PR Snippets - the Latest News

29 October 2012

New appointments

• Bell Pottinger has been appointed by Etihad Airways, weeks after the airline stopped working with Four Communications. Bell Pottinger Business & Brand’s aerospace team will provide strategic comms counsel, plus corporate and consumer PR output in the UK.

• PrettyGreen has been brought in by BBC Children in Need to launch a festival-style event, in a bid to reach new audiences. They will work on ‘Pudsey Street’, which will take over an as-yet unnamed shopping destination in central London.
  • The move forms part of wider initiatives launched this year by the charity, including a mobile app called ‘iPud’, and ‘Bearfaced’, an event that saw women sponsored not to wear make-up for the day.

• M&C Saatchi has been brought in by electronics retailing powerhouse, Dixons, as it fights to gain a stronger voice across social media.

• Blue Rubicon has been called in to lead anti-racism campaign, Kick It Out’s largest consultation into prejudice in football in the UK.

• Quintessentially has appointed Talk PR for a global tour promoting Britishness through brands.

• Pegasus has been drafted in to deliver Australian Bodycare’s first consumer PR-driven campaign.

• Portland is understood to have been appointed by ScottishPower to handle its public affairs work following a pitch process. Fleishman-Hillard formerly held the account.

• InterContinental Hotels Group has poached MHP’s Jo Vaughton for a global comms director (brands), as the hotel chain concludes a major comms and marketing review.

• Weber Shandwick has appointed Annie Marsolais, former director of corporate and marketing comms at Yellow Pages, as vice-president in Montreal.

• Former Havas board director and corporate chief, Andrew Robinson, has joined Newgate Communications to boost the agency’s international credentials. It is thought Robinson has been tasked with helping the agency to expand its international footprint.

• The PRCA has named Nelson Bostock Group chairman, Martin Bostock, as chairman of the PR Council for 2012-13.

 

Looking...

• Magners is seeking agency help for consumer and experiential work.

• Cook Islands Tourism, the tourism body for the Cook Islands, is seeking help to grow visitor numbers to the region.

Extras

• Edelman has formed the Daniel J. Edelman China Group to oversee its four units in that country: Edelman, Edelman Digital, Pegasus and Zeno Group. Pegasus president, Steven Cao, will become CEO of the division.

• Ogilvy has launched a global offering called Analyst Community Engagement to help technology firms with analyst relations.

• TLG Communications associate partner, James O’Leary, has left to launch his own consultancy, James O’Leary Communications.

• Grayling has teamed up with Bell’s whisky to create a battalion of statues in Trafalgar Square for National Heroes Day this month, in an attempt to help raise £1m.

• Barclays is expected to place its comms function at the heart of a wide-ranging review of its business, following the resignation of its top comms man, the vice-chairman for corporate affairs, Howell James.
  • The FSA levied a £290m fine on Barclays over Libor rate rigging

Public values transparency

• Research has revealed that institutional scandals have led to the public placing higher value on transparency than brand appeal.
• Commissioned by Cohn & Wolfe, the survey of 1,000 UK consumers revealed that 52% believed big businesses ‘divulge only what they need for regulatory purposes’.
• Scott Wilson, Cohn & Wolfe’s UK CEO said: ‘In today’s world of social commerce and customer relationship management, transparency is now becoming a powerful business tool’.

Luxury brands get digital

• Condé Nast has forecasted a digital revenue hike, with UK Condé Nast estimating digital to account for 30% of total revenues in 2014.
• Jamie Jouning, who became Condé Nast’s digital director in January 2010, said that digital has become increasingly accepted as a suitable advertising platform among luxury brands:

‘digital of two years ago was a bit of a scary place for many of our luxury advertisers...There was some fear about damage to their brand and integrity...Now, most advertisers in our print magazines want a digital conversation as well, and they are beginning to spend sizable amounts of money’.

 

 PR Week Awards – PR Week quotes

 

PR Professional of the Year: Jackie Brock-Doyle, director of comms and public affairs, LOCOG

• Formidable communicator.
• Steered the Olympic ship through a myriad of real and potential crisis points to emerge triumphant on the other side, having delivered an almost universally hailed Games.
• Her work was a masterclass in how to handle comms for such a large-scale event and in a campaign that used very little advertising, showed that PR can take the lead at the highest level.

 

Campaign of the Year: London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, LOCOG

• The Games were the most ambitious logistical exercise ever undertaken in the UK in peacetime.
• The campaign was highly focused and meticulously planned.
• As Seb Coe said at the closing ceremony, ‘when our time came, Britain, we did it right’.

 

Consultancy of the Year: Blue Rubicon

• It increased its income by 16%, and profit margin to 26%.
• New clients included Coca-Cola GB, HSBC, GSK, Heathrow, Lloyd’s of London, The Olympic Park, Royal Mail and Western Union.
• The agency claims not to have lost a client since 2006.
• Blue Rubicon was also crowned PRWeek’s Large Agency of the Year.

 

In-House Team of the Year: National Trust

• In conjunction with Mischief PR, the team worked with The Beano to produce a special ‘Gnashional Trust’ edition. This campaign won a PRWeek Award in the Marcoms Less Than £100k category.
• The team also launched a ’50 things to do before you’re 11¾’ campaign, which was highly commended in the PRWeek Awards Not For Profit category.
• Visitor numbers increased by 1.2 million to 19 million total visits, and it recruited more than 750,000 new members, the most in any 12 month period in the trust’s history.
• The judges praised the team for achieving exceptional results through its smart use of customer insight.