PR News in Brief

This week’s PR news in brief (2-6 October)

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Here’s a round-up of the essential PR news stories, people news and account wins that have been announced over the past week.

Account wins

The Lawn Tennis Association has appointed Run Communications to provide regional PR support for its Transforming British Tennis Together grassroots investment programme.

Historic visitor attraction Tatton Park has appointed Carousel PR following a pitch process to work with its onsite team to promote its activities and events.

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home has appointed integrated communications agency Premier to manage PR for its Collars & Coats Gala fundraising event at Battersea Evolution on 2 November.

Online pet retailer Monster Pet Supplies has appointed PR and social media specialist Wolfstar to deliver a three month creative communications campaign to reach new customers, drive visitors and increase sales over Christmas.

New natural men’s grooming brand SCRUBD has appointed RKM Communications to manage comms around its global launch.

Specialist mortgage lender Charter Court appointed Citigate Dewe Rogerson to manage the comms surrounding its IPO, which took place on 4 October.

Sauce Communications will handle PR and talent management for former MasterChef runners up Billy and Jack as the pair continue to grow their cookery portfolio.

Lotus, the travel specialist agency, will handle PR and develop social media channels in the UK for Dutch theme park and resort Efteling following a three-way pitch.

New lingerie and streetwear label Les Girls Les Boys has appointed The Fashion Digital to manage its social media brand across multiple platforms.

People news

Former Daily Mirror journalist Greig Box Turnbull has launched Fortitude Communications, a PR and communications consultancy which will provide clients in the business, sport, consumer and luxury sectors with strategic advice, social media support, web design, content creation and media training.

The International Communications Consultancy Organisation has appointed Elise Mitchell as president. Mitchell runs Mitchell Communications Group, a top-50 US PR firm, and has been vice-president of the ICCO since 2015. Nitin Mantri replaces Mitchell as the organisation’s new vice-president.

Former Spider PR travel and lifestyle division lead Clemmie Mason-Pearson has launched her own agency. Kitten & Shark will specialise in luxury, travel, lifestyle and brand PR.

Portland has hired Lucy Jenkins as a partner in its philanthropy practice. Jenkins will support the agency’s international clients, with particular focus on growing Portland’s global philanthropy offering.

Lansons has appointed Claire Southeard as a board director. Southeard will have responsibility for accelerating the development, transformation and integration of the consultancy’s digital, content and social media offer.

Fashion, fitness and lifestyle influencer Rowan Row has signed with agency Sixteenth Talent. Row is the 14th influencer on the new agency’s books.

Industry trends

The ICCO has unveiled its World PR Report 2017 at its global summit in Helsinki. The report covers the present and future direction of global PR, including a ranking of the top 250 global agencies.

Darran Messem new transport head

Madano appoints Darran Messem as transport head

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Madano, the strategic communications consultancy, has appointed Darran Messem as director and head of its new transport practice.

He will advise transport clients on the challenges and opportunities posed by issues including emerging technologies, new infrastructure, pollution and fleet optimisation. He will also lead the agency’s sustainable development work.

Messem joins from the Carbon Trust, where he was managing director of Carbon Trust Certification and international director. He is also chairman of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, a membership and delivery organisation sponsored by the Department for Transport.

“Madano provides clients with outstanding clarity of strategic thinking and quality of delivery,” said Messem. “Having known the company for many years I’m delighted to be able to use my experience in transport and sustainable development to help the company grow in these areas.”

Michael Evans, Madano’s managing partner, added: “Darran is a perfect fit for Madano – with deep knowledge of both transport and sustainable development, coupled with his experience advising businesses and organisations at the very highest level.”

Sam Barton new partner at Hydra

Hydra appoints private equity specialist Sam Barton

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Senior-only consultancy Hydra Strategy has appointed Sam Barton as a partner.

Barton will bring his wealth of private equity experience in advising major private investment groups, industry bodies and portfolio companies on corporate reputation, crisis communications, media strategy and investor relations to the consultancy.

He joins from specialist private equity PR firm Equus, where as a partner he led global programmes for financial and corporate clients.

Hydra offers both board-level advice and senior-only execution across all key areas of corporate communications. Since its January launch, it has worked on programmes for Choice Hotels, private equity firms Duke Street and Endless, and corporate turnaround group Buchler Phillips.

“I am delighted to be joining Hydra at such an exciting time in the company’s development,” Barton said. “The philosophy and approach is one which I believe will be extremely attractive to financial and corporate clients, and I look forward to helping Stephen and the team develop the Hydra business in the future.”

