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The London-based consultancy will drive awareness of LGB & Co’s corporate finance and investment capabilities as it looks to broaden its corporate client relationships and attract an increasingly institutional investor base.
Compliance technology and data analytics firm SteelEye has briefed Morgan Rossiter to support the launch of its platform and drive its strategic expansion plan as it seeks to increase its presence in the UK and Europe.
Richard Morgan Evans, Morgan Rossiter co-founder and managing director, will lead both accounts.
Evans said: “Both firms are innovators in their sectors – LGB with a new approach to debt financing for SMEs and SteelEye with a secure platform to help companies meet their regulatory obligations under MiFID II and other key regulatory directives. We are delighted to be able to play a role in helping to accelerate their growth.”
Buchanan has helped DP Eurasia, the master franchisee of the Domino’s Pizza brand in Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, to list in London.
The financial PR agency provided communications support as the company joined the main market of the London Stock Exchange last month.
DP Eurasia, which was founded in Istanbul in 1996, is now the largest pizza delivery company in Turkey and third largest in Russia.
The IPO will provide a platform for the group to execute its strategy for future growth, primarily focusing on innovation and online ordering, and the expansion of its store network, particularly the planned roll-out of corporate stores in Russia.
Here is a round-up of the essential PR stories, account and pitch wins and people news that has been announced over the last week.
Account wins
Diffusion has been selected by business intelligence group Informa as its retained PR agency in the UK for its Ovum, Agribusiness Intelligence and Pharma Intelligence brands.
Discovery Communications has appointed Ketchum as its agency of record for sports to help drive the company’s Eurosport business across key European markets.
Practical Inspiration Publishing, the imprint Alison Jones launched in 2014, has appointed Bookollective as its retained agency to publicise its full publishing list.
Corporate brand agency Milk & Honey PR has been appointed by yourfeed CEO Jack Parsons to bolster his mission to help young Brits find job opportunities.
Manchester-based digital specialist UNRVLD has selected Refresh PR to implement its online PR strategy and event management.
Energy PR has been appointed by Wow! Stuff to support the launch of the company’s new Star Wars and Despicable Me 3 products.
Global affiliate marketing network Awin has made a strategic investment in influencer marketing platform Tailify, to foster commercial collaboration and expand influencer reach for its partners.
Midlands PR and digital firm WPR Agency took home three awards, including Large Consultancy of the Year, at this week’s PRCA Dare Awards at Edgbaston Cricket Ground.
CubanEight was named Small Consultancy of the Year at this week’s PRCA Dare Awards ceremony in Birmingham.
Identifying influencers with a real connection to your cause is essential for running successful PR campaigns, says Katie Malark, Allison+Partners’ senior research director.
Katie Malark
In our latest Influence Impact Report, Allison+Partners looked at the intersection between cause and influencer marketing.
The biggest takeaway for PR professionals trying to drive donations, awareness or engagement for their cause? Take the time to find influencers who have a real connection to your cause or issue.
This may seem like common sense. But all too often influencers are selected because of their reach alone. It’s easy to be seduced by a vision of millions of eager followers seeing your message. However, this ignores a critical reality of modern audiences. If the message your influencer is passing along isn’t authentic, the audience won’t trust it – and they certainly won’t act on it.
It pays to choose the right influencers
When we surveyed individuals who follow digital influencers, 63% said they were extremely, or somewhat likely, to have more trust in an influencer’s recommendation for a cause if that influencer personally volunteers with the organisation. Similarly, 60% said they were likely to trust a recommendation if the influencer is personally impacted by the cause or issue in question.
These authentic connections to a cause build invaluable trust in an influencer’s recommendation, which in turn drives real action.
More than a third of digital influencer followers report engaging with a nonprofit due to an influencer recommendation. Of these, 52% shared awareness about the cause, 51% made a financial donation and 37% went out and volunteered. These results illustrate the measurable, real-world impact an influencer can bring when they have an authentic and powerful connection to a cause.
Audiences respond to authenticity, not reach
To see this authentic connection at work, look no further than the AdCouncil’s brilliant PSA about online bullying, #IAmAWitness.
The AdCouncil worked with influential YouTubers who read aloud the hurtful, bullying comments leveled at them. Hearing influencers they admire like Brittani Louise Taylor and Amanda Steele share their own real experiences with bullying created a powerful connection with the target audience of 11 to 17-year-olds, and drove massive engagement and action.
