Lucara Diamond Corp retains Citigate Dewe Rogerson

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Lucara Diamonds - 1111ct and 813ct Stones

Lucara Diamonds – 1111ct and 813ct Stones

Lucara Diamond Corp, which has a £930 million (Ca$1.6 bn) market cap, has retained Citigate Dewe Rogerson as its UK financial and corporate communications adviser.

CDR will support Lucara’s capital markets profile and corporate reputation while handling all UK and European communications.

Producer of the “world’s largest diamond” the 1,109 carat Lesedi La Rona, Lucara is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Europe’s Nasdaq OMX and the Botswana  Stock Exchange. It operates the Karowe Diamond Mine in Botswana.

Louise Mason, director at CDR, leads the account team with support from Shabnam Bashir and Georgia Colkin.

60 Seconds with Manifest CEO Alex Myers

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Alex Myers, founder and CEO at Manifest, talks about office moves, international growth and his ambition to have five offices on five continents by 2020. He insists that if you want to run an agency with a winning company culture, it’s essential to hire the right team and work hard on keeping them.

Manifest alex Myers

Alex Myers

What’s your daily routine?

It’s a total cliché to say, ‘no two days are the same,’ right? If I was to try and give an average, I’d say my time is made up of 50% client work – creative strategy and brand consultancy, as well as senior support across campaigns – and 50% internal work.

My internal role is changing as we grow and expand our senior team, but I tend to focus on people development, agency innovation, international expansion and complaining about terrible music on the office Sonos.

What’s big news at Manifest?

We’re the fastest-growing independent agency in the UK, so there’s always a crazy amount of things going on. We’re moving our London office on October 3 to an awesome new space on Vine Hill in Farringdon. We’ll be just around the corner from where we are now, but the new space is three times the size and we’re just finalising designs to make it a whole new kind of working environment.

We’ve just hired two new directors to the business to expand both our corporate comms and brand design capabilities too, reinforcing our integrated approach and reflecting the bigger, integrated, global briefs we’ve won recently.

On top of all that, we’re opening our new Cape Town office in 2017, so we’re also working hard to make sure that’s as big a success as Manifest New York (which opened last year). We want to have five offices on five continents by the end of 2020, so this will take us over the halfway mark on that objective.

What are your top tips for running an agency?

Get the culture right. There are so many ‘expert tips’ for running a business, but they’re all insignificant compared with finding, hiring and keeping the best team – and culture is the key to all of that. I think everyone running a business is making it up as they go along (they just don’t admit it to themselves), so I also think accepting and embracing the joy of that, as well as the pressure of it, is something that’s made Manifest stronger.

We don’t simply try to improve industry practices, we build new ones from scratch – including developing our own proprietary technologies. But too many new agencies just give the old agency structure a lick of paint, call themselves ‘a new breed’ and fall into old habits, afraid to genuinely innovate.

For me, the satisfaction of running an agency doesn’t come from competing in this industry, but from redefining it.

How do you make smart hires?

I think it’s important to know what good looks like before you start the process, but always allow flexibility and trust your gut instinct. Hire the team member that you’re excited to hire, even if they aren’t the one that ticks all of your immediate boxes. Passion and potential outweigh qualifications and experience in this business.

We also have one golden rule in recruitment: no “brilliant dickheads”. It doesn’t matter how smart someone is, they aren’t worth hiring if they aren’t going to meet the only requirements that really count: work hard and be nice to people.

What are clients asking you about/for?

Brands are looking for agencies that take a strategic brand approach and there’s a new focus on creativity over creds, which means there’s been a democratisation of the industry recently. The old days of PR agencies being seen as a ‘press office shop’ are gone, thank God, and PR is now in a power position of providing the natural hub for all marketing disciplines.

Integration is now top of the agenda for clients, but true integration is about much more than an inter-agency meeting every now and again. We’ve found more and more brands looking for us to guide them through the process and build a comms structure that works through paid, earned, shared and owned media to deliver more agile and creative campaigns across the entire media landscape.

How do you like to spend your free time?

Ha – I have two kids under three. My ‘free’ time is spent answering ‘why?’ to every action witnessed by my two-year-old daughter and being sicked on by my seven-month old son.