Stephen Benzikie, Hydra’s managing partner, added: “Sam is a hugely respected operator in the PE sector, so we’re very pleased to have attracted him to Hydra.

“A number of our consultants have deep experience in this space and it will remain a key focus for Hydra.”

Supercar influencer MR JWW

Opinion: It’s no accident that influencer marketing is on the rise

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Targeting niche influencers can yield far greater results than getting coverage in the mainstream press, argues supercar vlogger Mr JWW.

Successful marketing campaigns depend on getting your product or service in front of the right kind of audience – and getting true value for money to gain that exposure.

One of the issues with conventional media outlets such as newspapers, magazines or even TV is the diminishing levels of attention or care people give any kind of advert at all, followed by how over-priced they are as a result.

Adverts are intrusive by their very nature. They are forced on us and obstruct our viewing, reading or listening experiences. It’s a medium that, as consumers, we are very quickly evolving to avoid thanks to the evolution of on-demand content.

Yet the prices of conventional advertising does not reflect this.

If you think about your own actions when watching TV, you are increasingly likely to be watching on-demand so you’re highly likely to be skipping ads. Or else, you might pick up your phone to check social media until they’re over. Maybe you’re consuming on platforms like Netflix where there aren’t ads at all!

Isn’t it strange that you pay for your magazines, newspapers and satellite TV – and yet these companies still feed you adverts along with their products?

Influencers are part of a broader shift in the media

YouTube is ad-supported, so you don’t pay for it. Netflix you pay for, so you don’t get ads. This is a huge shift in the monetisation of media, and the transition over the next few years will be very interesting. But behind-the-scenes, it’s worrying for a lot of companies.

While influencers aren’t perfect, the most interesting aspect for me is the trust and value attained from their audiences.

The value of influencers is that people are actively searching for them and willingly engaging with their content because it actually interests them.

They are credible because their audience holds them accountable for their content. Their relationship with the consumer is ultra-transparent, involving direct interaction through comments and sharing on social media.

Personally, I only work with brands I believe in, with a product that seamlessly integrates into my content. This ensures my videos are valuable, relatable and entertaining for the audience, while also providing the correct awareness and exposure for the brand.

It’s time for paid media to take the back seat

The right influencers have this insanely valuable asset of audience trust, coupled with a super targeted demographic that engages with their content. Plus, because YouTube is owned by Google, their reach is qualified by real data.

The average current cost of influencer marketing is also super undervalued.

Brands still seem to be okay with putting £10,000s into a few full page colour ads in a magazine with lower monthly circulation, an audience that’s less targeted and even less engaged audience than just one single video produced by the right influencer.

Add to that picture how much cheaper it is to produce a top quality piece of influencer content and, for me, it’s a no brainer. I see this every single day dealing with brands and I’m still baffled by their 2005 ideas about marketing in 2017.

Rooster PR wins St. Kitts tourism brief

Rooster PR wins St Kitts tourism brief

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The St Kitts Tourism Authority has appointed Rooster PR to manage its press office and implement creative campaigns after a competitive pitch.

Rooster is tasked with raising awareness of the Caribbean island as a tourist destination in the UK market and will handle all press enquiries.

The agency will also create a PR plan and assume responsibility for co-ordinating press trips, issue management and news generation, as well as boosting awareness by implementing several creative campaigns.

Racquel Brown, CEO of the St Kitts Tourism Authority, said: “We were impressed by the creativity and market knowledge demonstrated in Rooster’s proposal and are excited to see their imaginative campaigns implemented in the coming months.”

Rooster’s managing director, James Brooke, added: “We’re excited to have been appointed by the St Kitts Tourism Authority to promote their stunning island to the UK market. Our plans not only draw on our extensive travel industry experience but also utilise the team’s creative expertise through a series of high impact campaigns.”

Rooster began work on the account on 1 August.

Jonathan Sanchez, Grayling

Grayling targets consumer brands growth with major new hire

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Grayling has hired British PR industry veteran Jonathan Sanchez as its creative and strategic director for continental Europe.

Sanchez will be based in Germany, where Grayling sees the most significant consumer brands opportunities emerging in the coming years.

With more than 20 years’ experience across Europe, Asia and America, Sanchez has held leadership roles at Euro RSCG, JWT Worldwide, Havas and Edelman.

He has also been a board member at global tech companies, held leadership roles in FMCG businesses, including Unilever and is a specialist in sustainability communications.

Sanchez will report to Jan Simunek, CEO of Grayling Continental Europe, and Frank Schönrock, CEO of Grayling Germany.

Sanchez said: “I am very excited to come to Germany to carve out a new role and have the chance to be at the forefront of change and growth in Europe during these interesting times.

