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Legal agency Byfield Consultancy is going through management changes as managing director Gus Sellitto becomes chief executive and majority shareholder.
Byfield’s chairman Richard Elsen is selling part of his shareholding in the business but will remain a board member, shareholder and director at Byfield and act as senior counsel.
Byfield has also appointed the former chairman of Blue Rubicon, Alastair Gornall, in a non-executive role as chairman of the advisory board. Gornall will advise the agency on growing and developing its brand, client service standards and new business offering.
Litigation communications will remain a core specialism for the agency and will continue to be led by account director Lydia Rochelle; a role she has been in for 18 months.
Sellitto said: “Elsen and I first worked together almost 20 years ago and we have remained close friends and colleagues, ever since. We have achieved great things together at Byfield and are very proud of the clients team we’ve built which have helped to make us what we are today.”
Elsen said: “I’m very proud to have co-founded Byfield which has developed such a strong reputation within the legal industry. The agency’s strength in litigation PR is now firmly rooted with the Byfield team and I look forward to continuing to work on high profile and complex cases in my new role.”
Casualwear brand 8DIX has chosen Coffin on Cake PR to handle its fashion consumer and trade comms activity in the UK.
The 8DIX brand, which is named after renowned German painter Otto Dix, has already been presented internationally in London, LA and most recently at Berlin Fashion Week, where it previewed its first ready-to-wear collection.
Coffin on Cake PR will take a lead on all fashion-focused consumer and trade comms strategy throughout the UK, as well as manage the brand’s social media channels.
As well as its ready-to-wear collection, Coffin on Cake will handle the PR for 8DIX’s main-line collection, which is made up of statement t-shirts and loungewear.
The team will also work with specific stylists and fashion editors to introduce and establish 8DIX as a “strong alternative” fashion brand.
Dean Bennett, co-founder and company director at Coffin on Cake PR, said: “We were immediately excited by this brand, its designers and their exceptional products, and we look forward to implementing a full PR and social media strategy to promote the immediate growth of the brand.”
Jessica Dixon, director, B2B and corporate, at Spider PR, on being a fan of “reactive opportunities”, where she first showed off her persuasive comms skills and why age is just a number.
Before I reach the office in the morning, I’ve already… I’m an early bird and so mornings are my most productive time. I like to arrive early to get cracking before my team get in. I’ll have scanned the headlines and logged any news of relevance to my clients.
I’m a fan of reactive opportunities and so any significant hook that could possibly be jumped upon, we’ll action. Checked my emails and diary, normally over one of my ten cups of tea a day while listening to a TED talk or two before kick-starting some copy writing.
You’ll mostly find emails about…in my inbox. It varies hugely. Anything from new business ideas to team targets to new hires and brainstorming how to strengthen client campaigns. We have a coverage guarantee scheme, which means we’re 100% accountable for results and so ensuring all campaigns are on track is of high importance.
I know I’ve had a good day if… My team are buzzing from the results achieved.
My first job was… A professional dishwasher in a restaurant in Kent. Not necessarily skills that have benefited my PR career greatly, however useful none-the-less. It was a constant carousel of china, although I once managed to get upgraded to tomato chopping. Perhaps this is where my persuasive comms skills were first flexed.
I can tell a campaign is succeeding when… Some of my clients decide to replicate our UK-led campaigns on a European or global level. My aim is for our clients’ campaigns and brand awareness to be the benchmark for their competitors and other markets. When even my high targets are exceeded I know we’re on the road to success.
I eat….when nobody is watching. Minstrels are my weakness but luckily our office Wednesday “sweetie day” always satisfies my cravings. Not dissimilar to a lion’s feeding time, it is a sight to behold but keeps the team going.
The first time I pitched to a journalist… I somewhat naively thought I’d secured a BBC opportunity. I now drill into my team what ‘placing info on file’ really means.
The worst thing anyone has said to me is… We have too many creative ideas.
The last book I read was… Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
I’ve never really understood why… Some brands still don’t understand the benefit and power of PR activity. It’s a mystery to me.
