The Gorkana Weekly Industry News Brief: 20 to 26 February 2016
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
Samsung School of Rugby
Samsung Electronics UK has handed a PR brief to M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment to work across key sporting campaigns, including a revival of the Samsung School of Rugby campaign featuring Jack Whitehall.
Clear Channel International (CCI), an outdoor advertising company and media owner, has reappointed FleishmanHillard Fishburn as its retained comms agency, following a five-way pitch.
Independent family-owned distiller William Grant & Sons has brought in Splendid Communications as the global consumer PR agency for its Hendrick’s gin and The Balvenie whisky brands, following a competitive pitch. The agency also named iProspect Enterprise’s Gavin Taylor as head of performance.
Brexit campaign group Vote Leave has briefed five agencies to handle its regional PR across England.
Paralympian swimmer Ellie Simmonds
Marriott International has chosen Bacchus as the UK consumer and trade PR agency for five of its luxury lifestyle brands.
Channel 4 has handed two PR campaign briefs to sports PR agency Pitch PR to promote its Formula 1 and 2016 Paralympics coverage.
People News
Rebecca Grant
BMG, the world’s fourth biggest music publisher, has appointed music industry veteran Steve Redmond to run its worldwide comms activity.
Cohn & Wolfe has promoted its UK consumer marketing MD, Rebecca Grant, to head up the London-based WPP-owned agency as UK MD.
Tulchan Communications has named six partners, including Morgan Stanley’s Doug Campbell and Severn Trent’s David Lloyd-Seed, as it makes a number of appointments across the business.
David Andrews
Interiors company Graham and Green has brought in Cox & Cox’s Kate Vincent as PR and social media manager.
B2B agency Gravity London has hired David Andrews, founder of financial services PR boutique David Andrews Media, on a retained basis to build its financial division.
Agency News
FWD Group has been acquired by two of its existing directors, Gug Kyriacou and Elliot Lane, from founder Michael Gaughan, who remains as a consultant with the business. The details of the transaction haven’t been disclosed.
Simon Francis
Good Relations has launched a new broadcast consultancy, Good Broadcast, and brought in Sound Creative’s Phil Caplin to lead the new offer.
Former Claremont director Simon Francis has launched Campaign Collective, a social enterprise to provide charities and not-for-profit organisations with affordable comms support.
Creative comms group Beattie is to create 30 new jobs across its UK office network, as part of its 30th birthday celebrations.
Manifest London is providing pro bono PR support for CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably), a charity dedicated to preventing male suicide, around its 10th anniversary this year.
News Analysis
Brexit debate calls for clearer comms
The Brexit debate in the UK is gaining momentum now David Cameron has announc
ed the referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. But, while politicians, economists and business leaders have aired views from different sides of the debate, more detail will be needed if rival factions want to mount convincing arguments, according to opinion-formers at the Daily Mail, the FT and the Press Association.
MWC 2016: three key PR takeaways
A record turnout of more than 100,000 attendees and around 4,000 businesses exhibiting across the four days of Mobile World Congress (MWC) made headlines for brands like Samsung and HTC and others in the consumer tech industry, but what were the main PR lessons this year?
Awards
Instinctif Partners, Schroders, FTI Consulting and Lansons were among the big winners at last night’s inaugural PRCA City and Financial Awards 2016.
Journalist News
The Economist Group is set to rebrand its culture and lifestyle magazine Intelligent Life as 1843, and has appointed Emma Duncan as its editor. 1843 will have expanded content and sections on culture, technology, style and design, food and drink, travel, and body and mind.
Prashant Rao has been appointed deputy European business editor at The New York Times. He was previously news desk editor at Agence France-Presse.
Natalie Cornish has been named online editor for The Sun on Sunday‘s Fabulous magazine. Beth Allcock, a reporter for The Wharf, has also been appointed digital showbiz journalist at The Sun.
Peter Ruddick, associate producer for CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe, has joined BBC Breakfast as a broadcast journalist.
John Crowley has been named editor-in-chief of International Business Times UK. He is currently digital editor EMEA at The Wall Street Journal and starts his new role on 29 March.
The Daily Telegraph’s former online city editor, Martin Strydom has joined The Times as digital business editor.
Bloomberg’s Michael Moore has been appointed team leader for UK Finance at Bloomberg News.
Features
Gorkana meets…The Sun Travel
Matt Hampton, deputy travel editor at The Sun, in an exclusive media briefing with Gorkana this week, opened up on the challenges of creating the diverse mix of content featured in the section, the “dream” destinations for Sun readers in 2016 and how PRs can get involved.
Case Study: Celebrating 60 years of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award
When Stand Agency was briefed to celebrate the Diamond Anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and launch its new Diamond Challenge, the agency enlisted a host of celebrities, including Davina McCall and Arlene Phillips, to climb the equivalent of Ben Nevis in London’s Covent Garden. The results? A 163% increase in sign-ups for the new DofE Diamond Challenge.
60 seconds with RGC Partners’ Richard Griffiths
Richard Griffiths, outgoing director of European comms at ebay’s StubHub and founder of RGC Partners, on how his move from journalism into comms felt like “coming home”, the heightened profile of PR, and getting clients to address uncomfortable truths.
Gorkana meets…ABTA Magazine
Jo Fletcher-Cross, editor of APL Media’s ABTA stable, on the titles’ broad trade and consumer reach, wanting PRs to fuel ABTA‘s “culture content” and her second life as a playwright.
Behind the Headlines with Alfred’s Gemma Pears
Gemma Pears, co-founder of PR firm Alfred, on the infectious buzz that only people who work in PR will understand, the fear of her first pitch to a journalist and where she likes to get consumer insight on brands.
