 | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Communications |
| Founded | 1 August 1991 in London [1] |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
Number of locations | |
Key people | Simon Whale (Managing Director) |
| Services | Public relations |
| Parent | Octopus Group |
| Website | www |
Luther Pendragon is a London and New York-based public relations and communications agency.
Founded in 1992 by media journalist George Pitcher and television journalist Charles Stewart-Smith, [2] and so named due to Pitcher's interest in Arthurian legends, [3] the firm grew through the 1990s off the back of major and often controversial clients such as British Gas, Kimberly Clark, Holocaust Memorial Day and the Hinduja family. The company handles all media inquiries for the London and Winchester dioceses of the Church of England. [4] [5] Luther Pendragon lays claim to having developed the professional practice of issues management, but this is disputed in the PR industry.
In 2004 ex-civil servant Mike Granatt joined the consultancy. [6] [7] His clients included the Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin, a position from which Granatt resigned in February 2008, saying he had been misled over a scandal involving the Speaker's expenses. [8] One of his clients in 2007 was the BBC Trust. [9]
In 2005, the firm was subject to a management buy-out, said to be worth £11 million by the trade magazine PR Week. Current clients include Reuben Brothers. [10]
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization to the public in order to influence their perception. Public relations and publicity differ in that PR is controlled internally, whereas publicity is not controlled and contributed by external parties. Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. The exposure is mostly media-based, and this differentiates it from advertising as a form of marketing communications. Public relations aims to create or obtain coverage for clients for free, also known as earned media, rather than paying for marketing or advertising also known as paid media. But in the early 21st century, advertising is also a part of broader PR activities.
Michael John Martin, Baron Martin of Springburn, was a Scottish politician who served as Speaker of the House of Commons between 2000 and 2009. A member of the Labour Party, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow Springburn from 1979 to 2005 and for Glasgow North East until 2009. He was elected as Speaker of the House of Commons in 2000, remaining in the office for nine years until his involuntary resignation in 2009.
Ketchum Inc. is a global public relations firm, offering marketing, branding, and corporate communications services in the corporate, healthcare, food and beverage, and technology industries. George Ketchum founded the firm as a Pittsburgh-based advertising company in 1923. It later evolved to include a public relations practice. The firm is headquartered in New York City, with auxiliary offices and affiliates in North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The agency has been owned by Omnicom Group since 1996. Ketchum merged with Düsseldorf-based Pleon in one of the industry's largest mergers in 2009. It has been led by President and CEO Mike Doyle since 2020.
Mike Granatt is a public relations and communications professional, formerly a senior British civil servant, and the first head of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat of the Cabinet Office in 2001, the same year he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath for "exceptional public service."
The USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism comprises a School of Communication and a School of Journalism at the University of Southern California (USC). Starting July 2017, the school's Dean is Willow Bay, succeeding Ernest J. Wilson III. The graduate program in Communications is consistently ranked first according to the QS World University Rankings.
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Porter Novelli is a public relations firm, part of Omnicom Group. The company has 35 owned offices and clients in 60 countries.
Freud Communications is a public relations firm based in London. It was founded in 1985 by Matthew Freud. He is the great-grandson of the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who himself was the uncle of Edward Bernays, the Austrian-American pioneer of public relations.
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Burson Cohn & Wolfe is a multinational public relations and communications firm, headquartered in New York City. In February 2018, parent WPP Group PLC announced that it had merged its subsidiaries Cohn & Wolfe with Burson-Marsteller. The combined agency is now known as Burson Cohn & Wolfe.
George Pitcher is a British journalist, author and an Anglican priest. He is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, specialising in the future of journalism. He was most recently Editor-in-Chief of International Business Times UK, Associate Editor at Newsweek Europe and head of its editorial panel, positions he quit after his 60th birthday in 2015. He co-founded Jericho Chambers, a radical development of communications consultancy modelled on a set of legal chambers, with Robert Phillips, a former CEO at Edelman, in June 2013. Previously, he was appointed Secretary for Public Affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury in October 2010 and left the post a year later. He was Religion Editor of Telegraph Media from May 2008 and wrote a regular column and occasional leaders for the Daily Telegraph and a contentious blog for telegraph.co.uk. He left the paper in June 2010, six weeks after editor-in-chief Will Lewis abruptly departed after a strategic disagreement. He serves on the Advisory Board of communications consultancy Cast From Clay
APCO Worldwide is an independent global public affairs and strategic communications consultancy. With 680 employees in 35 worldwide locations, it is also the fifth largest independently owned PR firm in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., APCO was founded in 1984 by Margery Kraus, who is now the firm's Executive Chairman.
Angela Margaret Jane "Anji" Hunter is an English public relations advisor. She is noted for her close partnership with former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
ID is an independently owned and operated public relations firm. ID works with actors, directors, writers, musicians, brands, corporations and production companies.
Portland Communications is a political consultancy and public relations agency set up in 2001 by Tim Allan, a former adviser to Tony Blair and Director of Communications at BSkyB. In 2012 a majority stake in Portland was purchased by Omnicom.
The Glover Park Group was an American communications consulting firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. The company was founded in 2001 by former White House and Democratic campaign officials Carter Eskew, Michael Feldman, Joe Lockhart and Chip Smith. In January 2021, the firm merged with Finsbury and Hering Schuppener to form Finsbury Glover Hering, which itself later merged in December 2021 with New York City-based Sard Verbinnen & Co to form FGS Global.
Allan Briggs is a Melbourne-based crisis communication expert. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Crisis Shield and a sessional lecturer at RMIT University.
MikeWorldWide is a public relations firm. The company works in public relations and marketing, technology, digital and social media marketing, public affairs and government relations, corporate communications, healthcare, sustainability, and visual branding. Michael W. Kempner is the company’s founder and CEO. The firm's corporate headquarters is in East Rutherford, New Jersey; the firm's operating headquarters is in New York City.
Navigator Ltd. is a Canadian public relations, crisis management, lobbying and polling company based in Toronto, with offices in Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Moncton. They have represented a number of high-profile Canadian clients including Brian Mulroney, Michael Bryant, and Magna International. The company was founded in 2000 by Jaime Watt, a communications strategist tied to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. Watt remains the Executive Chairman of the company.