If I could go back and talk to my ten-year-old self, I’d say… Age is just a number. With hard work, anything can be achieved.
This time next year, I’ll be… Hopefully managing a larger team, having grown our client base further with some even stronger campaigns in the pipeline.
Fancy featuring in a Behind the Headlines interview? Please email [email protected].
Ted Baker Footwear has handed a brand awareness brief to Aduro Communications, which marks the official launch of the agency’s new fashion and beauty division.
Aduro has been briefed to drive awareness of the Ted Baker Footwear brand through a media relations programme that will cover news generation and product placement combined with consumer and press event activity.
The campaign will focus on both men and women’s shoes, including a new luxury range planned for 2017.
John Williams, MD of Ted Baker Footwear, said: “It was important to find a team that was a good fit for us in terms of responsiveness, strategic delivery and personality. We are delighted to have Aduro on board to support the marketing strategy and hardwork of our internal team. We feel confident they will deliver results against promises and enable our growth plans over the next year.”
The win marks a new fashion account for the Aduro team as it launches its new fashion and beauty division, which is being led by associate and creative director, Poppy Lewis.
Alongside Ted Baker Footwear, the division has also won a PR brief from Natural Spa Factory. The agency will raise the profile of the beauty brand, which was launched by husband and wife team Jeremy and Emma in 2009 to provide independent businesses with “natural, authentic and considered” products to spas, boutique hotels and independent retailers.
Financial PR and IR consultancy Vigo has been retained by Coms plc – a provider of technology and services for ‘smart’ buildings and commercial spaces – to advise on capital markets communications.
Vigo’s Jeremy Garcia, Ben Simons and Fiona Henson will lead the account team.
Garcia, director at Vigo, said: “Coms is at the forefront of innovation in facilitating greater connectivity between spaces and the people who occupy them. Vigo is delighted to be working with Coms to enhance its capital markets profile at a very exciting point in the company’s development.”
Coms has repositioned its business, through its core brands Redstone and Connect IB, to focus on the use of technology and innovation to make buildings and commercial spaces smarter.
British luxury glove brand Gizelle Renee has selected Publicasity to represent its AW16 collection within the UK market.
Publicasity will work with Gizelle Renee to promote its hand-crafted products through media engagement and press events.
The agency aims to drive brand awareness and sales by promoting the quality of product, the hand-crafted message and an education piece on the steps taken to create a pair of custom-made Gizelle Renee gloves.
Julie Malamute, associate director at Publicasity, will lead the account and report to Gizelle Williams, director of Gizelle Renee.
Williams said: “This is an exciting time for Gizelle Renee and I was keen to work with an agency that completely understood my brand ethos and business objectives. I was impressed by Publicasity’s creativity and understanding of the fashion industry. I look forward to working with them to showcase Gizelle Renee to influencers and consumers.
Malamute added: “We are delighted to work with such amazingly talented designer such as Gizelle. Her glove range is stunningly constructed and we are excited to share her passion and story with the UK media.”
Flood Re, a national reinsurance scheme which enables those in high flood-risk areas to access more affordable flood insurance, has brought in Hanover Communications to handle its PR and public affairs.
Hanover has been briefed to work closely with Flood Re’s chairman, chief executive and senior business representatives to ensure a high degree of public and policymaker awareness of the scheme.
The agency has been working with Flood Re in the lead up to the scheme’s launch, which took place on April 4.
Brendan McCafferty, chief executive at Flood Re, said: “We’re delighted to have in Hanover, a team that understands what we are trying to deliver across communications, consumer and policymaker audiences.
“The team demonstrates great chemistry both externally and internally and has a shared passion for what we are trying to achieve – these were the key differentiators that persuaded us to go with Hanover.”
Enda Joyce, associate director at Hanover Communications, said: “We are very excited to be working with Flood Re at a time when flooding remains a top priority issue on a local, devolved and national level.
