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Simon McGee, Boris Johnson’s former press secretary, has joined public affairs consultancy APCO Worldwide as executive director in its Global Solutions practice.
McGee has been a personal comms advisor to four cabinet ministers and was the head of media for three government departments, including leading HM Diplomatic Service’s worldwide media operation.
Before joining the government, he was a parliamentary lobby correspondent and reporter for outlets including The Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday and Yorkshire Post.
He will work with Frank Lowenstein to help lead the APCO practice internationally.
APCO Worldwide CEO Brad Staples said: “Simon brings deep insights into the workings of government communications, extensive media relationships, a proven track record of building international communication networks and the valuable perspective of a former parliamentary lobby correspondent.
“We are delighted to welcome him to APCO and look forward to seeing the Global Solutions team grow further under his and Frank’s leadership.”
McGee added: “I am thrilled to have been invited to help lead the APCO Global Solutions practice and cannot wait to put my skills, experience and effort into delivering the very best outcomes for our clients.”
Former marketer Meg Dibb-Fuller, now senior client executive at Milk and Honey PR, lists the key differences she has encountered between the two disciplines since moving into public relations.
Coming from a marketing background, I often get asked how PR differs from marketing.
Since moving from the marketing world over to PR, I have learnt a LOT. I repeat, a LOT. PR isn’t just ‘free marketing’ (like I used to say).
Instead, I’ve realised it’s like a secret lock into another world. You are building relationships, developing an understanding of a brand and nurturing its reputation. Creating preference but also engagement. PR can be used to launch, protect, lobby, inform and to grow, well, anything. It’s the art of influence.
Here are some of key differences on how I now view the world of PR:
Activities
Marketing covers promotional, direct marketing and advertising. It is primarily to return on direct sales. ROI is a non-negotiable!
PR is focused on reputation management. YOU are in control of generating media opportunities and stakeholder communication. Impressive, huh?
Audience
Marketing aims to reach current and potential customers.
PR is all about developing and maintaining positive relationships with anyone who has an interest in the organisation or brand. This is so much broader, from customers, government, trade bodies and regulators, competitors, analysts and academics to media, employees AND shareholders. Anymore for anymore?
Objectives
Typically, a marketing team’s goals are to reach buyers and encourage them to make a purchase. Sales focused action people. Essentially, it is about selling a product or service.
A PR goal is still about selling the company or brand but in a completely different way. How you might ask? You manage the communication channels between a company and its stakeholders and drive the key messages. This can be directly or indirectly through media.
Longevity
Marketing seeks to drive instant sales. Thus, success is a relatively short-term activity in comparison to PR.
The benefits of a PR programme can be viewed as a long-term investment that a company would recognise for future achievements… SO IMPORTANT!
What does this mean for a business? How do you choose?
The industry is experiencing great change with the growth of so many new, online channels to find and engage with customers and prospects. Beyond the so-called ‘traditional’ PR or marketing approach, PR is becoming central to marketing and marketing increasingly looks more like PR. Both are reliant on one another for a business to succeed.
Milk & Honey PR has appointed Kirsty Reid, Comic Relief’s former national media manager, as client director to lead its growing consumer offering.
Reporting to managing partner Kirsty Leighton, Reid is tasked with developing the agency’s portfolio among consumer, not-for-profit and CSR-centric brands. She will head up some of the agency’s recent wins, including Lotto Social and Big Youth Group.
Reid said: “I am beyond excited to start building up a new and diverse client base at Milk & Honey. Having honed my skills in brilliant agencies such as Shine, and most recently over four years at Comic Relief working on the biggest fundraising campaigns in the UK, I’m ready to get back into agency life to support the growth of what is a fresh, energetic and ambitious company.
“I’m passionate about building and supporting a creative team. And having the opportunity to grow and impact on the direction of a relatively new business is an exciting challenge. It’s a business that is wholly people focused and is going from strength to strength.”
