Up rebrands
Up Communications has rebranded as Goldbug as part of the agency’s plan to double in size next year. The agency, founded in 2014 by ex-EE comms pros Lynne Arrowsmith and Stuart Jackson and later joined by former Sunday Mirror news editor James Saville and ex-Mail on Sunday showbusiness editor Lara Gould, is expanding its mix of external and internal comms. Arrowsmith said the sharpened proposition and rebrand would help the agency double in size by October 2017.
OOKII hires ex-Sunday Times editor
Tech and startup PR firm OOKII Group has appointed former Sunday Times managing editor James Adams as chair. The agency has seven staff across its London HQ and offices in Berlin, New York and Portland, Oregon. It was founded in late 2014 by Philip Newman, founder of marketing agency CEO. Adams left the Sunday Times in 1991 after 16 years at the paper, and has since been an author among a variety of other roles, including a position on the advisory board of the National Security Agency in the US, where he now resides.
Community Channel turns on Pagefield
Pagefield has been appointed by the Community Channel, formerly part of the charity The Media Trust, to provide public affairs and media counsel. The appointment follows Pagefield's appointment earlier in the year to support a crowdfunding effort to prevent its closure, with the £300,000 target exceeded by £93,000. The channel is transitioning to becoming wholly owned by the community, and is now legally structured as a community benefit society.
Hillgrove briefed by Football for Peace
Richard Hillgrove's agency 6 Hillgrove has been hired to provide PR for campaign group Football for Peace, which was co-founded in 2013 by British professional footballer Kashif Siddiqi. One of the first roles for the agency in an ongoing brief that also includes sponsorship and partnership management is promoting Siddiqi's meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican this week, as part of the Sport at the Service of Humanity conference. PR for the conference is handled by Edelman, and for Siddiqi personally by FitPR.
