The Banker appoints Launch PR to promote Top 1000 banks list

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FT-owned title The Banker has appointed Launch PR to promote its annual ranking of the Top 1000 World Banks for the sixth consecutive year.

Launch PR is set to focus on publicising the Top 1000 World Banks ranking to media outlets in Europe, Asia and the US. The list has been running  since 1970 and evaluates each bank on performance, strength and stability.

Johnny Pitt, founder at Launch PR, said: “The Top 1000 World Banks ranking from The Banker magazine has become the industry standard measure of bank size and strength. We are delighted to be working on this prestigious project again this year.”

Euronext retains Montfort Comms as UK strategic adviser

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European stock exchange Euronext has retained Montfort Communications as its UK strategic communications adviser.

Hugh Morrison, Montfort’s founding partner, will lead the account team working with Stéphane Boujnah, Euronext CEO and chairman and Pauline Bucaille, chief communications officer of the exchange.

Euronext has more than 1,300 listed issuers, together worth more than €3 trillion in market capitalisation. The exchange operates in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon, London and Paris.

Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte briefs Sopexa UK

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Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte, the third largest retail Champagne brand in the UK, has handed a PR brief to Sopexa UK, as it celebrates its 40th anniversary.

Sopexa
The brand is looking to “reconnect with its history and DNA” and Sopexa’s campaign will focus on actively working with consumer and trade media to raise the profile of the brand. It will also manage UK press office activity for Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte.

Olivier Legrand, marketing and comms manager for Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte, said: “Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte has been a big commercial success over the years in the UK. Our key objective for this campaign is to reassert our positioning and the vision of the brand and ensure greater visibility for our wines. We will be launching a new advertising campaign based around the original concept of “showing the other side of life”, which in French we refer to as “enchanter la vie”.

Anne Burchett, MD for Sopexa UK, added: “We are delighted to have been appointed to represent Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte in the UK. With our extensive knowledge and experience working both with French wines and international brands, we’re poised and ready to activate Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte’s new positioning within the UK wine trade and beyond.”

Typhoo hands social media brief to Spider PR

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Spider PR has been appointed to handle the social media strategy for Typhoo, with a brief to promote the tea brand’s current advertising campaign, ‘Great moments. Great brew. Always Typhoo’.

Typhoo

Spider PR will work to enhance Typhoo’s key message that “great moments always begin with a great brew”.

A key part of the campaign will be to re-invigorate Typhoo’s current fan base and deepen engagement by creating a series of digital assets.  This will start with the launch of an online book club, where fans will share their most ‘novel’ tea moments.

In addition, the agency will create and manage Typhoo’s social advertising campaigns.

Lucy McLean, digital manager of Typhoo, said: “We appointed Spider PR because of its fantastic credentials in our sector as well as its social media nous and creativity. They’ve come up with some amazing ideas that we’re looking forward to exploring.”

Lara Leventhal, MD of Spider PR, said: “We couldn’t be more excited to be working with Typhoo. It’s a national treasure and a brand that is connected to millions of people at key moments in their life. We’re looking forward to infusing the brand with our own blend of creativity.”

UDG Healthcare buys Pegasus for £16.8m

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Brighton-based healthcare comms specialist Pegasus has been acquired by UDG Healthcare, a FTSE 250 listed international provider of outsourced healthcare services, for £16.8 million.

From left to right: Simon Hackett, Lisa Bradley, Viv Adshead and David Moore


The deal involves a £10.1 million initial consideration followed by £6.7 million deferred over a three year earn-out. The proceeds will be shared between a number of Pegasus shareholders.

The Pegasus board will now report to David Moore, director at Ashfield Healthcare Communications,which is part of UDG Healthcare’s Ashfield Commercial and Medical Services Division.

Moore said: “This is a strategically important acquisition for UDG Healthcare and Ashfield. It strengthens our existing comms offering and broadens our capabilities in patient and consumer communications programmes, as well as corporate reputation and crisis management for our growing client base.

“Pegasus is leading the market in the way it creates and delivers integrated solutions for its clients and we look forward to adding their expertise to our fast-growing portfolio of specialist healthcare agencies.”

Lisa Bradley, who founded Pegasus in 1992, will step into the role of chairman, following the departure of previous chairman, Tim Adams. Deputy MD Simon Hackett will take over the role of MD.