“Crucially the team at Flood Re understands the benefit of delivering this strategy through an integrated team to ensure the business meets its objectives.”
Joules, the British clothing designer and retailer, is using Hudson Sandler to handle PR as it pursues an initial public offering on AIM.
The company was founded in 1989 and has 96 stores in the UK and Republic of Ireland as well as a growing presence in North America and Germany.
It is expected to list on AIM before July. Its growth strategy encompasses continuing its UK store rollout, expanding in North America and Germany, and extending its brand into new product categories.
Colin Porter, CEO of Joules, said: “Joules is a distinctive, established and fast-growing lifestyle brand and we are delighted to announce our intention to list on AIM as an exciting new phase in the brand’s development.
“Joules has a rare heritage and a strong presence across clothing and lifestyle product categories. Since the brand’s foundation more than 26 years ago, Joules has enjoyed strong, consistent growth developing into the much-loved fun, family, ‘time-off’ lifestyle brand it is today.
“We have a clear strategy to develop the brand further and we see real potential for continued growth across channels both in our core UK market and internationally.”
As Aspectus explores a service model incorporating more animated videos, infographics and cartoons, Alastair Turner, the agency’s Global CEO, explains how delivering PR is driven by three major factors and continues to grow and evolve.
PR is all about engaging an audience and changing people’s attitudes or behaviour. To achieve engagement, we persuade through creative communications. That has not changed since the dawn of marketing.
But delivery of PR – the way in which we communicate our creativity – has changed out of all recognition. Today, PR is driven by a dynamic triangle involving media, search and content. The three elements are of equal importance and need to work in harmony – no single one can be truly effective without the other two.
Content
Content has always been the engine room of PR. Content isn’t just copy – as far as we are concerned, it spans video, infographics, imagery… anything that can make an impression. Anything that can engage a target audience has value, no matter the format.
However, the written word is still crucial and always will be as long as it’s interesting, original, well-written, stylish, provocative (perhaps) and highly readable. The best content is short and to the point. Though there is place for longer, in-depth content, most people want to absorb information quickly with minimal effort. Make it light and funny if you can. Humour works. People like it and they like sharing it. And they certainly won’t share anything that is a pain to read because it will reflect badly on them.
Media
Just relying on old-school media relations is like flying a plane on one engine without knowing you have two others. You have to use all the component parts of what we simplistically call ‘the media’ in a dynamic way in order to get the full attention you deserve, and to give yourself the best possible chance of reaching and influencing your target audience. You can’t do this with separate, disconnected approaches.
Search
Search is the DNA of modern communications: the code that tells you how well your stories and ideas are working, how they are engaging people and affecting their behaviour and attitude. It also creates the essential dynamism of modern content distribution, and the electrical current that enables that content to be shared, communicated around the web and picked up by Google.
At Aspectus, we tell our clients that all PR content must be fully optimised around the same sort of search terms that are woven into their websites, collateral, advertising, sales packs and presentations.
Without search being taken into the equation, you could spend your life firing content into the media atmosphere only for it to be seen for just a brief moment – like a meteor in the night sky – before vanishing back into the inky black of the digital universe forever, never to be seen or found again. With search your content can remain live – being seen, re-seen and updated for years and all the while engaging more and more people.
It’s about creating, sharing, driving and measuring traffic flows. In the end, this is more or less the only way you can engage an audience, and the only way to change attitudes and behaviour using communications in today’s world.
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.
Pitch Wins
The Lifestyle Agency has been appointed to handle the PR for Roger Daltrey’s limited edition Champagne, which is being launched to celebrate 50 years of rock band The Who.
Chinese sports footwear brand 361°, an official supporter for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro this August, has chosen Iroquois to handle its UK PR as part of the brand’s wider European expansion plans.
Hotwire has been brought in as the European PR agency for Nuance, a business providing voice and language tools for businesses and consumers.
Gong Communications has been reappointed to work on Lloyd’s insurance market’s international diversity and inclusion festival, ‘Dive In’.