Aspectus appoints Iley to head of energy role

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Aspectus has promoted PR Week 30 Under 30 member, Laura Iley, to a head of energy role.

Laura Iley 1

Laura Iley

Aspectus’ energy, oil and gas practice serves more than 20 clients from the agency’s offices in London, Aberdeen and New York.

Iley, who was listed as a PR Week 30 Under 30 member this year, joined Aspectus as head of oil and gas in 2013. She will now oversee the communications strategy for the agency’s energy, oil and gas portfolio on both a local and an international level.

Alastair Turner, global CEO of Aspectus, said: “Our energy practice continues to grow from strength to strength. As the practice lead, Laura will be responsible for client strategy and delivery, new business and people management.”

Iley added: “I’m thrilled to be taking the lead role in Aspectus’ energy practice. Clients come to us because we are intimately connected to the energy community, dealing with the issues, the media and the influencers that serve the space every day. Innovative companies deserve ideas to match and it’s this specialist knowledge that sharpens our communications strategies and delivers memorable campaigns.”

Aspectus is a global comms agency focused on financial services, energy, oil and gas, technology and engineering.

BDO LLP appoints Petal & Co as North West PR agency

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Accountant and business adviser BDO LLP has appointed Petal & Co as its retained North West PR agency.

Jessica headshot 1The specialist corporate and B2B agency has been briefed to highlight the strength of BDO’s expertise and sector insight across the region, and position it as a leading adviser to the mid-market.

Jessica Wilkinson, who founded Petal & Co last year following three years at Weber Shandwick Manchester,  will lead the account. She will be supported by marketing communications manager, Sian Collister.

Ed Dwan, partner and head of BDO in the North West, said: “When appointing PR advisers we weren’t just looking for technical expertise; it was about finding a team that really understood our market and, importantly, our people. The team at Petal & Co. ticked every box. We’re pleased to have them on board and are looking forward to them playing a part in our growth strategy.”

Wilkinson added: “We set out to work with ambitious businesses and advisers who use their expertise to facilitate growth for clients and in their own business; making BDO the perfect fit. The quality of the talent, research and clever insights being produced by BDO will ensure this campaign, which is already seeing good results, will build strong momentum over the coming months.”

Opinion: Making the most of employee-led storytelling

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Sophie Lister, a client director at Hudson Sandler who specialises in corporate storytelling, talks about the value of an employer brand, and shares some tips for engaging staff and sharing that positive message.

Sophie Lister 1

Sophie Lister

The term ‘employer brand’ used to be the stuff of blog posts, internal news channels and the occasional CSR story, but is now seen as a way to actively recruit, engage and retain top talent and increase brand equity.

But can employee-led communications really form part of an external communications agenda? And do those outside of your organisation even care?

Employees hold huge sway over how a company is viewed. They can be your biggest advocates and ultimately drive business success, but vice versa; they can be your undoing. As we saw with Mike Ashley and his appearance in front of the Select Committee earlier this year, the narrative around how employees are treated contributes to brand value. Sports Direct’s treatment of its employees showed a direct correlation between the reputation of a business and its share price, which, following the newspaper investigation, fell from 734 pence in December to 403 pence in less than a month.

I recommend the following for successful, employee-led communications:

Create brand ambassadors

We should not underestimate employees’ influence on the success of a brand. How employees speak about the company forms part of the external conversation, and shapes how others, including the media, the Government and investors, perceive the company.

According to the Employee Engagement Benchmark Study 2016, 77% of employees in companies that have significantly better financial performance than their peers are highly or moderately engaged. However, only 49% of employees are highly, or moderately engaged, when working at companies with a less-than-average financial performance.

Engaged employees add financial value to the bottom line.

Engage employees to enhance brand reputation

Reputation is not about what you have achieved, or your company’s financial performance to date. It is about the external perception of your business and what people say about your company when you’re not in the room. This is where your team comes in.

Companies are seeing the value in the creation of campaigns that bring their people to the fore. Not only can it help to drive down recruitment costs and make you flavour of the month with HR, but by creating stories around your people, the fantastic work that has already been done internally is externalised, creating additional value.

