PR Agency One: Q&A With MD James Crawford
PR Agency One, a consumer and B2B corporate PR agency, was recently named in the Propel 100- The Most Influential PR Agencies in the World 2021. Its team of 25 members specializes in “measuring creative and strategic output,” said Managing Director James Crawford. “We are experts in retail, technology, financial services and healthcare to name but a few key verticals.” Some of its clients include Decathlon, RADA, KPMG and Duologi. Read below as Crawford gives an inside perspective on PR Agency One today...
Q: What are you most proud of as an agency?
A: My team is amazing. I know it is a cliché, but I employ people who are better than me. They do all the things that I can’t do, and it’s a long list, believe me.
Other than making it to year 10 of trading profitably, having founded the business in 2011, the thing I am most proud of is our attitude to innovation. We’ve innovated in measurement, developed our own software and even created spin-out businesses. We’ve done that without losing sight of the brilliant basics. Guess what, despite all that innovation, the press release is not dead!
Q: What recent wins can we celebrate you for?
A: We’ve recently won Gazprom, which was a real achievement, and continue to do awesome work with Decathlon. This last year we scooped up pretty much every award we entered. To maximise the showing off, have I shown you our showreel?
Q: How would you describe your agency?
A: We are a consumer and B2B corporate agency which is expert in measuring creative and strategic output. We are experts in retail, technology, financial services and healthcare to name but a few key verticals.
Q: What are your predictions for the PR industry in 2022?
A: 2022 is the year that PR agencies become PR agencies again. What the hell does being called an integrated agency really mean? What are you all integrating? I just see one big internet. So, you are a creative communications agency? Yeah, we all are mate. You do digital PR? What is digital anyway? It’s an enabler, not a channel, most people who do “digital PR” are really building search visibility, and guess what we all do. Labels annoy me.
Q: What are you doing to improve D&I in the PR industry?
A: D&I is a big challenge. We’ve set company values and we measure them in an employee survey. To date, we’ve got lots of official policies and a few unofficial ones in our alternative employee handbook, which to be fair, needs updating as our policies are changing all the time. Gemma Eccleston, on our management team, is tasked with updating our employee offering which includes D&I, she’s doing that with our non-exec Stephen Waddington as an advisor, so I expect us to be best in class. She has a personal stake in D&I, and I expect her response to be brilliant.
