Matt Porter quits AdNews editorship for agency PR
AdNews editor Matt Porter is leaving the Yaffa Publishing magazine for a career in PR with M&C Saatchi among his first clients.
Porter, whose last day will be May 21, will join his wife, former Yaffa staffer Tracey Porter (nee McEldowney), at her agency Traceability. He will initially be based for much of his time at the offices of M&C Saatchi.
Porter joined AdNews at the beginning of last year and became editor in mid March after the departure of Andrea Sophocleous.
Porter told Mumbrella: “AdNews is a fantastic title and it is a privilege to have been the editor.”
It all makes sense now…thanks for the scoop Tim! 🙂
I always thought Matt was way too tall for the job anyway. Good luck in the new gig
congrautaltions mate – you’re a talented lovely bloke
Why do ad agencies outsource their own brand communications? cant do it themselves.
3.49pm….there is a subtle difference between PR and advertising. Not sure what you mean by brand communications (and don’t think you do either).
As far as I know, not many advertising agencies handle public relations, so it makes sense they’d outsource it to experts.
Tim – it’s BURBURY not Burberry. If I was a Burberry I would be drifting between my chateau in France and my condo in Aspen dude!
And to anonymous – have you ever seen an agency do a good job of its own PR???
I can add to that editor list – Sam Tannous, former AdNews editor who works for Torch Media among others
I find it hard to believe that he’s walking away from the obvious spoils of a lucrative magazine editor’s role, to the mean and hungry streets of PR…
@Rochelle
I’ve watched Naked do their own PR and eclipse any agency brand around hands’ down. Even in the year they had to deal with all that Witchery stuff and a partner leaving the scooped up a heap of local awards.
I think the current default to employing retained external trade PRs is unsustainable and in the not too distant future there may actually be more PRs than journalists, and fewer and fewer places of calibre for PRs to place clients’ news…
From a long-term POV agencies need to address the challenge of PRing themselves as an internal function. It’s as simple as having people onboard with a few different strings to their bow and who have the genuine backing on senior management. There is certainly a role for external trade PR, big projects, exit-strategies, etc. But the rest can be taken in house in many cases, or at least in part.
Oops – sorry about the name spelling, Rochelle. Now corrected.
And also updated Sam Tannous’s list.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
What would adnews editor pay? 55k? I doubt its a lucrative gig to be honest.
PR is as legitimate as any comms tool – advertising included. I’ve yet to see many ads generate the $ value exposure good PR can.
any brand should manage as much of their comms in house as possible. small agencies outsourcing their reputation is weird.
@GLC
The difficulty of having ‘inhouse PR’ resources is that they lack the objectivity of an external specialist resource. It’s also tricky to reality check and tell their bosses that the potential story they think is fabulous won’t be viewed that way by journalists – it would be biting the hand that feeds them.
With an external specialist you also get the benefit of a range of experience vs one person – at Access (warning: nshameless plug approaching) we can offer the benefit of being on both sides of the fence – Andrea as an ex-journo and also in-house agency PR and me as ex-AFR journo.
My business partner Andrea may have a view on this too – she was inhouse PR at M&C Saatchi for 7 years.
@GLC
PS Our objectives with agency PR are never about awards – it’s about generating new business.