PR Snippets - the Latest News

9 October 2012

• Paddy Power tweets in the sky over the heads of the Ryder Cup crowds! Devised by Taylor Herring, the public submitted tweets with the hashtag #goeurope and five planes proceeded to write them in vapour trails. The five-mile-long messages were visible from more than twenty miles away!
• Burson-Marsteller, Lansons Communications, Man Bites Dog and Boehringer Ingelheim have been crowned the PR industry’s Best Places to Work, according to PRWeek’s annual awards scheme.
• One focus of this year’s judging was whether comms organisations practiced what they preached and took employee engagement seriously.

• Burson-Marsteller won in the large agency category (100+ employees):
  • An “outstanding place to work”.
  • Judges were impressed with its supportive approach to staff.
  • Edelman, Fleishman-Hillard and Lewis PR were highly commended.

• Lansons Communications won in the mid-sized category (30-99 employees):
  • It strikes a great balance between offering staff a fun and supportive work environment and taking their career seriously
  • A third of their annual profits are shared with staff through bonuses and benefits.
  • Lansons’ business has been built on the concept of internal progression and development. Indeed, two of its current board directors started at Lansons at the most junior level, as did five of its current associates.
  • Brands2Life, Pegasus PR and Waggener Edstrom were highly commended.

• Man Bites Dog won in the small agency category (2-29 employees):
  • The fourth time they have won a PRWeek Best Places to Work award
  • The company holds regular social evenings, such as weekly cocktail-making competitions (ideeaaaa...?!)
  • London Communications Agency and Broadgate Mainland  were both highly commended.

• Boehringer Ingelheim won the first in-house department award:
  • It clearly puts a value on activities and benefits that will help staff develop and make them love coming to work.

• The payments watchdog, Payments Council, has appointed MHP as part of a broader integrated brief across the Engine Group to support its account-switching campaign. This was sparked by a report about reform and regulation of the British financial system from the Independent Commission on Banking. MHP will work to spread awareness of the new rules.

• Hotwire has adopted a new framework for measuring campaigns based on AMEC’s Valid Metrics methodology. It is the latest agency to move away from AVEs.

• Diffusion has launched its first international office on Madison Avenue, NYC, as a response to “lazy” US PR. Co-founder, Ivan Ristic, noted that “clients we were speaking to Stateside were unsatisfied by lazy newswire-driven campaigns that generate coverage that’s a mile wide but an inch deep”.

• Lewis PR has revealed plans for a £3 million investment to expand in the Asia-Pacific market following record revenues in the region. The agency recently won a number of clients in the region, including Oracle, Rackspace and Good Technology.

• To raise awareness of the switchover process, Digital UK hired McKenna Townsend PR to develop a press event marking three months until the digital TV switchover for the Meridian region.

 

Starters and leavers

• Edelman’s US-based global consumer chair, Christina Smedley, is leaving at the end of October to join PayPal as Vice Pres of global comms. Meanwhile, the Edelman-owned Zeno Group has expanded its global presence with senior hires and office openings in Asia and Europe.

• Grayling has brought in two consultants to its public sector team: Kelly Matlock and Rachael Lowe.

• AXA UK has appointed former Royal Mail Group PR head and managing director of NY-based agency Prosek, Richard Stephenson, as director of corporate affairs. Stephenson told PRWeek that “I’ll be looking to enhance the brand in terms of people’s understanding of it, and reflecting the fact it’s forward looking and innovative”.

• MHP Communications has been appointed to help a coalition of Britain's leading transport firms boost bus and coach travel, and encourage fewer car journeys. Internally, MHP has just recruited former Downing Street adviser, Sean Worth.

• Former Speed MD, Stephen Waddington, is to join Ketchum Pleon.

• Known as “one of the PR industry’s nice guys”, the former Chief Exec of Bell Pottinger Group, Kevin Murray, has taken on the role of Chairman of the newly formed Good Relations Group.