Jay Baer reviews the Cision Communications Cloud

Marketing expert Jay Baer reviews the Cision Communications Cloud

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Jay Baer, a New York Times best-selling author and product marketing expert, recently reviewed the Cision Communications Cloud (TM) on his popular technology show Marketing Marvels.

Joined by James Rubec, Cision product marketing manager, Baer took an in-depth look at the platforms unrivalled influencer outreach, press release distribution and earned media measurement capabilities.

He said: “It really does take a whole bunch of different things that marketers and communicators need to do on a daily basis and put it into one package.”

“It is remarkable how nicely these different tools inter-operate within the Cision Comms Cloud,” he added. “It is, in fact, a marketing marvel.”

Click here to discover more about the Cision Comms Cloud or watch the full video below.

Liam Parker joins Pagefield

Former Boris Johnson special advisor joins Pagefield

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Reputation management specialist Pagefield has appointed Liam Parker, Boris Johnson’s former special advisor and director of political communications, as partner at the firm.

Parker joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in September 2016, where he was responsible for political communications and strategy of the foreign secretary, with direct oversight of all communications output from the department.

Parker previously worked as the head of press to Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England and as the official spokesperson to the deputy governor, Andrew Bailey.

Before joining the Bank of England, he spent two years as chief press officer and official spokesman for the CEO of the Financial Services Authority. He has also been the official spokesperson for the chief secretary to the Treasury and Exchequer secretary.

“We are delighted to welcome Liam to Pagefield,” said Oliver Foster, Pagefield’s chief executive. “His experience working for two of the most recognisable and influential figures in the world of politics and finance means he is a strong addition to our senior team and is someone who can deliver unique insight and counsel to our clients.”

Parker added: “I’m really excited to be joining Pagefield. It’s an excellent, growing agency with an impressive reputation and client roster.”

Parker is the latest in a series of senior appointments at Pagefield, including Dr Gerard Lyons, Debbie Wosskow and Sian Jarvis as senior advisors.

Headland wins Lidl

Headland wins Lidl UK brief

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Lidl UK has appointed Headland for a wide-ranging brief spanning public affairs, senior communications advice, press office support and corporate and financial PR.

Led by partners Simon Burton and Lucy Legh, the Headland team will work directly with Lidl’s in-house communications team to advise it on a corporate comms strategy for 2018 and beyond.

Burton has previously held a number of senior comms roles at Tesco and has more than 20 years’ experience in reputation management and corporate affairs.

Legh leads Headland’s financial PR offering. She joined the firm in 2016 from Tulchan, where she specialised in retail and consumer facing brands.

Burton said: “We’re delighted that Lidl have chosen to appoint Headland. Lidl has taken the UK grocery market by storm and, as the brand moves to become a major player, we’re excited to be part of that journey.”

InStyle

InStyle: We’ll help you give your stories that exclusive twist

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“I think we’re the only magazine brand that’s doing digital really, really well,” Charlotte Moore, InStyle’s editor-in-chief, told a packed room of comms professionals at Weber Shandwick’s London office this morning.

Joined by Josh Newis-Smith, digital fashion and celebrity director, and Chloe Mac Donnell, digital fashion features director, she revealed how PRs can partner with the title to create great viral content.

To help you reach InStyle’s audience of young, urban women – here are the key takeaways from this exclusive Cision media briefing.

InStyle loves fashion and celebrity exclusives

Newis-Smith picked out Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski as two celebrities who drive loads of traffic to the website. But he said it will consider working with anyone who can provide great content.

“We’ve done everyone from Bella Hadid to Tamara Ecclestone,” he explained. “I don’t necessarily think that you’d think she was someone we would work with, but it just depends on how exclusive the content is.”

“We shot Selena Gomez for the magazine when we still had a magazine, so we’ve got this bank of images that no one else has of her,” added Mac Donnell. “Whenever we put one of those up on Instagram, it goes crazy!”

The best pieces also have a unique InStyle twist

“We won’t just take everything and anything, in terms of video,” Newis-Smith said. “We need to work together to give it that exclusive twist.”

He explained that the content which performs best on the site generally has a unique InStyle twist. Taking a more generic approach doesn’t generate a buzz online, because everyone produces content like that.

“For instance, when we did Zara Larsson I got her to sing songs to me in Swedish and I had to guess what they were,” he added. “That’s a good twist, and that got 1.2 million views on YouTube!”

InStyle caters for a modern digital audience

Speaking about what sorts of content the title likes to publish, Moore described the typical InStyle reader as a young woman who lives in the city and generally uses her mobile phone to engage with digital content.