Leighton added: “I’m delighted to have yet another energetic, creative leader join the hive. Kirsty comes with rave reviews from clients and colleagues alike. Her experience with some of the biggest international entertainment brands is a brilliant addition.”
You will be blown away by what’s possible with the latest earned media technology.
Advances in cloud technology and big data have revolutionised the industry in recent months, leading to breakthroughs that look set to change the way comms professionals work forever.
In the past, communicators have been forced to rely on a range of disparate tools to do their jobs. They’d have a database of media contacts, a press release distribution platform, an array of analysis tools and more besides.
These tools generally aren’t designed to work together. And that makes managing campaigns across them all a real pain.
That’s why we created the Cision Communications Cloud. As you’ll see, it combines the very latest earned media technology into a single cloud-based platform – making it easy to design, implement and manage world-class comms initiatives.
But that’s not what’s so revolutionary about this first-of-its-kind comms platform. Because it also gives you the tools to directly measure the business contributions and returns your campaigns deliver – so you can make the case for greater investment in PR and comms.
Put your name down today and Cision’s Jeff Vanderby and Luke Williams will run you through the key features that make this comms platform unlike any other:
Find the best media influencers with smart insights. The Cision Comms Cloud is more than just the world’s largest media database. It also uses smart insights to highlight trending influencers and recommend the best contacts for your campaigns.
Engage audiences seamlessly across channels. The Cision Comms Cloud’s intuitive campaign management features let you view all your social coverage from a single interface. You can pinpoint the most influential authors in seconds and effortlessly identify which news coverage is generating the best social results.
Measure the business impact of your campaigns. With the Cision Comms Cloud’s advanced analytics integration, you’ll finally be able to show the impact your comms programmes have on lead generation, web conversions and even revenue. Then, its simple charting tool lets you quickly share these results with company stakeholders.
That’s just a taste of what’s possible with this cutting edge technology – and a fraction of the things you’ll see first-hand in this Cision webinar.
Taylor Herring’s Greggs Minimise Me campaign for the pastry producer was named the Consumer PR Campaign of the Year, while it also won awards for campaigns with mytaxi, easyJet and Channel 5.
The Romans took home the Consumer PR Agency of the Year and Boutique Agency of the Year prizes, while also winning multiple gongs for its Nothing Wrong With A Little Prick campaign for Thriva.
Integrated agency Manifest also had a busy night, securing the Integrated Agency of the Year and Emerging Agency of the Year awards, as well as winning multiple prizes for its campaign with Rize Up to encourage under-25s to vote.
Vodafone Group’s ReConnect campaign was awarded the Cision-sponsored Global Public Relations Campaign of the Year prize, while Michief’s Andy Garner was the winner of this year’s Suzy Spirit Award.
Cision is proud to work with the majority of last night’s winners, a full list of whom can be found below:
Social Media Campaign of the Year – Cohn & Wolfe and Boehringer Ingelheim – Tabatha The Think.Act.Breathe Chatbot Integrated Communications Campaign of the Year – Manifest & Rize Up – Uniting Britain’s under-25s to Rize Up and vote Event of the Year – Taylor Herring & Channel 5 – NUNdos – The World’s First Nun-Powered Chicken Joint Stunt of the Year – Tin Man with WaterAid – Buckets of Hope Best Use of Research – Mischief & National Trust – Places make people Consumer PR Campaign of the Year – Taylor Herring & Greggs – Greggs Minimise Me Corporate Social Responsibility Campaign – Direct Line & Unity – Shotgun powered by Direct Line Best Use of Content – The Romans & Freya Lingerie – When Life Gives You Melons Best Use of Creativity – Hope&Glory and East Village E20 – Brie-once