“I’m passionate about winning business with powerful ideas that can start movements, be a force for good or simply help raise the profile of those that choose to work with us.”

Jan Simunek, CEO of Grayling Continental Europe, added: “Jonathan will lead the creative potential of Grayling into a new dimension and strengthen our strategic offer to multi-country clients across all sectors and disciplines.

“He has worked in a number of impressive senior communication and creative roles both in agencies and inside big corporations across the globe. I am convinced that we and our clients will benefit from his broad international experience.”

60 Seconds with Speed Communications’ Kelly Pepworth

60 Seconds with Speed Communications’ Kelly Pepworth

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Kelly Pepworth, managing director at Speed Communications, talks about her PRCA award nomination, life outside the “London bubble” and her proudest achievement to date.

Kelly Pepworth, Speed Communications

Kelly Pepworth

Congratulations on Speed Communications’ nomination for Medium Agency of the Year at the PRCA National Awards. What would an award like this mean for the agency?

Awards like these recognise the standing of the agency on a national stage, in terms of the calibre of the team, the creativity and the campaign excellence. Our growth reflects our commercial focus and the fact that our clients want to do more and more with us.

We’re up against some of the country’s top agencies in the PRCA awards and there’s set to be a huge amount of talent in the room on 7 November.

You also happen to be chair of the PRCA in the south west. In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges and opportunities for firms in the region?

With thriving sectors such as financial and professional services, food and drink, tech and manufacturing, the south west is a fantastic place for creative communication agencies.

It’s also an increasingly popular choice for highly skilled and creative people from across the UK who want to live in a great cultural city and work with dynamic national and international brands. We have seen a wave of talent migrating from London and other major cities as a result of this.

The PR and marketing industry itself is flourishing in the region, from start-ups and specialist independents to in-house teams and a burgeoning freelance market.

Speed Communications is itself based in Bristol. How has being outside the “London bubble” affected the business?

Being Bristol-based has many advantages but we really do see ourselves as geographically neutral. We go where our clients are and they’re located all around the country, and across the world.

The team are constantly zipping around the UK to meet journalists, influencers and clients, or attend events. Mobile working and technology means you can log on anywhere now.

Having a Bristol base does also offer us the flexibility in that overheads are lower than if we were in central London. But I’m a firm believer that a client should chose an agency based on the team chemistry, culture, creativity and ability to deliver – not because they’re based in a particular place.

The PR agency has changed dramatically since you began your career 20 years ago. But what would you say are the biggest challenges facing communicators today? And how can they be overcome?

The sheer volume of data and information available to us is both a blessing if you work in comms and also a massive challenge. I saw a stat recently that within two hours of waking we see and hear roughly 350 pieces of content.

Every day we’re bombarded with news, reports, data, insight and opinion. It comes through so many channels – the mainstream media, internet, social media, the list goes on. But this near limitless information can almost be overwhelming if we don’t take the time to digest it, connect the dots and consider how we can use it to deliver something meaningful.

As an industry we need to recognise the need to carve out time to allow for digestion, thought and processing, which in turn will inform greater creativity and consultancy for our clients.

What would you say is the biggest achievement of your career to date, and why?

I feel most proud when I look around and see the 50-strong award-winning agency that we’ve built and see the calibre, enthusiasm and talent of all the people around me.

The team here have come from all kinds of backgrounds and career paths – from journalists, to film makers, from arts grads to science bods – but collectively they make something very special. The skills and experience they bring to the table never ceases to amaze me and I’m continuing to learn from them every day.

As someone who’s forged a career in PR outside of London, what advice would you give something considering leaving the Big Smoke for somewhere more peaceful?

As it happens, peaceful isn’t a word that I’d use to describe Bristol!

Instead I’d say creative, buzzy, exciting, culturally diverse. Even though most of my career has been in Bristol, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with clients all over the world and spent vast amounts of time in London.

My advice would be not to judge an agency by its location rather assess the calibre of an agency by its culture, experience, clients and leadership team. It may surprise you.

Justin Griffiths, Powerscourt

Powerscourt appoints two new partners

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Powerscourt has promoted Justin Griffiths and Peter Ogden as partners, to help the consultancy execute its ambitious growth strategy.

Peter Ogden, Powerscourt

Peter Ogden

Griffiths joined Powerscourt from Citigate Dewe Rogerson in 2012 and has overseen a period of substantial growth for the financial services and real estate team.

The team has recently won key clients including Bank of Cyprus, Cairn Homes, McCarthy & Stone, Piraeus Bank and Towergate. It also advised on transactions including the Nets IPO and Tatton Asset Management’s AIM admission.

