The Gorkana Weekly Industry News Brief: 19 to 24 March 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
Morrisons has named Shine @ The Academy as its retained brand PR agency following a competitive pitch.
Sky Betting & Gaming, the independent online gambling platform, appointed FTI Consulting as its retained corporate comms adviser, following a competitive pitch process.
Unity was appointed by Secret Cinema to handle the launch of its nationwide show, post-apocalyptic horror film 28 Days Later.
Innis & Gunn appointed Manifest as its global comms agency following a competitive pitch, as the Edinburgh-based craft brewer embarks on expansion plans in both the UK and Canada.
HAUD, a telecoms security business, hired Tangerine to increase brand awareness and engage key influencers as part of a global brief.
Jabra, a developer of headsets and audio devices, has brought in LEWIS as lead communications agency to deliver PR services in the UK, US, France and the APAC region.
People News
Global comms agency Cohn & Wolf named Diffusion’s Tom Malcolm as its new MD of consumer marketing for the UK.
Citigate Dewe Rogerson’s Manchester office brought in Matthew Pears, formerly of marketing and PR firm SkyParlour, as an associate editor.
Independent comms agency firstlight expanded its team with six hires, including Anna Price who joins as associate director from Cohn & Wolfe’s corporate team.
Belfast-based Smarts Communicate has opened a new London office and brought in Good Relations’ Helen Rainford to head it up.
LightBrigade MD Alan Twigg joined global comms agency Way to Blue as head of consumer.
Agency News
Dean Russell, former EMEA creative strategy director at LEWIS PR, has launched epifny consulting, with Bite and the Direct Marketing Association as founding clients.
Sports PR agency Pitch launched a specialist sponsorship division, Pitch Partnerships, and brought Havas Sport & Entertainment Cake’s Gavin Peters to head up the new offer.
Hill + Knowlton Strategies (H+K) Chicago’s Jessi Langsen joined the agency’s London office to lead the Content +Publishing approach for its Healthcare sector business.
Awards
Oliver Shah of The Sunday Times and Nick Duxbury of Inside Housing were among the winners for this year’s LSL Property Press Awards.
Isabel Hardman was awarded politics journalist of the year and Paris Lees picked up comment journalist of the year at the Words By Women awards on Monday.
Journalist News
Scott Bryan is now TV editor at Buzzfeed UK, moving from his role as entertainment editor.
talkRADIO, part of the Wireless Group portfolio, was launched this week. It will cover celebrity culture, politics and special interest stories.
Laurence Mozafari joined Digital Spy as associate editor, moving from his role as digital editor at heat.
Mark Linsey was appointed director at BBC Studios after acting as director of BBC Television since October 2015 and spending more than 20 years working in TV production.
Tom Freke was appointed managing editor at Bloomberg First Word, moving from his previous role as new issues editor at First Word.
Features
In an exclusive breakfast briefing with Wireless Group’s Sport magazine and talkSPORT this week, Gorkana catches up with the Tony Hodson, editor of the print weekly, and Liam Fisher, national radio controller at the station and recently launched talkSPORT 2, to talk about relaunches, the new station and the opportunities they present for PRs.
Webinar: How the role of financial PR has grown
In an exclusive Gorkana webinar this week, Maria Darby-Walker, Citigate Dewe Rogerson director, and Tim Metcalfe, Investor Focus Communications‘ co-founder and MD, explained how the changing business world, and other factors, are evolving and expanding the role and remit of the financial PR.
Gorkana meets…passportstamps.uk
Freelance travel writer Helen Wright talks to Gorkana‘s Richard Caldecourt about launching consumer travel site passportstamps.uk, why she’s keen to showcase less well known destinations, what PRs should consider when pitching in content ideas, and the best destination she’s ever visited.
60 seconds with Tim Williamson, Cognito
Tim Willliamson, MD of Cognito‘s APAC region, on the challenges of communicating in different countries, how his journalistic ‘nosiness’ led to a career in PR and why localisation can make or break client relationships.
Behind the Headlines with Wei-UK’s Cecilia Yan
Ruojun “Cecilia” Yan, head of PR and social at Chinese speciality consumer engagement agency Wei-UK Consulting, on aligning Western and Chinese media objectives for clients, her days working 24-hour shifts as a journalist and why she loves Wei-UK’s “We Love Cake” mantra.
