industry does not reflect in salary intake, however. The average PR salary is now £45,100, which is down from £53, 781 in 2013. The report states that pay at senior levels has fallen, but professionals who are account director-level or below have seen a small increase.
PR’s perpetual challenges
There is also a £9,111 pay disparity between gender, with men earning an average of £51,260 and women earning an average of £42,149. This remains despite the fact that the PR industry is a predominantly female industry which has remained at a majority of 64% since 2011.
Some female leaders buck the trend. In agencies female chairmen, chief executives and managing directors are paid on average over £2,000 more than their male counterparts, for example.
Mary Whenman, president at Women in PR – an independent networking organisation for senior women – said this overall imbalance is unacceptable in 2016. She said: “Taking a closer look at PR agencies, while it is good to see progress being made at account executive and account manager level, the PR Census shows that women in senior roles continue to be paid less than their male colleagues.
“It is also disappointing to see that in an industry with such a high intake of women, it is still dominated by men at board level with 64% of board directors and partners being men.”
In addition, the ethnic diversity of the PR industry remains largely unchanged since 2011. Respondents identified themselves as 91% white and 89% British. However, younger generations of PRs are more likely to be ethnically diverse.
Ingham added: “We need to continue to ensure that PR people are recruiting fairly and transparently, by paying interns, and using alternative methods (of recruitment) by taking on PR apprentices. We also need to make sure that young people from all backgrounds are aware of rewarding careers in PR, which we are doing via our schools outreach programme.”
PRCA’s survey of 1,874 respondents was generated by YouGov using two different sample sources; a targeted sample sent to PRCA members and PRWeek subscribers and a public link on PRWeek and PRCA websites. The survey was taken between 17 February and 26 April 2016.
The market sizing data was calculated by taking a combination of historical data from previous PR Censuses published in 2011 and 2013, combined with PRCA benchmarking studies, and the Government’s ONS tables of industry sizing and growth.