The campaign generated more than 30 million video views and won a 2016 Cannes Lions Award. Most importantly, the ‘I Am A Witness’ emoji, which teens were encouraged to use to stop online bullying, was shared more than 190,000 times.
Tapping into influencers who had a genuine connection to this cause left audiences with no doubt about the authenticity of the call to action, which is what made the campaign so effective.
Identifying the right influencer for a cause campaign means so much more than looking at reach. By taking the time to find influencers who have authentic connections to your mission, you can drive results far beyond readers simply hitting the “Like” button, and inspire your audience to get engaged and support your cause.
Established in 1998 by ex-bartenders Steve Locke, Leigh Miller and Rhys Oldfield, Be At One has grown from a single site in Battersea to cover more than 30 sites throughout the UK.
FSC, a specialist consultancy in the leisure, hospitality, food & drink sectors, was awarded the brief following its appointment earlier this year to coordinate trade and corporate communications for the company.
The consumer PR programme has been developed to raise the company’s profile on a national scale.
Locke, a Be At One director, said: “Extending our relationship with FSC feels like a natural progression as their team becomes more immersed with our own. They understand our business and share our goals. The consumer PR programme is a perfect fit and we’re very excited by the new approach.”
Mark Stretton, managing director at Fleet Street Communications, added: “Be At One is a fantastic, unique and forward-thinking business that truly delivers on quality drinking experiences, has a rich and fun story to tell, and embraces and builds cocktail culture on both a regional and national basis.”
The future for women in PR will be getting paid the same as men doing the same job and having gender balance in the boardroom, writes Angela Oakes of Global Women in PR.
Angela Oakes
But we’re a long way off this future. In the present, the global global gender pay gap in PR was £12,600, with men earning on average 19% more than women, according to our Global Women in PR 2016 survey.
Only 16% of senior roles on agency boards and in-house communications directorships are held by women – despite the global PR industry being two-thirds female.
The industry is losing droves of talented women at mid-career level. This has to change, and in this piece I’ll explain why and how.
But first, allow me to plug our GWPR 2017 survey. Please complete it, to help us to see what changes the industry is making. We need men to complete it too.
The industry needs to understand that there’s a commercial imperative to achieving gender equality, as well as a moral imperative.
This view was articulated by Karen Khan, the chief communications officer at HP, who was one of the speakers at a panel debate we hosted at Cannes Lions last month on flexible working.
HP has set targets for its agencies to increase women in leadership positions. If they don’t meet these targets their fees are reduced. The client is smart enough to know that diverse agency teams are going to produce the best results.
Prime, the agency that has won more Gold Lions than any other PR agency, has a diverse, equal and open culture, supported by Sweden’s generous parental leave. This was highlighted by another of the speakers, Prime senior partner Charlotte Witte, who said it had proved invaluable for enabling creative ideas to flourish.
Pictured above: Charlotte Witte speaking at GWPR’s Cannes Lions session
How to get to equality
To move towards equality, the industry needs to help women balance work and childcare, by championing job sharing, remote working, and flexible hours.
We need to train women on leadership and commercial skills and empower them with mentoring from senior women who have managed to break through the glass ceiling.
Gender pay gaps should be brought into the light, with all businesses required to publish male and female salary figures.
Francis Ingham, director general of the PRCA and chief executive of ICCO, has previously said: “If PR is to achieve its full potential, then the global gender pay gap must be closed. It’s that simple.”
GWPR is an organisation for senior women in PR made up of networking groups around the world, offering cross-border support, information on best practice and networking events, with the aim of creating a global community.
Learn more about us and our mission in this interview with my co-founder Susan Hardwick and I, conducted by Francis Ingham at the ICCO House of PR at Cannes in June.
Financial PR consultancy Tulchan has unveiled four recruits, including former Diageo director of investor relations Catherine James and former Conservative Party chairman Lord Feldman.
James has joined Tulchan’s advisory team as a senior consultant. She was responsible for Diageo’s global investor relations function from its creation in 1997 until she left the company earlier this year.
She will advise clients on the development and implementation of their investor relations programmes.
Feldman will be a senior advisor to Tulchan. He was chairman of the Conservative Party between 2010 and July 2016.
Tulchan has also hired Sanjiv Misra as senior advisor for its Asia business and Sue Clark as a non-executive director for Tulchan Communications Group Ltd.
Misra will work closely with Angela Campbell-Noë, senior partner of Tulchan Asia. He holds several other positions, including president of Phoenix Advisers Pte Ltd, a boutique advisory and principal investing firm.
