I’m lousy at keeping secrets. But this is a big one that I’ve been sitting on for the past six months or so. The formal announcement follows. For more information check out the Speed web site, our blog network, the Speed channel on You Tube, or give me a call. New PR consultancy Speed launches
Combination of five specialist firms creates top 50 UK PR consultancy
Marketing services group Loewy today launched a new PR consultancy called Speed Communications.
Speed specialises in the consumer, technology, business and corporate sectors, and has been formed by bringing together the teams of BMA Communications, Custard PR, Lighthouse PR, Mantra PR and Rainier PR. All of these teams were acquired by Loewy in the past three years. The new consultancy structure and brand is effective from today.
The 50 person-strong business is based in The Communications Building,
“The PR industry has reached a watershed moment. The fragmentation of media, rise of social networks, increasingly savvy purchasers and the recession are combining to challenge the established PR industry hierarchy. Speed is a modern consultancy that is seeking to tackle this head on in delivering assured impact for its clients,” said Stephen Waddington, managing director, Speed.
“We have combined five strong teams to create a much stronger PR consultancy with multi-sector expertise. It is now a very able challenger for the
Speed is wholly owned by Loewy, which has invested in back-office improvements, rebranding, systems enhancements and the new premises ahead of today’s launch.
“We strongly encourage collaborative working and the PR staff in particular have been brainstorming, pitching and managing clients in cross-agency teams over the last six months. This structural change and rebrand further cements the team as one entity and is a strong statement of our intentions in the UK PR market,” said Iain Johnston, CEO, Loewy.
- ends -
About Speed Communications
Speed is a
Speed specialises in the consumer, technology, business and corporate sectors and was launched in March 2009 by bringing together the teams of BMA Communications, Custard PR, Lighthouse PR, Mantra PR and Rainier PR. The consultancy has a combined fee income of around £5 million, with clients including The Economist, ntl:Telewest Business (part of Virgin Media), Tesco, Toshiba and Wickes.
For further information please see: www.speedcommunications.com.
Here’s the line-up for this year – my money is on Lorraine Tighe (strong track record in sales), Howard Ebison (operational and P&L experience as the area manager of a pub chain), Rocky Andrews (21 year old entrepreneur with a chain of 15 sandwich shops) and Yasmina Siadatan (P&L experience from owning a restaurant) to make the final.
Anita Shah, lawyer, 35 – self confessed-perfectionist lawyer who wants to launch a new business providing emotional, psychological and spiritual therapy. How does that work then? In the search for the perfect business model; this looks like it needs therapy.
Ben Clarke, trainee stockbroker, 22 – inspired by the Playboy brand and reckons “that making money is better than sex”. He’s obviously never experienced very good sex. Ditch the porn Ben and get out more.
Debra Barr, senior sales consultant, 24 – outspoken go-getting saleswoman who would rather ask for forgiveness than permission. She’ll get on well with Sir Alan then, but how soon before she falls out with her team-mates, who think she's a total bitch?
Howard Ebison, retail business manager, 24 – self-trained musician and area manager of 10 pubs. Ambitious businessperson who reckons he’s a good leader. Despite his youth, his track record will put him in good favour with Sir Alan. Possible for the final. Self-trained musician in what way though? Dab hand with a kazoo?
James McQuillan, senior commercial manager, 32 – former labourer, trolley collector and a nightclub doorman. Reckons he’s likeable and selfless. He’ll be out in the first couple of weeks then.
Kate Walsh, licensing development manager, 27 – describes herself as confident and resilient. Regrets not applying to Oxbridge but continues to be a highly motivated and ambitious professional. Question is whether Oxbridge would have had her? Beware the ego Sir Alan.
Kimberly Davis, marketing consultant, 33 – New Yorker who reckons she brings honesty and integrity to the table, and doesn't lie, cheat or backstab. Always beware people who say that publicly. She’ll be out shortly after James McQuillan.