Henley Royal Regatta has briefed Hanover Communications to provide PR support for the annual rowing event’s 2016 edition and help enhance its reputation for future years.
The Communications Store has been chosen by The Crown Estate as the retained comms agency for London’s Regent Street.
People News
Cambridge University Press’ former global head of PR, Adam Tuckwell, has joined specialist PR and content agency MobasEngage as head of PR.
Chime-owned Good Relations has brought in David Wiles from Shine @ The Academy as consumer director, with a brief to provide senior client advice and business development.
Chloe Staniforth
Portland has hired Nucleus Global’s Dr Brendan Murphy as a director to establish and grow its medical education offering.
Chloe Staniforth, a 20-year-old account executive at Cream and 2016 Suzy Spirit Award finalist, has become the youngest ever accredited member of the CIPR.
The Cannes International Festival of Creativity has announced a 21-strong jury for the PR Lions awards, chaired by Edelman’s John Clinton.
Agency News
Travel PR agency Little Black Book Creative has relaunched under the new name Traveltappers, marking a shift in focus to SEO PR, and brought in British Airways’ former consumer PR manager, Tracy Long, as a PR specialist.
PR and social media agency Wolfstar has forged a partnership with creative visual firm Seventy1 Digital to enhance its video offering for clients. Activity kicks off with content to mark the 200th anniversary of Portmeirion Group’s Spode Blue Italian design.
News Analysis
PR agency M&A activity rises by 54% in 2016 Merger and acquisition (M&A) deals in the global PR sector have risen by 54% in the first quarter of 2016, according to research by Results International. RI’s director, James Kesner, told Gorkana what this means for the industry and which specialisms are attracting investment.
How the rise in chatbots impacts digital PR Chatbots, which brands and publishers are using more and more to engage with digital audiences, could reach up to two billion users in the next couple of years, according to Digiday. Gorkana asked agencies Diffusion, Firstlight PR, Good Relations and Threepipe what implications this trend has for PR.
The Press Association has appointed former BBC Sports reporter Matt Slater as its chief sports reporter.
Sophie Goodwin has been named fashion director at Tatler, having previously been style director for the same publication. She has been replaced in the latter role by Sophie Pera.
The Telegraph has appointed John Mullin as deputy head of sport.
Geoff Maynard has been promoted to head of news at the Daily Express.
Mark Broad has returned to his role as senior economics producer at BBC News. He returns from a secondment as news desk editor in Washington.
Debbie Ramsay, acting newsbeat editor for BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra – Newsbeat has now been confirmed in the role.
Features
Media Briefing with BritMums
At an exclusive Gorkana media briefing with the UK’s largest parenting blogging network, BritMums, this week, co-founders Susanna Scott and Jennifer Howze shed light on the growing strength of its 8,000-strong “influencers”, why everyone should go onto Pinterest, how brands can partner with the network and why dad bloggers are seen as the “rockstars” of BritMums.
OPINION: Crisis comms and war gaming
Planning ahead is key, particularly when it comes to anticipating corporate and other crises and impact on reputation, as Gorkana’s recent White Paper on crisis communications showed. John Orme, senior partner and EMEA crisis counsellor with Porter Novelli, thinks that war gaming, Game of Thrones and the ever-resourceful Chinese warlord Sun Tzu have useful lessons for crisis communicators to heed.
Case Study: The World’s First Mankini Emoji When hen and stag party brand Red7 Leisure wanted to enhance its market share, Red Hot Penny came up with a PR and SEO campaign to leverage the popularity of emojis by creating “The World’s First Mankini Emoji”, as well as blow-up doll and beer goggle symbols…
Future of the Press: Robert Jobson, royal editor of the London Evening Standard
In the third part of our series looking at the future of the press with board members of the London Press Club (LPC), Gorkana’s Ronan George talks to Robert Jobson, director of the LPC, joint chairman of London Press Club Ball 2016 and royal editor at the London Evening Standard, about organising the LPC ball, the importance of socialising in journalism and why the fundamental skills of a journalist will never change.