Best B2B Campaign of the Year – LEWIS Global Communications & Infosys – Ready for the AI Revolution? Financial Services Sector Campaign of the Year – Churchill & Citigate Dewe Rogerson – Research with Impact: Churchill Confronts Burglary Global Public Relations Campaign of the Year – Vodafone Group – ReConnect The world’s largest recruitment programme for career-break women Healthcare / Pharma Campaign of the Year – Porter Novelli London & MED-EL – Cutting Through the Silence on World Hearing Day Most Innovative Use of Digital & Social Media – Cohn & Wolfe and Boehringer Ingelheim – Tabatha The Think.Act.Breathe Chatbot Public Sector Campaign of the Year – Kindred for HM Treasury & The Royal Mint – Goodbye Round Pound There’s a new quid on the block FMCG Marketing Communications Campaign of the Year – Hope&Glory and Meantime Brewing – DN-Ale Health, Beauty, Retail & Fashion Marketing Communications Campaign of the Year – Taylor Herring & Greggs – Greggs Minimise Me Automotive & Transport Marketing Communications Campaign of the Year – Taylor Herring & mytaxi – The Knowledge+ Creating London’s 4th Emergency Services with mytaxi Culture Media, Sport & Travel Marketing Communications Campaign of the Year – Taylor Herring – easyJet Flybraries Not for Profit Campaign of the Year – Tin Man with the Institution of Engineering and Technology – #ISeeMore Media Relations Campaign of the Year (Agency) – The Romans & Thriva – Nothing Wrong With A Little Prick Media Relations Campaign of the Year (In-house) – Channel 4 Press & Publicity – The Great British Bake Off on Channel 4 Low Budget Campaign of the Year – The Romans & Thriva – Nothing Wrong With A Little Prick Community Engagement Campaign of the Year – Manifest & Rize Up – Uniting Britain’s under-25s to Rize Up and vote The Suzy Spirit Award – Andy Garner, Creative, Mischief PR Young Professional of the Year – Erin Salisbury, Senior Project Manager, Ketchum Global Research and Analytics In-house Team of the Year – Canal & River Trust – Communications and Campaigns Team B2B PR Agency of the Year – GingerMay PR Consumer PR Agency of the Year – The Romans Integrated Agency of the Year – Manifest Technology Agency of the Year – Harvard New Agency of the Year – Talker Tailor Trouble Maker Emerging Agency of the Year – Manifest Boutique agency of the Year – The Romans Mid-Sized Agency of the Year – Hope&Glory Large Agency of the Year – Golin
Here’s a round-up of the week’s essential PR news and features, including Cision’s activities at the B2B Marketing Expo, a new hire at FTI and account wins for Ready10 and Golin.
The Cision team also spoke to a number of earned media experts at the expo, where they discussed industry trends and the challenges PR professionals face.
Food company Danone has appointed Golin to lead social strategy and content creation for its Volvic and Evian brands. The agency will deliver social and content strategies for both Volvic’s Find Your Volcano campaign and Evian’s sponsorship of the 2018 Wimbledon tennis championships.
Betting firm Betway has appointed OMD UK as its UK media agency to oversee an account worth £30 million per year, following a four-way pitch.
Chinese tech company Mobvoi has appointed Ready10 to handle its UK launch. The account will be overseen by Ready10’s newly appointed associate director Sophie Diner.
Ann Summers CEO Jacqueline Gold has appointed Dundas Communications as her personal publicist. The agency will manage all media enquiries, oversee her website and manage her social media channels and speaking engagements.
Index and research firm MSCI has appointed MHP Communications as the retained PR adviser to its real estate business unit.
Integrated comms agency One will provide PR and social media services across the Hoover Candy Group in the UK.
Luxury clothing retailer Flannels has appointed Mission to handle its UK PR and comms.
Covet PR has won PR briefs from ice cream brand Yasso, protein shake maker Koia, almond butter firm Barney Butter and skincare company Rugged & Dapper.
Agency news
Specialist toys, games and childhood sector agency Playtime PR has formed a partnership with US-based agency Southard Freeman Communications. The partnership sees both agencies share their services with the other’s clients.
