Brando Eyewear announces in-house team hires

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Erica Sutton-Teague

Luxury eyewear group Brando has brought in Agent Provocateur’s Erica Sutton-Teague as PR and marketing manager.

Sutton-Teague was previously global press officer for Agent Provocateur’s diffusion line, L’Agent by Agent Provocateur.

In her new role at Brando, Sutton-Teague will look after all PR and marketing activity across the group’s brand portfolio, including Serge Kirchhofer and Alyson Magee.

She will report to Brando’s creative director, Luisa Cooper, and global commercial director, Julian Clarke.

Alongside Sutton-Teague’s appointment, Sophie Proops has been named design assistant. She joins the Brando team from Oliver Goldsmith, where she served as PR and marketing assistant, as well as an in-house designer.

Most read people news on Gorkana News

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Your bite-sized update of the latest people news and moves to be featured on Gorkana News:

Forster Communications has appointed John Grounds as its new chair, replacing founder Jilly Forster, who launched the agency 20 years ago. Forster will take on a new role to provide strategic advice to the agency board.

ros-2Creative agency M&C Saatchi has hired PLMR director Ros Trinick. She is reportedly leading on its Home Office counter-extremism brief.

Trinick joined political lobbying and media relations agency PLMR in 2010 as an account executive, and was promoted to the PLMR Board as a director in 2015.

Havas PR has enhanced its senior team with the promotions of Paul Hadfield to creative director and Claire Quansah to operations director.

Hadfield joined Havas PR, which is part of Havas Group, in 2013 from TUI UK, where he was a senior press officer for its Thomson and First Choice brands.

madano-2Chris Parr, former private secretary to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, has joined strategic comms consultancy Madano to lead its built environment and professional services offering as a director.

Parr, who has more than 16 years’ experience in politics, property and planning, joins Madano from Cascade Communications, which he helped establish in January 2011.

GoFundMe, the world’s largest social fundraising platform, has hired Change.org’s John Coventry to lead its UK comms activity as the company sets its sights on European expansion.

 

Georgia Tourism briefs kbc

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Travel PR specialist kbc has been appointed by Georgia Tourism to promote the southern state as a premier travel destination in the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia.

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Georgia Tourism

kbc started work on 1 January and the contract will run initially for one calendar year.  It will be responsible for media relations, travel trade and consumer marketing activities, with the aim of widening awareness of Georgia beyond the city of Atlanta and increasing visitor numbers and length of stay throughout the state.

The agency aims to focus on Georgia’s musical and film heritage, as well as the state’s central role in the Civil Rights movement and its mountain and coastal scenery to encourage visitors to tour more extensively.

Jo Thomas, kbc account director , will lead the account and report to Tracy Vaughan, director – business development and international accounts at the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

Kate Burgess-Craddy, kbc chief executive,  said: “Georgia is the heart of the US South  –  geographically because Atlanta is the natural and undisputed gateway to the region – and emotionally, because the state offers all of the things that bring visitors to the South in the first place: rich heritage, real scenic beauty, Southern hospitality and charm.

“Georgia gives us so much to work with and we are delighted to have the opportunity to create a greater awareness of the state in the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia.”

South Wales Argus ex-editor launches PR consultancy

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Kevin Ward, who stepped down from the role as editor of the South Wales Argus in October last year, has launched his own agency Kevin Ward Media Ltd.

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Kevin Ward

Ward spent 27 years on the daily, regional newspaper and says his Newport-based agency will specialise in PR, communications and media services for the public, private and third sectors.

Ward said: “Our aim is to help you build a strong reputation for your organisation. We are trusted, experienced and we deliver the results you want.

“With more than 30 years’ media experience, we know what will and won’t work for your organisation and the best ways to get your message across to the right audience.”

Bite wins UK comms brief for on-demand lifestyle app Missbeez

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Missbeez, a mobile app which offers lifestyle and beauty services, has appointed Bite as its retained UK comms agency, following a competitive pitch.

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Rachel Gilley

Connecting women with a network of beauty professionals, Missbeez says it provides an on-demand marketplace for “women-on-the-go”. Services include manicures/pedicures, hair removal, hair styling and makeup.

Bite has been briefed to drive downloads of the app and help it achieve its aim of inspiring women to become successful self-employed professionals.

The agency will also run community management and campaigns across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, as well as produce content for the Missbeez blog.

Maya Gura, CEO of Missbeez, said: “As a brand that’s new to the UK, we’re looking to make our mark quickly. We need a comms strategy that appeals to busy women – both working professionals and full time mums – and also excites the investor community about the potential of our company.

“The UK beauty industry is worth £17bn annually, and so the potential for disruption is huge. We’re very excited to be working with Bite to bring the Missbeez story to life, giving women in London a practical solution to their beauty and lifestyle needs.”