The tangible results are not to be underestimated. By developing a corporate narrative around investing in your people, empowering teams and sharing in their successes, you will build brand awareness among new and existing employees, partners and customers. As a result, your employees will feel engaged and invested in the future success of the business.

In addition, the company or employer is seen to ‘do right’ by the businesses and the people you employ. Your brand is only as good as its reputation and that is invaluable.

The BIG Partnership opens fifth Scottish office

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The BIG Partnership has opened its fifth Scottish office in Dundee – and seventh in the UK – after securing contract wins worth £250,000 in its Manchester base, which it launched two months ago.

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The BIG Partnership’s director, Zoe Ogilvie, and account director, Alison Ramsay

Its leaders now have sights on winning £150,000 of new business in the first year in Dundee.

The BIG Partnership’s clients in Dundee, and surrounding areas, include entrepreneurial support organisation, Elevator, Dundee Rep Theatre and technology spin-outs from the University of St Andrews, SA Instrumentation and Photosynergy Ltd.

All of these will be serviced from BIG’s new office at City Quay in Dundee.

Zoe Ogilvie, director at The BIG Partnership, said: “We have strong ties to Dundee, with a history of working with clients in the city, as well as in Fife and Perthshire. Opening permanent premises here widens our offering to a city which has huge potential.

“Dundee is in the middle of a £1 billion regeneration, which is expected to create more than 7,000 jobs, see the opening of an international centre of design and herald a major redevelopment of its train station. With further plans to open more hotels, bars and restaurants, it’s the perfect time to be launching a base here.”

As well as regeneration work along the river, the Tay Cities Deal will see Angus, Dundee, Perthshire and North East Fife bid to receive up to £400 million worth of funding to take forward infrastructure projects. This will support business growth in some of Dundee’s key sectors, such as tourism, food and drink, financial and business services, creative industries and life sciences.

Ogilvie added: “We have been pleasantly surprised by the warm welcome we have had from the local business community and are excited to be part of the city’s very bright future as a result of all the recent developments and the potential of the Tay Cities Deal.”

 

FTI continues to lead in Adviser Rankings’ PR lists

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Adviser Rankings‘ Financial PR Rankings for Q3 2016  (4 May – 3 August) show that FTI Consulting has added three FTSE 100 clients, as well as two FTSE 250 clients. The firm tops the FTSE 250 list, and Brunswick tops the FTSE 100 client list with 26.

LSE 2016 1

Clients are grouped according to their listing on the London Stock Exchange

FTI also has the highest number of clients in the majority of sectors – ‘Consumer Goods’, ‘Consumer Services’, ‘Financials’, ‘Health Care’, ‘Industrials’ and ‘Technology’. St Brides leads in ‘Basic Materials’, and Bell Pottinger is the top financial PR adviser for the ‘Oil & Gas’ industry.

Finsbury is second in the ranking for total FTSE 100 clients while Brunswick places second in the FTSE 250 list.

Walbrook PR shares first place with FTI in the latest ARL AIM rankings, which were published at the start of the month. Yellow Jersey enters the Consumer Goods, Industrials and Technology sector rankings for the first time, and Consilium graces the overall rankings for the first time.

The guides are released quarterly by Adviser Ranking, and the rankings are based on the number of clients currently represented by corporate and financial PR firms.

Adviser Rankings is a leading publisher of independent financial data, and provides client rankings for a variety of professional services firms. It published its Q3 2016 Corporate Advisers Rankings Guide in association with Crowe Clark Whitehill, an audit and advisory firm.

 

See.Saw to PR The Smalls Short Film Festival

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The Smalls, a content marketplace that connects filmmakers with brands, publishers and agencies, has brought in consumer lifestyle PR agency See.Saw to handle the PR for the 11th annual Short Film Festival, which starts on Friday (2 September).

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The Smalls Short Film Festival

Festival highlights include a keynote speech from Jon Drever, executive producer of 2014 Oscar nominated Virunga and director of Grain Media, a new category honouring local filmmakers from East London, a panel discussion on the “secrets of successful modern-day comedy writing”, and a “Future for Publishers in the Online Content World” panel discussion, with speakers from Stylist, LAD Bible and News UK.

The Festival closes with an awards ceremony on Wednesday September 7 which will be presented by comedian and presenter Eleanor Conway.