Clark is CEO of SAB Miller’s European beer business as well as a non-executive director at Britvic and a member of the board of Edinburgh Business School.
Andrew Grant, senior partner at Tulchan, said: “I am very pleased that such a wise, eclectic and interesting group of people have agreed to become a part of Tulchan. They will strengthen our distinctive advisory capability in financial and corporate reputation, policy and investor relations.”
Barney Wyld, group director of corporate communications at Network Rail, is to join Rolls-Royce later this year.
The appointment follows the decision of Rolls-Royce’s director of corporate affairs Peter Morgan to leave the group after eight years.
Wyld will have the same job title as Morgan, but the role will be enhanced.
Warren East, chief executive of Rolls-Royce, said: “Realising our ambition to become a highly trusted, more resilient company will require further business transformation, alongside cultural and behavioural changes, and I am delighted to welcome Barney to help us as we continue on this journey.”
At Network Rail, Wyld is responsible for all internal and external communications, public affairs and community contact and relations. He was previously global vice-president, communications, at Unilever.
Ben Story, strategic marketing director at Rolls-Royce, added: “We have already brought Corporate Affairs together as a global function and are now incorporating Government Relations. Barney has a great track record of leading corporate affairs teams and defining and delivering communications strategies for large organisations.”
Global PR firm Grayling has hired Andrew Ferguson as a creative director.
Ferguson joins the company after five years at consumer PR agency Unity and, more recently, Ketchum.
One of Grayling’s clients is Marks & Spencer, on which Ferguson worked while he was at Unity. He will spearhead the account creatively with support from Grayling’s brand, tech and public-sector teams.
Sarah Scholefield, Grayling UK CEO, said: “Andrew’s hire represents our ambition to accelerate our creative culture at Grayling. He’s worked at very progressive agencies, such Naked, Amplify and leading fashion PR business, Purple, and we aim to benefit from his broad cultural canon – in both existing client work and in our new business endeavours.
“Beyond this, we’ve hired Andrew because we want to interrogate perceived ideas within the agency and become more challenging in the process.”
A group set up to address concerns about charity fundraising exploiting donors has published a set of six principles to help PR and communications staff.
The Commission on the Donor Experience was launched last year in the wake of a media storm about the pressures donors can face. The commission brought together a group of experts, including Simon Francis, chair of the PRCA’s charity and not-for-profit group and founder of Campaign Collective, to encourage charities to improve the donor experience.
Its recommendations and resources include the following six principles which it recommends PR staff follow:
1. Accentuate the positive
Communicate the positive impact of your work as much as the problems you address.
Specifically, work to bring project outcomes to life, particularly by using them to authentic voices and enliven your annual reporting
2. Grow the grassroots
Seek out the authentic voices of your most committed supporters and beneficiaries, and inspire them to talk freely on your behalf.
Specifically, allow, empower and encourage local evangelists to use social media on your behalf, and agree on protocols and training to engage with mass media
3. Work closely with the media
Build collaborative media partnerships that engage readers and viewers, and which offer win-wins with media and advertising supporters.
Specifically, create fundraising propositions that have the media as a partner, rather than merely as a ‘channel.’
4. Keep it personal
Communicate at a human level, across all channels, at all times.
Specifically, explain beneficiaries’ experiences as personal stories that connect with donors’ real lives, and encourage donors to tell their own stories of emotional connection.
5. Be brave
Don’t be afraid to assert a measure of moral authority – in a humble way. Don’t be afraid to lead change on behalf of your donors and beneficiaries.
Specifically, stand up for the work you do by celebrating its impact, while still acknowledging the work that remains to be done. Behave as if you were providing ‘shareholder guidance’ and quarterly forecasts.
6. Be decisive
Admit quickly when you screw up – and change things.
Specifically, take decisive actions to honour donors’ needs in terms of your behaviour – and tell people when you’ve done it.
Tim Kitchin, Copper Digital boss and former Ogilvy director, who passed away in January this year, oversaw the PR and communications element of the commission’s work.
Sir Martyn Lewis, chair of the commission, said: “Our research shows that profound change is needed and that charities need to give supporters genuine choices. It is time we stopped thinking about what not to do, and started thinking about what to do better, ensuring that donors feel really great about their giving.
“That is why the Commission is making this call to action to charities and asking them to think seriously about the promise they can make to donors.”