“Fashion really is the thing that gets her excited, but there are lots of other things she needs in her life,” she explained. “You know, like a great foundation.”

She continued: “Because it’s so much about style and fashion, those stories do really well with a London audience. That’s just a fact.”

“People used to wake up and look at the morning papers. Now, my Instagram feed has become the morning paper,” Newis-Smith added. “Even as someone who used to work at a magazine, I don’t buy magazines anymore.”

The team loves working with PRs

Working with PRs is incredibly important to InStyle. Moore explained that she specifically chose journalists with great PR relationships when assembling the digital team.

Mac Donnell continued: “Building relationships is really great. You can explain to people better what the site’s about and what you need from them.”

“I think the pace has changed, going from a monthly to a daily slash hourly title,” she added. “I used to go to lots of breakfast meetings and meet people in the mornings, but now we tend to do that either in the afternoons or evenings.”

Wonderland Communications wins Heinz

Wonderland Communications wins Kraft Heinz UK brief

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Kraft Heinz, the world’s fifth-largest food and beverage company, has awarded 18-month-old Wonderland Communications a place on its UK roster following a six-way pitch.

The Bristol-based agency’s work will begin this month with a three-month project celebrating Heinz Beanz through a national and regional PR and comms programme.

“From the six agencies we saw, it was clear to us that the team at Wonderland had pulled together a pitch perfect strategy to meet the Heinz Beanz brief,” said Nigel Dickie, director of corporate and government affairs at Kraft Heinz. “They are clearly passionate about helping us create love and celebration for Beanz.”

Alison Weir, Wonderland’s founder, added: “We’re over the moon to be working with the team at Kraft Heinz, home to some of the most loved and trusted brands that have become grocery essentials across the nation.

“Without revealing too much about what we’ll be up to in the coming months, the Heinz Beanz brief couldn’t be a more perfect fit for Wonderland.”

Hudson Sandler

Hudson Sandler appoints Rebecca Gudgeon as board director

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Hudson Sandler has appointed Rebecca Gudgeon as a board director to help develop its strategic corporate communications practice.

Gudgeon has been providing board council on all elements of strategic communications across sectors including financial services, FMCG, construction, healthcare, consumer and the public sector for the past 20 years.

She joins Hudson Sandler after 16 years with Grayling, where she has been director of corporate reputation and issues management since 2011.

Rebecca was also previously managing director of Grayling’s corporate team and has held senior PR roles at Egg, MSL Group, Ogilvy PR and the Prudential Group.

Her past clients include the Government of Kenya, seafood producer Thai Union, civil engineering firm Sir Robert McAlpine, Unilever and The Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

“Rebecca is one of London’s most experienced and respected corporate communications practitioners who, most importantly, shares our values,” said Andrew Hayes, Hudson Sandler managing partner. “We are delighted that she has decided to join us as we continue to build London’s leading specialist strategic communications franchise.”

Gudgeon added: “I am delighted to be joining the Hudson Sandler team.  Their partnership is unique in combining a truly collaborative structure and culture, a fantastic blue chip client franchise and a long term partnership DNA.”

Frank becomes first UK PR agency to accept Bitcoin payments

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Frank has announced today that it will become the first UK PR agency to accept payment for its services in Bitcoin, the virtual currency. 

The agency expects its move to prompt other agencies to accept cryptocurrency payments, making it easier and more convenient for clients to conduct business.

“We have started to take on and get a lot of interest from clients in and around the fintech sector,” explained Graham Goodkind, Frank CEO and founder. “We therefore felt it was appropriate that we started to offer a choice of methods of payment to include Bitcoin.

“In the near future, we also expect that some of our suppliers, and who knows maybe even our staff, will request payment in Bitcoin too.”

He added: “I think one of the main advantages for accepting Bitcoin for a marketing services business such as ours is its positive effect on cashflow.  Because of the volatility of Bitcoin, payment needs to happen practically immediately upon the invoice being issued.  That considerably helps operations.”

Bitcoin will be accepted at Frank’s offices in London, Manchester, Glasgow and Sydney, Australia.

Yellow Jersey PR

Trio of appointments at Yellow Jersey

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Yellow Jersey has appointed Georgia Colkin as its first associate director, operating out of its financial PR division and across a handful of key clients.

Abs Hassanali and Henry Wilkinson have also joined the agency as a corporate PR account manager and junior account executive respectively.

Colkin has held roles at Citigate Dewe Rogerson and Barabino & Partners, where she advised across sectors including retail, energy, financial and professional services.  Her previous clients include the British Chambers of Commerce, Associated British Foods, Investec Wealth & Investment and the John Lewis Partnership.