Rachel Gilley (pictured), deputy MD at Bite, added: “We’re extremely excited to be working with Missbeez. What it’s doing within the beauty industry is truly innovative, and combines a commitment to improving the lives of working women, both those who use their services and those who provide them.”

Forster Communications makes leadership changes

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Forster Communications has appointed John Grounds as its new chair, replacing founder Jilly Forster, who launched the agency 20 years ago. Forster will take on a new role to provide strategic advice to the agency board.

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John Grounds

Previously a non-exec board director at Forster, Grounds has spent 25 years working with several leading not for profit, public and private sector organisations in the UK.

He is the former deputy chief executive and director of marketing and campaigns of the RSPCA. Before that, he established the NSPCC’s child protection consultancy between 2009 and 2012.

From 2002 to 2009, Grounds was director of comms for the NSPCC, where he was responsible for leading and coordinating the public face of its FULL STOP campaign.

Jilly Forster will take on a new role to provide strategic advice to the agency’s board and continue to be chair of shareholders for the employee-owned business and founding UK B Corp.

Grounds said: “It’s a tremendous privilege to be chair and a huge responsibility to be succeeding Jilly Forster, the architect and inspiration of this remarkable agency.

“In the last 18 months as a non-executive director I’ve seen at first hand the depth of experience, skill and passion for social change that runs through everyone who works here. The quality of work and the mutual respect between client and agency is extraordinary.”

He added: “I’ve spent my whole career working for organisations committed to social change and could not be more convinced that in these challenging times, Forster and its clients have a more crucial role to play than ever.”

Alongside Grounds’ appointment, Forster has promoted two of its senior team, Gillian Daines and George Ames, to board director level, where they join PR director Peter Gilheany and CEO Amanda Powell Smith. Ames will lead on client services while Daines will lead on innovation within the agency.

Powell-Smith commented: “This is a fantastic next step in our mission to harness the power of communications to protect and improve lives. Bringing John, Gill and George onto the board will help us make an even bigger splash in terms of social impact.

“We have been exclusively focused on driving social change since we were founded by Jilly 20 years ago, and continue to work with progressive leaders from across all the sectors.

“There’s real momentum building behind the desire for businesses to be deliver more social impact and last year we became a founding UK B Corp. I believe the new board will ensure that we can help even more organisations create meaningful value for themselves, their stakeholders and wider society.”

Instinctif Partners Asia makes senior hire

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Instinctif Partners has appointed Crystal Chan as partner, general manager in its Hong Kong office.

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Crystal Chan

The hire is part of its international growth plan and comes on the back of client wins for the team in Greater China, including Du Pont, World First, Jupiter Asset Management, Guangdong Radio and Television and Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

Chan joins Instinctif from The Women’s Foundation, where she held a communications director role, and worked closely with corporate sponsors such as Facebook, Bloomberg and Kering.

Previously, Chan was corporate affairs director at Alibaba Group. She has also held senior roles at communications consultancies including Bell Pottinger, Brunswick Group and iPR Ogilvy.

Uhi Hui, managing partner, Greater China at Instinctif Partners, said: “This year is set to be our biggest yet, and we are seeing more and more of our business come from our international teams. Crystal brings a wealth of experience from corporate and financial communications, and she will be a critical part of our team in Hong Kong as we continue to grow, ensuring our offer is ahead of the game.”

Chan added: “It is my honour to join Instinctif Partners. I look forward to working with the strong local and global teams to expand our corporate and financial communications offering in Asia, in order to better serve our esteemed clients across the world.”

Influencer marketing: what’s next in 2017?

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Last year, influencer marketing came of age in terms of its power and popularity. According to Matt Donegan, MD at social influencer marketing platform Social Circle, 2017 will be the year that brands really get to grips with it and strategically create their own social circle of influencers. Here, he shares five key trends for the New Year.

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Matt Donegan

Last year saw the rise of social influencer marketing, and it came with some challenges. Now that brands have gotten their head round what it is, 2017 will be the year of taking their influencer campaigns a step further. Here are five trends that we, at Social Circle, have identified:

Long-term partnerships

Brands will move away from one-off social influencer campaigns driving awareness of a specific product or service. At the end of 2015, L’Oreal announced their ‘beauty squad’ of five influencers, which, according to the brand’s UK general manager, Adrien Koskas, will “shift the industry towards something that is more genuine”.

2017 will see more of these strategic and long-term partnerships allowing both brands and influencers to engage audiences in a more considered and targeted way.

A professionalisation of the industry

Agencies tend to launch specialist practices or divisions which are in fact just individuals, supported by the same team, without much experience of delivering influencer marketing campaigns. Sometimes, brands that have worked on one campaign themselves are more versed than the agency they are trusting.

