Ross Purdy will head up the PR division
Media agency Bohemia has launched a PR arm off the back of two new client wins – games company Namco Bandai Partners, and product supplier GWA Bathrooms and Kitchens.
The business will be driven by Ross Purdy, who moves across from an in-house role at software developer Take 2 Interactive and has also previously worked at client Namco.
The fledgling STW-aligned agency which opened its doors in October last year is strategy led. Founding partner and former Ikon director Brett Dawson said: “We are founded on the premise of thinking and strategy and that is really why PR is so pertinent. In a lot of our research and approach we see and understand the power of people as a channel in their own right.”
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He added that a PR offering was always on the cards: “It just made sense, I had always envisioned PR being a critical component of our offering, I just needed to convince a a couple of clients to fund it.”
Prior to Namco and Take 2, Purdy worked in a strategy role at Toyota.
Dawson told Mumbrella the focus will stay on the consumer side. “We will never position ourselves to do crisis management and corporate PR, it is more from a campaign consumer point of view. It will be how we can respect, understand and use the power of PR.”
He added: “With the power of editorial these days, to get a good idea to pop you need more than a good lunch and a relationship with a sales director, which was how the old world used to work.”
Bohemia is not the only strategy led media operation to extend its scope to PR. Naked Communications added PR to its services several months ago.