Welcome to the PRmoment podcast. Today, we're joined by Angie Moxham, founder of 3 Monkeys and Fourth Angel and Mark Borkowski, founder of Borkowski PR and PR commentator.

In this new show Mark, Angie and PRmoment founder Ben Smith review the biggest news stories of the week from a PR perspective and this week we’re talking about Traitors, Meghan Markle’s return to acting and whether the Royal Family can survive Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s scandal in the long term.

Before we start, our PR Masterclass the Agency Growth Forum is now live. Virtual and face-to-face tickets are now available.

Check out PRmasterclasses.com or the homepage of PRmoment for the full speaker lineup.

Also, thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.

Welcome to the PRmoment podcast. Today, we're thrilled to be joined by Lou Hoffman, founder and CEO of Hoffman. Hoffman is an independent US based PR firm with a fee income of approximately $30m. Lou founded the business in 1987.

Hoffman specialises in tech PR and recently bought CCGroup in the UK. Hoffman has offices in North America, the UK and Asia. It employs about 460 people globally.

Before we start,our PR Masterclass the Agency Growth Forum is now live. Virtual and face to face tickets are now available.

Check out PRmasterclasses.com or the homepage of PRmoment for the full speaker lineup.

Also, thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.

Here are the key themes which Lou and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

Lou talks us through the reasons for buying a PR Agency?

What are the advantages of acquiring an agency versus organic growth?

Hoffman has only made two acquisitions since 1987. Is that regret for Lou? Does he wish he'd made more?

Is it sensible to use debt to purchase a PR firm, or is it better to do it from historical profit?

How do you buy a PR firm? What does the process look like?

There are plenty of examples of PR agency acquisitions that haven't worked out, how do you maximise your chances of success?

Practically speaking, how can you get to know agencies before you buy them?

How long should an acquisition process take, because whilst it's very important to be thorough, momentum is important?

Is a perfect match ever possible?

Which professional advisors as an acquirer should you have?

How does it work with the agency you're about to acquire clients? Do you talk to them pre or post the deal?

How does an earn out work for the previous owners of the business?

Post deal it can get difficult, what are the best ways to make it work?

The legal fees can be very high. So does that mean that for micro deals you either have to take a punt and be less thorough? Or is there a level of acquisition at which it's really not worth it from a purchaser's perspective?

In the fifth episode of the season, Dean Connelly, founder of Latte Recruitment give their best attempt at a spooky Halloween special episode.

Earlier in the week, Elizabeth asked PR professionals to submit anonymous recruitment horror stories, whether that be a candidate of nightmares, or an terrifying interview process — we wanted to hear about it, warts and all. Dean, a willing victim, must blind react to the tales of recruitment terror.

Later, the pair play a game of Recruitment Trick or Treat, where they discuss whether certain perks, benefits and workplace cultures are as good as they seem.

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors the PRCA

Welcome to the PRmoment podcast. Today, we're thrilled to be joined by Lorraine Emmett, the founder and MD of the award-winning B2B tech PR agency, EC-PR.

EC-PR is a boutique specialising in B2B PR for engineering, science, and technology scale-ups. They typically partner with high-growth B2B tech brands and companies with 50 to 999 employees, working with Strategic Marketing Leaders and CMOs to elevate brand awareness and influence.

Today, we'll dive into her insights on how B2B companies can gain a trust advantage.

Before we start, our PR Masterclass the Agency Growth Forum is now live. Virtual and face to face tickets are now available.

This event always sells out so if you do want a face to face ticket, be quick. Genuinely, don’t hang about. Check out PRmasterclasses.com or the homepage of PRmoment for the full speaker lineup.

Also, do check out PRmoment’s TikTok content, it’ll keep you up to date with the best creative campaigns in PR, interviews with interesting PR folks and our weekly Good and Bad PR content with Andy Barr.

Also, thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what PRmoment founder Ben Smith and founder and managing director of EC-PR Lorraine Emmett discussed on the PRmoment Podcast.

• Why the emotion of trust is a spectrum. How does Lorraine define trust in a B2B communications environment?
• Is trust in B2B a function of brand and product?
• As communicators is it possible to create trust? Or is it a symptom of customer experience?
• Why is thought leadership an important tool for creating trust?
• Lorraine talks about Coleman Park’s 7 Pillars of thought leadership in our pre show chat and why she finds them an important reference point. What are Coleman Park 7 pillars of trust?
• How do you build trust in a B2B market?
• Isn’t pretty all of a PR/comms team output related to thought leadership in one way or another?
• The Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report consistently highlights the power of thought leadership in building trust and directly influencing the B2B purchase journey. Lorraine talks us through the finding of that report and the implications for how B2B PR and comms teams create and partner with influencers.
• EC PR’s recent The Trust Advantage report looks at how trust is important for SMEs. Lorraine talks us through the key findings of your The Trust Advantage report.
• What are the outcomes of thought leadership in B2B markets? Are they both defensive and offensive?
• What does the best practice measurement of B2B thought leadership look like?

