PR news round-up (21 December – 4 January)

Here’s a short round-up of PR news over the Christmas and New Year, featuring Cision’s new acquisition, Frank’s new wins and Alfred’s director hire. 

Cision acquires Falcon.io

Cision has acquired leading social media company Falcon.io to solidify the company’s market leadership in driving the future of Earned Media Management.

The purchase will allow Cision customers to benefit from the insights Falcon.io provides into their global content strategy and the management of comprehensive social media marketing programmes through publishing, engagement, listening, advertising and measurement.

While Falcon.io will continue to be offered as a stand-alone social media platform for marketers, advertisers, and customer experience professionals, it will also be integrated with the Cision Communications Cloud® to expand social media capabilities to earned media and communications professionals.

Account wins

Sian Gabbidon and Lord Sugar

Frank will handle all PR and marketing activity for 2018 The Apprentice winner Sian Gabbidon and her swimwear label Sian Marie. The appointment comes as part of the agency’s ongoing work with Lord Sugar, who it has represented since 2001.

Premium household appliance brand Vorwerk has also appointed Frank as its retained PR agency, driving awareness in the UK market for its Kobold and Thermomix brands, as well as handling their media relations activity.

Hörmann, the garage, entrance and internal door provider, has appointed HROC to manage its national PR activity across consumer, trade and industrial sectors in regional, national and sector-specific media.

People news

Lucy Newson

Alfred has appointed Lucy Newson as a director. Newson joins the company’s board and will report to managing director Dan Neale. She will use her PR and creative agency experience to work with the existing team to deliver Alfred’s purpose-driven work.

Beattie Communications has hired Ellie Arnoldi as its first director of business development as it launches its largest-ever sales and marketing drive to counteract the impact of Brexit.

Ellie Arnoldi

Onebite has appointed Chris Thornett as technology content manager. He joins from technology magazine Linux User & Developer and will focus on expanding and enhancing client activity across a number of key technology accounts at the agency.

Agency news

Digital marketing agency Distract has added PR to its portfolio of services by appointing Mike Shields as head of PR. Shields will use his 10+ years of experience across journalism and comms to offer both traditional and digital PR campaigns which complement the agency’s digital marketing activity.