People news
FTI Consulting has appointed senior Financial Times journalist Andrew Ward as managing director of its life science and healthcare practice. Ward will join the consultancy in June.
Grayling has hired Kat McGettigan, a former head of consumer at M&C Saatchi PR, as its new head of consumer PR in London.
FleishmanHillard Fishburn has hired Sherawaye Hagger, Pip Solway and Emma Padden as directors to enhance its consumer team’s strategic offering.
M&C Saatchi PR has promoted Serena Thynne to vice president in its Los Angeles office. Thynne has been a member of the agency’s London office for the past five years.
Midlands-based agency Superdream has appointed Jason Manning as CEO and Fran Nolan as MD.
Ready10 has appointed Sophie Diner as associate director. She joins from Frank, where she worked with Ready10 MD David Fraser.
Clarity PR has appointed Callum McCaig as account director to oversee domestic and international campaigns and help drive new business.
PR and film agency Sassy Film has appointed Michael Semp and Annette Harada as director of content communications and head of content communications and strategy respectively, to oversee and grow its content division.
Covet PR has made a number of new hires and promotions. Ellie Bonner has joined as account supervisor. Katharine Samuels has been appointed as senior account executive. Ashley Short and Nicole Tarko have joined the firm as account executives, while Nisha Btesh has started as executive assistant. Casey Blatt has been promoted to director of operations.
PRCA and CIPR news
The CIPR has announced it will work with the Confederation of British Industry to elevate the reputation and promote the strategic value of PR among the business community.
The PRCA has partnered with Bright Network, a careers network featuring diverse candidates, in order to increase diversity and inclusivity in the PR industry.
New technology is set to revolutionise earned media and allow communicators to target audiences and measure ROI like never before, says Tom Ritchie, Cision’s EMIA VP GTM.
Delivering a keynote speech at the B2B Marketing Expo in London’s ExCel Centre, Ritchie discussed how cloud software like the Cision Communications Cloud will enable earned media practitioners to broaden their outlook when it comes to campaigns.
“We’ve moved from data silos and point solutions to collective cloud solutions which enable us to look at our data holistically and benchmark it alongside our other data sources,” he explained.
Closing the paid media budget gap
Ritchie emphasised that new technology will allow earned media practitioners to finally deliver metrics that compare to those used by paid media professionals. This will enable earned media practitioners to finally earn their rightful share of the marketing budget.
Citing a study by Outsell, Ritchie noted that 80% of senior marketing professionals believed earned media is as or more effective than paid media. However, he said the 2017 Global Comms Report found that around three quarters of comms professionals say that they need to do a better job at showing ROI, while almost 70% said that they lacked the data to do so.
He argued: “I believe that 2018 is the year where earned media shifts from vanity metrics to business ROI. As we’ve seen, earned media continues to have a bigger impact on people’s affinity to brands. That’s only going to continue.”
Measuring earned media’s effect on company performance
To illustrate the impact data is already having on PR campaigns, Ritchie cited two examples where campaigns were linked back to demographic and sociographic data to inform which audiences brands should be targeted.
The first involved a printer manufacturer which had been targeting tech media. After gaining coverage, it found there was little impact on people buying their printers. However, a women’s magazine published one story that led to sales going through the roof.
“The reality was that the majority of people buying printers are doing it to print off their kids’ homework,” said Ritchie. “Now, by bringing the data together, this allows us to get great insights to inform future campaigns.”
He also recalled how a company selling a digital baby monitor found that their outreach to new parents made little difference to sales figures. However, by analysing data, it found there was a spike of people around 65 buying the product for their grandchildren. Again, this enabled the company to adapt its media outreach to target a different demographic and improve business performance.
Declining trust in paid media
Delving further into the difference between paid and earned media, Ritchie stated that both Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising Report and the development of ad blocking software illustrated that audiences are becoming more resistant to advertising.
