The Gorkana Weekly Industry News Brief: 23 to 30 April 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
Global comms agency Way to Blue has been handed a retained consumer PR brief for baby wipe brand WaterWipes, following a competitive pitch.
Boutique bowling brand All Star Lanes has appointed Belt & Braces as its retained PR agency.
New watermelon brand What a Melon has called in creative comms agency Tin Man to handle its UK launch next month.
Milestone Group, the company behind youth employment venture The Passion Project, has appointed Walbrook PR to handle its financial communications and investor relations.
PR and marketing agency Shooting Star has secured a contract with AJ Purchasing, a procurement and supply chain business which specialises in the care sector.
MHP Communications has announced its 30 To Watch 2016, its annual list of young journalists who are “making a difference” to the UK media industry.
People News
PR and digital marketing agency Threepipe named FleishmanHillard Fishburn’s former board director, Tracey Carey, as its first MD.
W has enhanced its digital division with the appointment of Deep Focus London’s Joe Barnes as head of digital.
Luxury travel brand Cunard appointed Samsung’s Rachel Lloyd as head of PR.
Airline group Monarch appointed David Page as its new group head of communications.
Agency News
Firstlight PR, Lansons, Virgo Health and Ketchum have been featured in the 2016 edition of Great Place To Work’s employer rankings.
M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment has launched a new Sport-Lifestyle division and promoted business director Laura Coller to lead the new offer as head of lifestyle.
News Analysis
How Twitter’s ‘live’ offering will provide value for PR
Twitter reported its financial results for the quarter ending on March 31 this week, highlighting its ‘live’ strategy for 2016, which will focus on creating more premium content, particularly in the sports sector. Gorkana speaks to sports agencies M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment and Calacus to find out what this means for PR.
Journalist News
Hannah Swerling has been promoted as content director at ELLE (UK).
Julian Bennetts has been appointed assistant sports news editor at The Telegraph, moving from his previous role as sports reporter at Hayters Teamwork.
Tom Moore has been promoted to City editor at Legal Business.
Cat Ellis has joined techradar as downloads editor, moving from her role as operations editor at Computer Arts (UK).
THE INQUIRER has relaunched with a new look and a website that has a streamlined and easy-to-navigate platform.
Features
What can VR do for PR? Ten things you need to know
During a Gorkana webinar this week, Matt Glass, co-founder of Cultural Reality Co., and Dynamo’s senior creative manager, Nick Morey, offered up their top tips for what impact VR could have on the PR industry.
At an exclusive Gorkana media briefing with free weekly health and fitness magazine Coach this week, editor Ed Needham and web editor Jonathan Shannon shed light on the title’s progress since its launch in October, talked about its 80:20 ratio of entertaining and useful content and offered PR pitching tips.
Why PR should learn to embrace diversity
Warren Johnson, founder of W Communications, says the launch of digital agency fortysix last week at Ad Week Europe has reinvigorated the diversity debate and offered a lesson for PR.
Case Study: Victoria Pendleton Switching Saddles
When Betfair looked to beat its competitors last year, Pitch came up with a year-long campaign which challenged Olympic cyclist champion Victoria Pendleton to abandon the bike and sit in the horse saddle. The results? A 49% increase in Betfair customers as the campaign reached its peak.
Behind the Headlines with Fever’s Jo Chappel
Jo Chappel, creative director at Fever, on finding those eureka ideas during the most menial of tasks, launching a “Culture Vulture” programme to enhance creativity at the agency, and growing to love pitching to the press.