Kathryn McAuley, director at See.Saw, said: “The Smalls are innovators in their field, with an outstanding network producing best-in-class short form content; we’re thrilled to be working with them for this year’s short Film Festival.”

Kate Tancred, co-founder and MD of The Smalls, said: “We’re thrilled to be working with See.Saw for this year’s festival. The team has a tenacious, hands-on and creative approach to publicity and we’re very excited about driving awareness for what promises to be a standout festival this year.”

Red Savannah hands European PR brief to The PC Agency

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Tour operator Red Savannah has handed a European consumer and corporate PR brief to The PC Agency. 

The PC Agency

Red Savannah

Established in 2011 by George Morgan-Grenville, Red Savannah claims to offer bespoke tours “underpinned by 21st Century technology”. Its services include “tailor-made” journeys through Australasia, the Indian sub-continent and South-East Asia, safaris and gorilla tracking trips in Africa, ranch holidays in the US, itineraries in South America and voyages to the Arctic and Antarctica.

Its portfolio also includes properties across Europe and the Caribbean, including Villa Rayol on the Cote D’Azur, Il Convento dei Cappuccini in Umbria, Villa Kathleen in Antigua, Binicalaf in Menorca, Enasoit in Kenya, and the Leobo Private Reserve in South Africa.

The appointment comes less then a month after Richard Branson’s former comms director, Paul Charles, launched The PC Agency and acquired travel consultancy Angel Publicity.

Charles said: “Red Savannah is one of those rare travel brands that ooze expertise – its depth of knowledge and contacts puts it at the top of the list for anyone considering a holiday or event to remember. We’re looking forward to telling exciting stories about the fantastic experiences they can offer around the world.”

Morgan Grenville added: “We have spent 18 months trying to identify a high-end consultancy that had the depth and breadth of experience in the premium travel and lifestyle sector.

“We knew immediately on meeting Paul that The PC Agency measured up in every respect. We are delighted to be working with Paul, Emma and the whole PC Agency team and look forward to showcasing Red Savannah’s bespoke, friendly and knowledgeable approach to creating some of the finest travel experiences imaginable.”

The Gorkana Weekly Industry News Brief: 22 – 26 August 2016

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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.

Lord Bell 4

Lord Tim Bell resigns as chairman of Bell Pottinger

People News

Lord Tim Bell has resigned as chairman of Bell Pottinger, 30 years after he founded the agency. He plans to set up a strategic consultancy called Sans Frontières next year.

Global Influence has brought in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Alicia Kearns as client services director. She joins after two years at the FCO, where she led the UK Government’s comms campaigns on Syria and Iraq, as well as advising more than 70 international Governments on counter-terrorism.

Hanover has re-appointed Daniel Gilbert as a senior policy adviser, following his 14-month period as a special adviser in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

Interdealer broker Tullett Prebon has chosen Rebecca Shelley as global head of corporate affairs.

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Rory Scott

Children’s reading charity BookTrust has appointed Dogs Trust’s former deputy comms lead, Sinead Scott-Lennon, as its head of comms and campaigns.

Hill+Knowlton Strategies (H+K) has appointed Jasper Rosenau as head of content and publishing strategy for its financial and professional services team.

Online fashion site Lyst has brought in Paddy Power’s former head of PR, Rory Scott, as VP of communications.

 

Pitch Wins

Joanna Lumley celebrates Heathrow’s 70th anniversary

Joanna Lumley celebrates Heathrow’s 70th anniversary

Heathrow Airport has added One Green Bean to its consumer PR roster, following its successful campaign work on the airport’s 70th anniversary in May.

Abchurch has been appointed to handle financial PR and investor relations for Kazakhstan-based oil and gas exploration and production company Roxi Petroleum.

Content marketing and PR agency Remarkable Content has been selected by Flood Re, a reinsurance scheme jointly developed by Government and the insurance industry, to help encourage UK homeowners to access more affordable home insurance policies.

TVC Group has won a three-way pitch to lead a summer campaign for Heathrow Express, with the agency involving British Olympic track cyclist Victoria Pendleton to mark the 18th birthday of the service.

Celicourt Communications has been appointed by oil and gas company SDX Energy and international law firm Memery Crystal.