“When you ask audiences, even in the advertising world, it is very clear that earned media channels – recommendations, pieces of editorial content, the opinion of friends and those we know – clearly impact our perception of brands,” he said.
The impact of fake news
On the issue of trust, Ritchie discussed the importance of brands understanding the impact social media channels were having on their audience, particularly in relation to fake news.
He said the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica story illustrates how important it is for brands to work with social platforms to build trust with their audience, noting that the equivalent of Serbia’s GDP has been wiped off the social network’s value following the revelations.
Ritchie added that the launch of Google’s News Initiative, which is designed to help validate stories from traditional, trusted journalists, would also have a big impact on earned media practitioners.
He noted that this year’s Edelman Trust Barometer found trust in journalism has risen by 5%, with a steady decline of trust in social media platforms. Ritchie predicted that this decline will be even sharper in next year’s survey after the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica revelations, increasing the importance of the validation earned media provides.
Tom Ritchie was speaking at this year’s B2B Marketing Expo at the ExCel Centre. Cision is exhibiting across both days. Find the team at stand B1524 to learn more about how we can help you target, distribute and measure the impact of your campaigns.
Issa PR has been appointed to handle the international launch of a public artwork in Denmark that will be unveiled on Saturday 31 March.
The agency will represent artists Jeannette Ehlers and La Vaughn Belle to raise awareness of their sculpture, I Am Queen Mary. The work will highlight Denmark’s colonial impact in the Caribbean and those who fought against it.
Ehlers and Belle said: “We’re very happy to work with Issa PR given their focus on art and culture, social good and justice. This is an important story for us to tell and we need the right partner to elevate this on a global scale.”
Issa PR CEO Viet N’Guyen added: “This powerful narrative and public monument will create history in shining a light on what transpired. We have tremendous admiration and respect for these fearless female artists, who are pushing new boundaries in art.
“Already recognised by the National Gallery of Denmark, ActionAid, The Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces, Municipality of Copenhagen and Beckett Foundation, we hope to raise further awareness and visibility for this seminal story and launch.”
Pictured: La Vaughn Belle (left) and Jeannette Ehlers
Promote PR will focus on maximising visibility and enhancing perceptions of the sport, especially among parents of children playing hockey, as well as the general public.
The agency will deliver an integrated comms campaign that celebrates the importance of supportive role models in achieving sporting success.
Craig Mortimer-Zhika, communications manager at England Hockey, said: “It became obvious during the competitive pitch process that Promote PR was the stand-out agency.
“They presented a compelling, creative campaign for our target audiences. This, coupled with their vast experience of delivering highly effective activity for other sports National Governing Bodies and organisations, made them the perfect partner to help us achieve our ambition.”
Nasima Hussain, Promote PR’s managing director, added: “With the GB women’s team winning gold at Rio 2016 and now the world’s biggest hockey tournament taking place here, the sport’s growth looks set to continue in 2018 and beyond.
“We’re thrilled to be appointed by England Hockey and very much look forward to helping the team at such an exciting time for the sport.”
FleishmanHillard Fishburn has hired Sherawaye Hagger, Pip Solway and Emma Padden as directors to enhance its consumer team’s strategic offering.
Padden joins the firm from M&C Saatchi PR and will lead its consumer health offering. Solway will focus on FMCG and consumer tech and has worked at M&C Saatchi PR and Edelman. Hagger spent time at Ogilvy PR and M&C Saatchi PR and will bolster FHF’s luxury and food and drinks offering.
FHF’s consumer team launched three years ago and now employs over 30 people. Its recent client wins include Samsung, the Norwegian Seafood Council and Korean grooming brand Dorco.
Lauren Winter, FHF’s head of brand and consumer marketing EMEA, said: “I am delighted to announce the hiring of three talented women to senior positions in the consumer and brand team here at FHF. Each of them is totally aligned with the kind of culture we are building and I’m sure we’ll share lots of success together.”
Pictured: (left to right) Winter, Solway, Padden and Hagger