Bradley said: “It is very exciting to be joining UDG Healthcare and Ashfield at this new stage in our development. We know they are the right cultural fit for our agency and they share our passion for delivering innovative campaigns across healthcare.  Joining Ashfield will increase the breadth and depth of services we offer to our clients and will provide our staff with the opportunity to acquire new skills.”

Hackett added: “We were looking for a like-minded partner that could help us deliver a step-change in the development of our business and UDG Healthcare and Ashfield are the perfect fit.

“While we will be keeping our name, location, great team and compelling mission of ‘inspiring healthy decisions’, all of which have been important ingredients in our success, we will enjoy  the benefits of aligning with Ashfield in terms of service offering, talent, business development and global presence.

“With Ashfield we can see an exciting and strong future, where their reach and our shared values will mean we can compete with the well-established global networks, continue our successful growth and provide a world-class service to our clients.”

Parker Fitzgerald appoints Newgate Communications

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Specialist management consultancy, Parker Fitzgerald (PFG), has appointed Newgate Communications to advise on its corporate communications and marketing strategy.

The Newgate team will be led by group managing director Steffan Williams (pictured) and supported by Alistair Kellie, partner at the agency. Newgate will work with sister company 2112 which will provide marketing and design consultancy.

PFG provides strategic advice, assurance and consulting services in all areas of risk management, regulation and financial technology to a range of financial institutions.

Scott Vincent, CEO and founder at PFG, said: “The Newgate Communications team has already demonstrated a deep knowledge of financial regulation and the wide range of challenges faced by our clients. It will be instrumental in helping us promote our expertise as we look to become the world’s leading risk management consultancy.”

Williams said: “Vincent recognised that the financial services sector has fundamentally changed and new approach to risk management consultancy was required. The volume of regulatory and operational change created the need for experts who could combine technical knowledge with the ability to deliver transformative results and ultimately shareholder value.”

News apps: how they’ve changed the newsroom and why it matters in PR

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News apps and new software are growing in importance for newsbrands and have even changed the dynamics within newsrooms and the way journalists work. Comms professionals from Newgate, W and Golin discuss how this has affected PR.

As the closure of national newspaper The New Day has shown, it now difficult for titles to survive without a solid digital strategy. This has only been emphasised by The Independent’s success story since closing its print edition. The title claims its app The Independent Daily Edition has reached a bigger audience than its former print edition by more than 50%.

However, digital makes a different set of demands on journalists. At an exclusive Gorkana briefing earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal’s Europe editor, Phillipa Leighton-Jones discussed how the WSJ City app has changed the way in which its team works: “We are producing something in a different format and the City team has changed the way we think about stories. It’s now really about the most important element of stories and how to surface them as quickly as possible; its thinking about how to tell a long series of narrative in block-points or charts or news ways of storytelling.”

So, how should PRs adapt to these changes and how can comms professionals work with newsrooms which have a focus on producing content for apps?

Apps give PRs opportunity to develop new forms of content

Content development has to be approached in fresh and innovative ways due to the popularity of mobile apps. Nitesh Khetani, account manager, B2B technology at Golin, explained: “While traditional longer pieces may work for print newspapers, consumers on mobile apps are looking for a quick, simple and interactive way to digest information. This has led PRs to invest a lot of time in developing content such as infographics and video.”

Alistair Kellie, partner at Newgate, added that news apps such as WSJ City, Economist Expresso and the FT require more content. This creates opportunity for PRs to produce content that can match or adapt to the needs or style of individual apps. For instance, this might mean  image-heavy or concise content is particular appropriate for different news products.

PR teams need to keep up with the pace of newsrooms

Khetani believes that the speed at which PR teams must now deliver content has increased and so has the pace at which media trends are set. He said: “I feel that PRs have almost become analysts in the sense that we are having to predict trends in advance to place relevant content for clients rather than jumping on the back of current ones, as was done in the not-so-distant past.”

Apps are becoming increasingly popular with busy business leaders who are looking for well curated and timely news alerts, according to Kellie. He said: “[Apps] are challenging the traditional role of the BBC’s Today programme in shaping people’s outlook for the say on what the big stories are.”