Ogden joined the agency from Maitland in 2015, taking over its industrials and energy team, which manages clients including Airbus, BP, Capita, CRH, DCC, Nordgold and Volvo.

The team advised DONG Energy on its £11 bn IPO, Europe’s largest IPO in 2016, as well as Amec Foster Wheeler during its acquisition by Wood Group.

Rory Godson, Powerscourt’s CEO and founder, said: “Justin and Peter have played a key part in strengthening our specialist sectoral knowledge and providing a relentless focus on first class service.

“Their expertise will be crucial in continuing to protect the reputation of clients in an ever more complex economic and political environment.”

  • Pictured: Justin Griffiths

The Register: We are on the side of our readers, we’re not flag wavers

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Drew Cullen, The Register’s editor-in-chief, talked about the title’s unique positioning, why it values integrity and how it works with PRs at today’s Cision media briefing.

Joined by senior reporter Kathleen Hall, he outlined how its teams in London, San Francisco and Sydney collaborate to provide rolling coverage to an audience of 9 million unique monthly users.

With a readership consisting primarily of IT professionals, The Register has earned cult status for its dry, irreverent take on the latest tech news.

In conversation with Philip Smith, Cision’s head of content marketing and comms, Cullen and Hall outlined what this means for PRs looking to work with the brand.

The Register values its journalistic integrity

Cullen said The Register values its integrity above all else. It’s great for everyone when you can cover a breaking tech story early. But he believes his reporters owe it to their readers to cut through the marketing jargon and investigate things properly.

“We are on the side of the readers,” he explained. “If you just take the tech and say, ‘isn’t that wonderful’ you are doing a disservice to your readers. And if you do a disservice to your readers then you lose them.”

Hall added: “If you write informed, critical things, then you don’t necessarily get the access that other people do. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.”

You need to know who covers your beat

When pitching to the publication, it’s important to know who covers your beat – whether the story is about AI, the Internet of Things or anything else. Cullen recommended using the Gorkana media database to find the best journalist to contact.

Cullen added: “We try and cover emergent technologies. It’s very easy to sneer at this. But we try and cover everything with a critical eye, without sneering.”

“Our country editors select the stories of the day. We inoculate them from marketing pressures,” he continued. “The stories they choose are selected on the basis of what they think are the most interesting or what’s the most important. And that’s the way it should be.”

Good stories aren’t necessarily exclusives

Hall said being in a position to break exclusives is one of the best things about the job, but the title isn’t just looking for exclusivity. It’s also interested in announcements under embargo and interview opportunities.

“It doesn’t have to be an exclusive, but don’t send someone to a conference and then come to us the next morning and tell us you have a story,” Cullen explained. “If you have got something to announce, let us know. Don’t come to us the next day.”

He added that if you call with a last minute interview opportunity, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to travel far to meet you. If you want the coverage, you should make things as easy as possible for their reporters.

Give the team access as early as possible

As with any media outlet, getting great coverage requires building great relationships. Cullen said the team respects embargoes but wants to be told about news in advance so they can cover it quickly.

Hall added that meeting PRs for coffee can be great for building relationship, even without the expectation of breaking a story.

“It’s always nice to get out of the office if it’s good content,” she explained. “It depends on the relevance. We get so many pitches where you can see that this person have never read The Register before.”

Mercieca wins Fairmont Hotels & Resorts

Mercieca wins Fairmont Hotels & Resorts brief

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Mercieca has won a competitive pitch to deliver the Fairmont Hotels & Resorts activation at London Cocktail Week, the world’s biggest cocktail festival.

The agency has been briefed to create an eye-catching stand and integrated activation programme to create awareness of Fairmont’s hotel bars, positioning them as authorities in hospitality cocktails.

The campaign will introduce Fairmont “tastemakers” Erik Lorincz, Nader Chabaane and Grant Sceney and their brand new cocktail menu – inspired by six of the chain’s finest bars around the world.

“Mercieca was shortlisted because of the work we’ve seen it deliver for the Tia Maria + Coffee Project,” said Ralitza Iordanova, AccorHotel’s director, global partnerships, luxury brands. “We’re really excited to be working with the team to deliver integrated solutions – starting with London Cocktail Week!”

Gemma Oakes, director at Mercieca, added: “We’re really thrilled to be working with the team at Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. Our creative and production teams have delivered a stunning pop-up experience, and we’re looking forward to hosting media and influencers across the next few days.”

London Cocktail Week runs from 2-8 October.

  • Pictured: Erik Lorincz