This year, there will be increasingly less middle men and, hopefully, more people with direct hands-on experience that can deliver solid advice and professional campaign management.

A focus on the figures

I’ll admit it, social influencers were a bit of a buzzword in 2016. Everyone suddenly knew who Zoella was and everyone wanted to work with her. Advertisers didn’t shy away from any cost to have their brand endorsed. However, they soon realised that it’s not about the number of followers but the engagement when it comes to working with influencers.

As an example, brands could pay Justin Bieber a fortune for a Twitter post but will it be seen by the right people? People you actually want to engage with? I doubt it. In 2017, brands will move towards analytics and measurement in order to aim for the most engaged audience rather than just looking at number of followers.

An understanding of the power of smaller and micro influencers

A micro influencer can be anyone with more than 1,000 followers. This doesn’t sound like many, but if you’re a brand that wants to engage a niche audience then those 1,000 followers can be exactly the people you want to target.

For example, a brand that sells diving equipment might want to work with an influencer that specialises on diving how-to videos rather than partnering with a widespread famous influencer. Working with more than one influencer to target specific audiences will on one hand be more cost-effective and on the other achieve higher engagement rates.

Brands will create and own their individual ‘social circles’

This point brings me back to my L’Oreal example. The brand hand-picked a group of five influencers to represent them and I’m almost certain they will add to that group over time. 2017 will see a trend towards brands creating their own ‘social circles’ and utilising them more strategically resulting in long term brand ambassador partnerships.

  • Matt Donegan is MD of social influencer marketing platform Social Circle

On Wednesday 25 January, be sure to listen in to Gorkana’s first webinar of the year, The Rise of the micro-influencer. You’ll hear Francisco Ascensão, CEO of micro-influencer platform Youzz, as well as a top micro-influencer, discuss the best way brands and PRs can engage in this form of communications. Register here.

Gorkana launched a Guide to Influencer Marketing White Paper in November, which GorksWP alertseeks to find out how an “influencer” is defined, what impact they have on PR, whether an influencer campaign can really be determined as earned media and what PRs need to think about before trying to find the right person who can positively impact their brand.
Download your free copy here.

M&C Saatchi hires PLMR’s Ros Trinick

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Creative agency M&C Saatchi has hired PLMR director Ros Trinick. She is reportedly leading on its Home Office counter-extremism brief.

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Ros Trinick

Trinick joined political lobbying and media relations agency PLMR in 2010 as an account executive, and was promoted to the PLMR Board as a director in 2015.

At PLMR, Trinick directed award-winning campaigns and worked across tech, health and social care, manufacturing, professional services and the built environment, advising at board level on PR, crisis comms, public affairs and digital communications.

Kevin Craig, CEO at PLMR, said: “Ros has been instrumental in making PLMR the outstanding agency we are today and she will be sorely missed. As a consultant has she always been tireless in her commitment to deliver the very best service to her clients, and to grow PLMR into one of the UK’s leading agencies.

“We are grateful for all her hard work, and wish her the best of luck in her new role doing work with a great agency on a cause crucial to our country. She will remain a dear friend of the business. Personally she’s also a good friend and I will miss working with her very much.”

Suzy Spirit Awards extends deadline for nominations

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Due to a last minute surge of entries, the deadline to nominate an inspiring young star in PR, as well as an established and inspirational champion of others, has been extended to Friday 13 January.

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Suzy Ferguson, who passed away from bowel cancer on 26 July 2012



Now in its fourth year, the Suzy Spirit Awards were developed in memory of one of the PR and comms industry’s brightest young talents by Gorkana and LEWIS, Suzy’s former employer.

The awards are unlike any other in the industry, where instead of looking to celebrate professional achievement, it goes further and honours candidates of exceptional character, integrity and leadership qualities.

Last year, the level of entries were so high – and the individual stories so inspiring – the judges have decided to make a change to the format for 2017, with two categories available in which to nominate:

  • Firstly, the judges are looking to honour a rising star who may only be at the beginning of their career, but already demonstrates Suzy’s qualities and characteristics in their everyday work.
  • There is also the option to honour an established industry professional – someone who sets a shining example through mentoring and championing others.

The awards are free to enter. If you know someone exceptional then please champion them by filling in one of the short forms on the Suzy Spirit Awards website. If you know two worthy candidates, then you can nominate both.

The Suzy Spirit Rising Star Award | The Suzy Spirit Inspiration Award

Bowel Cancer UK is the official charity for the award which aims to save lives and improve the quality of life for all those affected by bowel cancer.

For more information, visit suzyspiritaward.gorkana.com