Welcome to our review of PR Pitches and mergers & acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch. Here, we discuss the biggest pitch wins and mergers & acquisitions that the PR sector has seen in September.

Andrew is the lead consultant - PR, Social, Content and Influencer at the new business consultancy firm AAR and a partner at PCB Partners, where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Andrew launched Andrew Bloch & Associates in 2020.

Before we start, make sure you get your tickets quick for our PR Masterclass: Agency Growth Forum . It’s on 12th November 2024, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm GMT. Both face-to-face and virtual tickets are available. The event is held in central London.

“Honestly, I had one of the most fascinating and useful days of my career. I can't think of anything that needed improvement. The quality of the speakers was phenomenal. Thank you!”
PR Agency, director

“The best day I’ve spent at work for ages!”
PR Agency, director

“What an incredible line-up of speakers!”
PR agency, founder

1 min This month's rundown of the biggest PR pitch wins

Reed Employment – Soho Communications. Corporate and consumer brief, Soho was founded by James Henderson the former CEO of Bell Pottinger in 2018.

NHS - £500M framework – will run to 2028 – for consultancy and advisory services for health. Divided into 10 lots one of which is for ‘communications, engagement and research”. 27 firms were selected. The potential of £45M value. Include agencies such as Engage Communicate Facilitate (ECF), Freshwater UK, and Lynne Group.

Mars Pet Foods – Brands 2 Life will lead social across Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Including influencer and paid.

Kellanova (the new name for Kellogs, who own Pringles, Pop Tarts, etc.) appointed Tin Man for the US brand Cheez-It UK launch.

Bassetts Vitamins – Tin Man – consumer PR brief for leading vitamins brand. Earned first, creative, press office and influencer.

Motorway – Romans – Consumer PR brief. Fight or Flight handles corporate comms.

Nationwide – Romans: consumer PR brief to raise awareness of the financial services brand with younger audiences and families.

Greggs – Here Be Dragons: Project basis on consumer activations.

Zurich Insurance – Boldspace: Corporate press office. Handled two projects earlier in the year, now retained.

Gordon Ramsey Restaurants– H/Advisors Maitland– global corp comms. The plan is to build out the restaurant groups' corporate profile and engage with key audiences.

World Travel & Tourism Council – Finn Partners – global comms for the launch of the ‘Together in Travel’ comms campaign.

Currys – Red – Press office and creative. Increase awareness of expertise, range and relatable playful brand tone ahead of Black Fri and Xmas.

Hitachi Zero Carbon – Brands 2 Life – EMEA, APAC and N America. The brief is to increase brand awareness for this division of Hitachi, which is on a mission to accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon world largely by converting public transport and commercial fleets to electric vehicles.

Ellen McArthur Foundation – Kindred – Kindred will support the charity's media and comms team to develop and amplify stories across the UK, US and EU with particular focus on food and plastics projects.

Kidney Cancer UK – PHA Group – The brief is to support the charity’s press office and long term awareness raising mission.

20 mins This month's rundown of PR’s biggest M&A activity:

Rud Pedersen (Public affairs and Strategic comms agency) acquire Issuemakers – a Dutch agency.

DGA (Dentons Global Advisors) Acquire EH&A Consulting, a French public affairs shop.

DGA has already acquired Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington and PA agency Interel. DH now has 12 offices with 300 FTE.

Ogilvy acquire New Commercial Arts

Co-founder James Murphy will be the new group CEO. NCA will remain an independent brand. Fiona Gordon, the current UK group CEO of Ogilvy, will become the global CEO of Ogilvy Advertising.

Murphy and David Golding co-founded Adam & Eve which they sold to Omincom DDB in 2012. Before that they ran RKCR/Y&R and then faced legal action from WPP when they quit in 2007 to launch Adam & Eve.

WPP will be hoping to repeat that success at Ogilvy. NCA has big clients like Nationwide, Sainsburys and Vodafone.

“It’s interesting to see WPP starting to go shopping again.”