Welcome to our review of PR pitches and mergers and acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch. Here we discuss the biggest pitch wins, mergers and acquisitions that the PR sector has seen in October 2025

Andrew is the lead consultant PR, social, content and influencer at the new business consultancy firm AAR and a partner at PCB Partners, where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

PR Masterclass the Agency Growth Forum is now live. Virtual and face to face tickets are now available.
Check out PRmasterclasses.com or the homepage of PRmoment for the full speaker lineup.
Also, thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, the PRCA.

Here is a rundown of what Andrew and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

Pitches

National Express - Block Report - Block Report launched earlier this year Founded by Chris Grimwood of Iris and Social Chain and Jack Colchester of Wonderhood.

Singapore Tourist Board - Splendid - UK integrated marketing agency. This win follows an open RFI. Splendid won Heathrow Express in April.

Belfast City Council - Cavendish Consulting, Lanyon Communications (part of Consello) and Open Strategic Communications

PPHE Hotel Group (formerly Park Plaza Hotels Europe) - Launch PR. Retained consumer and corporate brief. 51 properties across eight countries.

Rangemaster - Stakked - Iconic cooker brand with global recognition and deep British roots. Previously in-house.

BFI London Film Festival - Vamp - 69th film festival. Vamp has worked with clients inc. Disney, paramount, Netflix, Prime, C4 Apple TV etc

Aardman Animation - Wonderland. New Ewe Knit it campaign invites fans to create knitted items that can be turned into blankets for the homeless in London.

Toy Retailers Association - WPR. To promote the dream toys list of the hottest toys for Christmas 2025.

Butlins - Popcorn. Positioning the holiday resort as the Home of Entertainment. Popcorn is strong in consumer and lifestyle - clients include Thorpe Park, Panasonic and London Designer Outlet.

Hey Dude - Words+Pixels. Launch of new campaign with Lewis Capaldi.

Acai Berry Foods - Neon Brand Communications - Neon are specialists in health, wellness and beauty and lifestyle brands (hotpot yoga, coconut collab etc.)

For Goodness Shakes - Frank. Launch protein and collagen drink, Glow.

Lipton Teas and Infusions - Clarion. Retained consumer pr for sub brands PG Tips and Pukka.

Youngs Seafoods - Brazen. Consumer pr, social media, influencer. Frozen fish brand - supplies approx. 40% of all the fish eaten in the UK every year, apparently!

Omi/Shakers/Dints - Ballou. Trio of new clients for Ballou UK.

Nationwide Building Society - Popeyes, Ogi and DEBRA - Folk
Border to Coast Pensions Partnership - Apella Advisors. Appella was founded in 2019 by ex APCO UK boss James Acheson Gray - works with Aviva, KPMG and Nationwide Building society
Royal Mint - Third City. The Royal Mint is celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Monopoly Board game.
Vinted – Smarts. Pan European pr, social and creator for online marketplace for selling, buying and exchanging new/second hand items.
POD - Tin Man. EV electric charging provider, joins Tin Man’s existing energy division - EDF, Electrify Britain, Energy GB.
Changan - Woosah - Chinese auto firm launching into UK market with all electric Deepal SUV model.
Paddy Power - Pitch - Addition to roster alongside Ready10.

M&A

Team Lewis acquire Instinctif Partners. This deal will double the size of Team Lewis’ UK ope

In the fourth episode of the season, Dean Connelly, founder of Latte Recruitment and Elizabeth are joined by Shruti Gupta, account executive at Harvard and her colleague Joe McDermott, head of enterprise technology practice at Harvard.

Following Gupta's inspirational My PRmoment interview, in which she discussed having imposter syndrome after moving from India to the UK to work in PR, we asked her and McDermott how that presented at work and how effective line management helped to reduce her feelings of doubt.

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors the PRCA

A recent survey by Fairtrade, with research undertaken by Kantar, finds 86% of shoppers want brands to be upfront about sourcing and more than half (55%) think businesses should take a ‘large amount’ or ‘full responsibility’ for protecting the human rights of workers in their supply chains.

