Reuters Holdings, the international news and information group, is
about to appoint its first retained agency to handle corporate and
financial PR.
Brunswick, Financial Dynamics, Fishburn Hedges, and Gavin Anderson have
pitched for the business; a final decision is expected in the next two
weeks.
Confirming the pitch, Peter Thomas, Reuters’ director of media
relations, said: ’We believe that Reuters is a good brand and that PR
can play a complementary role to advertising in improving our overall
branding.’
The move to appoint a retained PR agency follows the selection of BMP
DDB as Reuters’ advertising agency in June. The appointed PR agency will
be expected to maintain Reuters’ standing in the City while building
awareness of its services and developing its corporate identity.
Reuters faces increasing competition in the news and financial
information markets from rivals such as the Press Association,
Knight-Ridder, News Corporation and Bloomberg, as well as a clutch of
new on-line news services.
In 1995 Reuters teamed up with BSkyB’s Sky News channel to provide it
with news content.
Chief executive Peter Job recently stated that he views Reuters as the
leading provider of news content for the internet.
Financial agency Gavin Anderson currently works for Reuters on investor
relations and will retain this work regardless of whether it wins the
new business.
Reuters Holdings was picked as the UK’s Most Admired Company in a survey
in this month’s issue of Management Today.
Sales during 1996 reached pounds 3.1 billion and Reuters recently
announced that revenue is likely to grow by eight per cent this year.