PHA Media has been handed an awareness raising brief by charity Music Venue Trust and has been hired by 4th Base Cosmetics to launch its new beauty brand, NKBb.

Agency News

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Clark Communications founder Lesley Brydon

Scottish PR agency Clark Communications has acquired Golley Slater Scotland from parent company Golley Slater Group for an undisclosed sum.

Aspectus is the latest agency to create a Brexit Unit, following Portland’s announcement earlier this summer. Aspectus says the unit will help clients deal with communications during the uncertainty caused by the referendum outcome.

Opinion

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Rio Olympics 2016

PRs share their favourite Olympic moments
In the aftermath of the Rio Olympics 2016, Gorkana asks comms pros to pick their PR highlights from the event.

Five ways the Great British Bake Off can enhance a brand’s profile
Great British Bake Off returned to the screens last night and, with last year’s average audience comprising more than 12 million people, there is huge opportunity for brands to increase their profile, sales and reach, according to Chris Baldwin, director of consumer programmes at Protravel, part of employee benefits and rewards company Sodexo. 

How PRs can optimise content for consumers
Communicators can deliver content optimised to reach consumers at the right time and in the right format if they put themselves in the driving seat, says Marcus Sorour, general manager at WE UK.

News Analysis

How Golin tackles the ‘motherhood penalty’ and recruits untapped talent
Golin is looking to close the wage gap encountered by working mothers and reap the benefit of recruiting ‘untapped’ talent as it launches its second ‘returnship’ programme this week.

Webinar

How employee engagement helps PR agencies and their clients
Portland’s HR director Gillian Robinson, director Siobhan Newmarch and Innovation Bubble business psychologist, Katharina Wittgens, spoke at the latest Gorkana webinar about the importance of employee engagement, and how it benefits PR agencies and their clients.

Journalist News

The Financial Times’ public policy editor, Sarah Neville, is to take on the role of global pharmaceuticals editor at the title in the Autumn. Nic Fildes has joined the FT as telecoms correspondent from The Times, where he was tech and comms editor. Andrew England has been named is Middle East and Africa news editor. He was previously Southern Africa bureau chief, based in Johannesburg.

James Gheerbrant has been appointed sports reporter at The Times. He was previously a broadcast journalist at the BBC.

Tony Chambers, editor-in-chief at Wallpaper*, is to join the London Evening Standard‘s ES Magazine as a columnist and contributing editor in the Autumn.

Sabah Meddings has joined the Daily Mail as city correspondent. She was previously a business writer at the Eastern Daily Press.

Simon Garner has been appointed head of digital content at Metro. He was previously deputy editor-in-chief at Yahoo! UK.

Siraj Datoo has joined Bloomberg News’ digital news EMEA team as a reporter. He was previously a political reporter for BuzzFeed UK.

Nada Farhoud has been appointed consumer features rditor at Trinity Mirror, working across Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People.

Features

Time Inc 1

Time Inc UK’s Holly McNally

Behind the Headlines with Time Inc. UK’s Holly McNally
Holly McNally, PR manager at Time Inc. UK, on breaking the habit of checking emails before getting out of bed, what marks out campaign success, why there needs to be a shift in PR value and her secret penchant for Pot Noodles.

Gorkana meets…Mantality
Earlier this year, Super League and Challenge Cup winning 22-year-old pro rugby league star Stevie Ward launched Mantality, an online male lifestyle, sports and mind title to address the issue of mental health in sport. Three months on, Ward talks to Gorkana‘s Louise Pantani about how his own experiences in professional sport fuelled the idea for Mantality, how it fits in with his time at Leeds Rhinos, the challenge of writing for the “millennial male” and his dream of interviewing Ricky Gervais.

PR Case Study: #DontQuitDoIt
Inspired by clients who have been through life-changing injuries, Irwin Mitchell and Instinctif Partners launched a campaign to highlight the crucial role that sport can play in a person’s recovery and rehabilitation.

60 Seconds with Mercieca’s Gemma Oakes
Gemma Oakes, director at Mercieca, talks about sport and lifestyle PR and its closeness to FMCG. In the aftermath of the Olympics, she shares her own favourite sports to watch and play.