Hassanali has worked at Citigate Dewe Rogerson as well as Montpellier, leading its FinTech and FinServe divisional teams across high-profile clients including Honda and SAAB.

Wilkinson joins the team following a successful 2016 internship. He studied French and International Management at Bath University.

Dominic Barretto, Yellow Jersey CEO, said: “In a mere four years since our first hire, we have developed an 18-strong team and diverse set of services that can rival any PR agency offering. We stick closely to our truths – namely to inspire our team and deliver high quality services to our clients.”

  • Pictured: The Yellow Jersey team, including Georgia Colkin (right), Henry Wilkinson (third from right) and Abs Hassanali (fourth from right)
Campaign Collective

Campaign Collective wins Tomorrow’s Engineers Week brief

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Campaign Collective, a social enterprise providing comms advice to not-for-profit organisations and campaigners, has been appointed to support the fifth Tomorrow’s Engineers Week following a competitive pitch.

The agency will handle social media content, media relations and PR and events support for the week, which will run from 6-10 November.

It is also responsible for delivering a toolkit of ideas to help employers, professional bodies, universities, schools and individuals to take part in it.

EngineeringUK is leading the partnership that will deliver Tomorrow’s Engineers Week as it shows young people how they can turn their ideas, passions and dreams into engineering careers.

“Our members have a long track record of working on skills campaigns and have long felt that the lifesaving and game changing work of engineers has been under-represented in campaigns,” said Simon Francis, founder member of Campaign Collective. “Tomorrow’s Engineers Week 2017 is a chance to put this right.”

Beth Elgood, director of communications at EngineeringUK, added: “Over 300 employers and professional bodies from across the engineering community have been invited to join universities, schools and individuals in this week-long drive to inspire the next generation of engineers.

“Campaign Collective will bring plenty of experience and creativity to the week.”

To get involved with Tomorrow’s Engineers Week, visit its website and download the ideas toolkit.

  • Pictured: A young engineer from EngineeringUK’s ‘From Idea To Career’ guide

George Osborne: Journalism is a lot more fun than politics

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Former Chancellor George Osborne this week talked at an exclusive London Press Club event sponsored by Cision about his new job as editor of the London Evening Standard, his thoughts on Brexit and the changing worlds of politics and media.

The Q&A with broadcast journalist Andrew Marr – who is a former editor of The Independent – began with the unlikeliest opening: “George is a very, very irritating man to those of us who are proper journalists.”

Marr immediately went on to acknowledge he and journalists like him expected Osborne’s move from politics in the House of Commons to working with the Evening Standard’s back bench as editor of the London daily to be a “disaster”.

“It is very, very irritating – he hasn’t made a hash of it,” Marr quipped, as he introduced the former Chancellor of the Exchequer to a packed and engaged audience at the Corinthia Hotel London.

George Osborne in conversation with Andrew Marr, by The Evening Standard’s Lucy Young

In fact, it’s clear that four months in, Osborne is relishing his role as editor of the London newspaper. In a wide-ranging conversation, prompted by Marr and some lively members of the audience, Osborne talked about accusations of editorial bias, leader-writing, the differences (and similarities) between political life and journalism, Brexit and his regrets over the European referendum campaign.

Highlights from the Q&A:

Osborne says he is not feeling schadenfreude about Theresa May and the Tory Party

“That’s a very complicated German word that I don’t know,” he joked when Marr put it to him.

While admitting that he wrote some of the paper’s leaders, which often are critical of the government, he said: “The paper should speak to its readers and should speak to the interests of London.”

He added: “I think I am reflecting the concerns that the readers have about the government. By the way, we are pretty harsh on Jeremy Corbyn – and I can tell you we get more reader complaints about us being anti-Labour, rather than being anti-Conservative or Theresa May.”

Osborne believes working in the modern media means you are as accountable as those in any other part of public life

“If we get a fact wrong, we will know within minutes through social media,” Osborne said. “We’re operating like politicians are, like other people in civic society – like civil servants, like people in business – in a world which is shaping our society and taking collective decisions.”

Osborne’s political experiences give him a different take on the role of editor

“I have my experience in government and that enables me to look at some of the things that politicians say, and say, ‘Hold on, I know exactly what’s going on there, and that is not the case,’” he explained.

Journalism is more enjoyable than politics

“Yeah, it’s a lot more fun actually,” Osborne admitted. “Collectively, editors and journalists have kept secret from the world of politicians just how much fun it is to edit a newspaper, and I guess put together television programmes. I’m enjoying it a lot.”

George Osborne sparring with the audience at this Cision-sponsored event, by Lucy Young, The Evening Standard

  • All pictures by Lucy Young, Evening Standard