News teams are increasingly looking for content that works on all platforms

The aim for PRs is to create content that works across platforms, according to Kellie. He says: “The increasing popularity of news apps certainly means that they are worth considering as a platform for important announcements. The challenge is ensuring that the story has enough depth to also translate into print coverage.

“Ideally you still aim for a range of formats and that means tailoring the story and working out how you build it for different channels. News teams are increasingly asking for this content to be compiled as a digital media pack,” he added.

Becky Charles, head of media at W, said the platform you choose to pitch to is immaterial, as long as you provide valuable content. She explained: “As PRs we can help by not only being ‘always on’, but also ‘always ready’ to create flexible, easily digestible, smart content that news outlets are able to publish, but also optimise and share across every sort of platform – from apps and social, to website and print.”

Taylor Herring launches latest #GreatStarts for Kellogg’s Team GB sponsorship

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Taylor Herring has unveiled its latest creative for the Kellogg’s #GreatStarts Olympic Campaign, releasing a video of team GB athlete Louis Smith demonstrating a “unique” breakfast gymnastics routine.

The video and picture led content follows the launch campaign 100 days ahead of the Rio Olympics, which saw Smith team up with Sir Steve Redgrave and Rebecca Adlington to recreate a series of iconic Hollywood breakfast scenes.

Content will be promoted and distributed across all Kellogg’s-owned channels and offered for editorial use in the week ahead.

Taylor Herring was appointed lead creative agency for an eight month long Olympic campaign for Kellogg’s in January.

Taylor Herring Louis

 

It won the brief following a competitive pitch process and is working closely with Kellogg’s retained media agencies to promote Kellogg’s role as official sponsors of Team GB at the Rio Olympics.

Peter Mountstevens, creative director at Taylor Herring, said: “Bringing Louis’s unique breakfast routine to life was a simple and engaging idea to amplify the ‘#GreatStarts campaign. Over the coming months we will be working closely with the Kellogg’s in house team and their Team GB talent to maximize awareness of the sponsorship and to get people excited about the forthcoming Rio Olympics.”

W wins six-figure brief to promote Ryvita

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Ryvita has handed W a six-figure PR, digital and influencer engagement brief, as the British crispbread brand looks to engage with a “new generation” of consumers.

W Ryvita
W, which won the account following a four-way pitch, aims to generate online content and live PR experiences, it says.

To do this, the agency wants to strike brand and talent partnerships acknowledging the fast-moving nature of the FMCG sector, where, it says, health issues and Government initiatives present both challenges and opportunities to marketeers.

The team will also work across Ryvita’s range of Crispbreads and Thins to highlight the benefits of healthy living.

Lee Smith, head of brand at Jordans Dorset Ryvita, said: “We appointed W because the team’s plans answered not only our business objectives but the ambitions we have to build our brand’s digital footprint and focus  on changing perceptions of the Ryvita products. We see W as an agency partner across multiple disciplines, as adept at staging engaging PR events as they are at creating best-in-class social content.”

Warren Johnson, founder and CEO of W, added: “We are delighted to be working with an FMCG brand that has both rich heritage and huge ambitions for the future. The digital focus for Ryvita is especially exciting for W as we develop our Digital Division under [Head of Digital] Joe Barnes, while the influencer programme builds on W’s industry-leading strength in this area to help the brand reach new audiences.”

Charlotte Street Partners creates IR and healthcare practices

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Tamsin Garrity

Tamsin Garrity

Strategic communications consultancy Charlotte Street Partners has appointed two new partners and created new investor relations and healthcare practices.

Investor relations will be headed by Tamsin Garrity, who joins as head of financial communications and investor relations and will be based in London, after working as an investment analysis for ten years, most recently at UBS.

Healthcare will be led by Jo Nove, who will also be head of client services. Nove has been promoted to partner after five months with the firm and will move from Amsterdam to its Edinburgh office in the summer.

Malcolm Robertson, who founded Charlotte Street Partners in 2014 with Andrew Wilson, said: “This is a very significant moment for the company as we scale and extend our offer carefully. We are putting significant investment into the growth of the company as we prepare for the next phase of our growth. It is always a challenging market but it also hugely enjoyable, as we build an outstanding team.”