This week on the PRmoment Podcast I talk to co founder of Hope&Glory James Gordon-Macintosh.
James went to Cambridge University and has then only really had two jobs in PR - first at Fishburn Hedges, the consumer side of which morphed into 77 PR, and then he set up Hope&Glory with Jo Carr in 2011. Hope&Glory has a fee income today of approx £5.5m.
Here is a flavour of what James and I discuss:
- How his first job was as a journalist writing about Brazilian debt equities!
- Why, from very early in his career, he always wanted to start his own PR firm
- How, from very early on, he planned his career to position himself to be able to set up his own firm
- Why James yearned for a career in consumer PR while working for then corporate PR shop Fishburn Hedges
- How James became MD of consumer PR firm 77 PR having never really worked in consumer PR
- Why James got together with Jo Carr to launch Hope&Glory
- Why James didn’t believe Hope&Glory was a massive risk
- Why confidence in yourself and your partner is critical in setting up your own firm
- How Hope&Glory have retained the feel and image of a fresh consumer shop in London
- Why successful consultancies must develop a broad range of work
- How James learnt the importance of getting Hope&Glory’s work talked about
- How does James retain his creative edge?
- How does Hope&Glory structure its idea creation process?
- Why curiosity is a vital ingredient of creativity
- How creativity is not a process but the delivery of creativity is
- How James and Jo Carr have grown Hope&Glory from £0 to a fee income of £5.5m in under 7 years
- Why Hope&Glory turned down more work in 2017 than they pitched for
- Why pitching for new business is important for PR firms
- Why James’ partnership with Jo Carr has been so successful
- Why good ideas are not channel specific
- Why James is more interested in good ideas than creativity.
- Why the current rate of change in social and digital media is not as rapid and some people would like to believe
- How the biggest change for consumer PR and marketing firms is the sophistication of client expectations and process
- Why James doesn’t worry too much about Brexit
- Why PR firms are gaining market share at the margins of digital and social briefs but there is not yet a trend of PR agencies successfully winning briefs that previously went to advertising agencies
- What are James’ 2 favourite campaigns that he’s worked on
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