Lorraine Tighe, national accounts manager, 36 – hard-working single mum who left school at 16 and has been the top sales person in every company she has ever worked for. Sir Alan will love her. But, does she hold a hidden flaw? Sounds almost too good to be true.
Majid Nagra, business development manager, 28 – bad boy turned good. Works with youth centres and charities while running his own car hire business. He says: “Without companies buying and selling there wouldn't be any economy." No shit Sherlock.
Mona Lewis, senior business manager, 28 – former Tanzanian beauty-queen who applied for The Apprentice as a result of her desire to step out of her comfort zone and change the lives of herself and her son. Well done you, but could her comfort zone be a tad too comfortable?
Noorul Choudhury, science teacher, 33 – we know little of his career history. Hopes to become a property development millionaire and aims to start up a men's tailoring business. And I’d like a Ferrari please.
Paula Jones, human resource consultant, 29 – a self-confessed scatterbrain, former army cadet sergeant, who wants to be liked and avoids conflict. How did she make it through the selection process?
Philip Taylor, estate agent, 29 – describes himself as confident and charming and reckons he’s nice guy who people can relate to. He says, "Business is the new rock 'n' roll and I'm Elvis Presley.” Oh dear.
Rocky Andrews, sandwich chain owner, 21 – ex-footy player who has set up a sandwich business operating from 15 locations. Earns more than the salary on offer from Sir Alan. Dead cert for the final.
Yasmina Siadatan, restaurateur, 27 – restaurant owner who describes herself as dominating yet adaptable. Believes that business is about spotting a gap in the market and filling it better than anyone else. Unbelievable - where do they learn these things? That's obviously where I've been going wrong all these years.
Permalink | 2 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 2:39 PM 
Thanks to all the people that have linked in to me or taken the trouble to comment during the last few weeks. Thanks to Adam Lewis, Adam Parker, Andy Smith, Basheera Khan , Bill Hilton, Brendan Cooper, Chris Abraham, David Cushman, Drew Benvie, Ged Carroll , James Gordon-MacIntosh, Jed Hallam, Jonny Rosemount, Matt Churchill, Matt Lambert, Palin Ningthoujam, Paul Wilkinson, Peter Kirwan, Richard Houghton, Rob Brown, Sally Whittle, Simon Collister, Stuart Bruce and Will Sturgeon. And apologies to anyone that I have missed.Your attention and conversation is appreciated and I dedicate this postcard to you which I bought at an antique market last year. It shows a view of
Journalists are outing bad practice and setting out their expectations clearly. Smart PR professionals are adapting fast and are using these new channels to develop direct relationships.
It must surely drive up professional standards for the PR industry?
Tags: mediarelations, pr, standards, twitter
Permalink | 2 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 2:51 PM The post has attracted 50 comments from many of PR and marketing industry’s smartest thinkers debating tactics and citing best practice. If you’ve got a spare 20 minutes this morning have a read.
But don’t print it out as I did. It runs to nearly 30 pages. Your bath water will almost certainly be cold or you’ll have missed your stop by the time you’ve read it all. In a bid to save you from such distress here are some of the best bits:
“[Brands on Twitter is…] about being human. Showing your real personality and allowing people to connect with you at an emotional level” – Robin Grant, quoted in the original Campaign article
“Now we’ve got direct relationships so we have to earn that attention – we have to earn it by being entertaining, useful and also nice” – Faris Yakob, quoted in the original Campaign article
“The potential reward […] is the ability to spread surprise and delight, turn negative word of mouth into positive and to really engage people with your brand at an emotional level” – Robin Grant, blog posting
“Twitter is surely a platform for two-way, 'real' conversation. As such I'd argue that brand figureheads like Richard Branson are not 100% engaged... ” – Chris Lake, comment
“You need to let people know what they are getting. If it is a corporate Twitter 'feed' that exists for broadcast only that's fine if people know that is what it is” – Stuart Bruce, comment
“Real people are better. That's where social media's power really lies, in its ability to portray a human face rather than a corporate. It's easy to hate a corporation but difficult to hate a human” – Brendan Cooper, comment
Tags: brands, robingrant, twitter
Permalink | 2 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 2:47 PM I'm guessing that the results of his experience will depend on the goodwill of his network and the authority of the respondents. Goodwill exists in spades on Twitter, particularly amongst the social media/PR crowd but how do you assign authority to recommendations from a network?
