Vote Leave, led by a cross-party selection of MPs including the sole UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, will in time vie with Leave.EU for nomination as the official campaign for a Brexit - the nominated group may spend substantially more money than other campaigns.
The Electoral Commission will designate the official campaign for both sides four months ahead of the EU referendum date. Paul Stephenson, comms director at Vote Leave and formerly a comms executive at banking body the BBA, told PRWeek he expected this to be in either September 2016 or September 2017.
Vote Leave's day-to-day media is being handled in-house, but it will soon be bolstered with the addition of agency support.
In addition to six regional PR firms whose appointments are yet to be finalised, the campaign is looking for an integrated creative and digital agency that will create assets for its campaign as well as placing these across digital and other platforms in paid and social slots.
Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliott said: "We are looking to work with the brightest and best creatives and digital campaigners. It’s an amazing opportunity to help develop iconic images that will be part of the biggest political campaign of a generation."
Firms will work with Stephenson and with Dominic Cummings, former adviser to Michael Gove and the Vote Leave campaign director, to whom Stephenson reports, as well as head of media Robert Oxley, formerly of the TaxPayers' Alliance.