The study found that 59% of UK adults support Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD) legislation, while just 9% oppose it, showing strong public backing for government action and responsible business practices.

Sustainability and purpose matter in communications. They help you build trust and credibility, they help you attract and retain talent and they help you drive innovation in green technologies.

In a special PRmoment podcast, inspired by the final deadline for the Sustainability and Purpose Awards we’re chatting to The Fairtrade Organisation’s Martine Parry about its Fairtrade Fortnight Research and its implications for communicators.

Before we start a reminder that PRmoment’s Sustainability & Purpose Awards final entry deadline is on Wednesday 15th October. Take a look at all the categories on the microsite.

Here’s a summary of what PRmoment founder Ben Smith and Martine Parry discussed on this week’s show:

75% of UK adults believe their shopping habits are the most meaningful way to help build a fairer world. Martine and Ben discuss the implication of this for brand communicators.

Is the value of the ‘green pound’ (total ethical spend in the UK) still a relevant measure of consumer ethical and sustainability spending trends?

Fairtrade’s research identified 2 sustainability and purpose personas, what are they?

How can brands encourage consumers to shop “fair”?

It’s a busy media agenda but is there still room for sustainability and purpose related stories?

Define what authentic sustainability storytelling looks like in 2025?

What is the Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD) legislation and why is it important for communicators who are worried about reputation issues resulting from their supply chains?

As a judge in the Sustainability and Purpose Awards, what sort of work is Martine looking forward to seeing this year?

PRmoment founder Ben Smith is interviewed by Eilizabeth Giles about the speaker line up for PR Masterclass series The Agency Growth Forum and why it has become a bit of a personal challenge.

What PR Masterclass: The Agency Growth Forum covers in one day is incredible. You get to hear the real experts talk about how to overcome the key challenges that PR firm owners are having right now when it comes to growth.

As always with our PR Masterclass series, there are absolutely no sponsors. We don't believe in charging delegates for a ticket and then filling the program with sponsored slots.

When, Where: Wednesday 26th November 2025

Virtual tickets from £230 +VAT. Face-to-face from £460 +VAT, buy your ticket before 10/10/25 to get these early bird rates.

Here’s a run down of what Ben and Elizabeth talk about on the show:

Why did we choose Rachel Bell to speak at the Agency Growth Forum?

Let's just run through Rachel's PR agency CV:

Founder, Shine
Co founder, Mischief
Co founder, The Academy
Co founder, John Doe
Co founder, Adhuro
Non executive chair, Cavendish

Enough said?

Why did we choose Jonny Bentwood to speak at the Agency Growth Forum?

There's an interesting global community of about 8-10 PR firm data geeks who are at the arrowhead PR and technology. Jonny's at the tip of that arrow.

No PR Agency Growth Forum event would be complete without an analysis of PR's GEO opportunity and here Jonny will update us with the latest thinking.

Why did we choose Rachael Marshall to speak at the Agency Growth Forum?

Her firm Magic Digits has circa 30 PR agency clients and so there's no-one better to give a third party insight into the financial trends and challenges of running a PR firm today.

In house panel: What do clients want?

Bieneosa Ebite, GSK, head of communications and government affairs, inclusion
Clara Biu, Allwyn UK, head of consumer communications
Charlotte West, Lenovo, vice president, global corporate communications

Why did we choose Rachel Friend to speak at the Agency Growth Forum?

Rachel’s had success at PR firms who are part of the holding groups and she's also had success at PR firms who are independent.

So she knows how to run PR agency businesses. Rachel's going to talk to us about how to re-energise your PR businesses and get your momentum back.

Why did we choose Jo Carr to speak at the Agency Growth Forum?

For about the last 10 years PR firms have, in the main, worked hard to improve their employer brand and to become better employers.

Jo was at the start of this trend. She understood that in a consultancy business where creativity and customer service are absolutely vital, happy employees are always going to mean happy clients.

• Why did we choose Paul Nolan to speak at the Agency Growth Forum?

As this is the Agency Growth Forum, I didn't just want a PR AI expert, I wanted the PR leader who was furthest along the road integrating AI into their agency.

That's why Paul's speaking

• Why did we choose Jackie Elliot to speak at the Agency Growth Forum?

If you know, you know.

• Independent PR agency panel: The growth challenge

This panel will give an insight into the growth challenges for independent agencies at the moment.

• Why did we choose Lee Beattie to speak at the Agency Growth Forum?

Lee is going to talk about how Joe Doe has had success in developing a culture where young people can thrive.