Drew reckons that it’s simply a case of making a choice from a smaller number of responses than Google would deliver and that human recommendation (rather than Google’s algorithm) is sufficient authority. I’m curious to see how his experiment works out this week.
Here are two other blog posts that I’ve read recently about mining Twitter that are worth checking out:
Welcome to the hive mind; learn how to search Twitter
An excellent summary by Chris Allison (@Chris_Allison) CMO, Centsports (via @jangles) of all the operators and variables that can be used to mine Twitter using the Twitter search application.
10 ways to find people on Twitter
I’ve been a long term subscriber to Paul Bradshaw’s Online Journalism blog. He’s a lecturer at
Tag: drewbenvie, google, search, twitter
Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 12:30 PM “PR revenues in the
PR is holding up as a result of three factors, he says:
- Recessions create corporate work
- PR is the most cost-effective element of the marketing mix
- And of course, the explosion in marketing via digital networks
Mat Morrison tweeted that top searches will by default always be top visited sites. Why? People no longer use URLs. Instead search engines, primarily Google, are the gateway to web sites.
It’s a very obvious point in hindsight. I’d go as far to say that I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of my web surfing kids (8 and 10 years old) use a URL. Ever.
Brand is king in search.
Is demand for wifi bandwith for streaming applications blocking up networks? Here's a message I spotted last night on the homepage for the National Express onboard wifi service on the London to Edinburgh line. Permalink | 2 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 11:18 AM
I was keen to get his view of Baroness Susan Greenfield’s hypothesis outlined in the Mail last week, that social networks have the potential to rot the brains of generation Y, and worst result in autism.
While there is evidence that brain chemistry can be altered by experiences during formative years, there is no evidence that it could occur as a result to exposure - however extreme - to social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. The link between abuse and brain chemistry in young people is an area that is being explored by organisations such as Kids Company in London.
But that doesn’t mean social networks are off the hook. Proudlock reckons that he’s spotted a trend whereby individuals are increasingly developing relationships via technology platforms such as the mobile phone and PC and as a result are not developing the life skills to develop relationships in the real world.
The upshot is that when individuals are forced to meet people in social situations, interviews or personal relationships, they exhibit high levels of anxiety.
“I’m seeing an increase in anxiety disorders, particularly social anxiety. Young people are communicating more and more via text and are coming increasingly socially isolated. The growth of sites such as Facebook fuels an ever increasing franchised society allowing young adults to feel part of a social network without having to step outside of their comfort zone and meet real people,” said Proudlock.
But technology isn’t all bad. Proudlock is currently working on a programme to investigate the positive benefits of the Wii Fit on individuals with low self-esteem, depression and anxiety. His thesis is that the Wii allows people to improve their personal wellbeing without needing to leave the comfort or security of their own home, invaluable as the first step to more positive mental health.
If you're interested in exploring any of these areas further give him a shout (via, er, Facebook).
Tags: facebook, mentalhealth, simonproudlock, twitter, wii
Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 8:56 AM eReader Pro (free) - ebook reader (can download free classics in case you ever get caught without anything to read)
Free RSS and NetNewsWire (both free) – RSS Readers
iFooty – live football feeds from the BBC Sport site
LastFM (free) – listen to five million tracks and create your own personal radio station
Shazam (free) – name that tune when you're out and want to know what it's called (great for pub quizzes)
Twitterfon (free) – iPhone Twitter application
I was at a meeting with Richard Seymour, the product design guru at sister firm Seymour Powell earlier this week. Here are some of his recommendations: iFart (whoopee cushion), Record (voice recorder) and Urbanspoon (location based restaurant finder).
And here’s a previous post with some of my personal favourite iPhone apps.
Tags: apps, iphone Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 11:51 PM
