Ex-Staniforth MD launches new agency

THE former managing director of Staniforth, the PR firm which was closed down at the start of the month, has set up a new agency.

Rob Brown has founded MediaCityUK-based Rule5 with Staniforth’s former group account director Julie Wilson.

They have also taken on two other Staniforth employees – Camilla Farrar, Rule5’s operations director and senior account executive Jacqueline Potter.

Advertising agency TBWA closed Staniforth, which had 12 staff at offices in Manchester and London, saying the move was linked to its strategy of focusing on “core creative agencies”. It’s understood a management buyout was on the cards, but this fell through.

Rule5 has taken on three former Staniforth clients – British Cycling, media consultant K7, and the Liverpool food ingredients producer Renshaw.

Mr Brown said: “We chose MediaCityUK because of the rare concentration of media businesses, new and old. There is also a huge amount of creative talent and people that we want to work with to create media content.

“The old network advertising, marketing, PR model is broken beyond repair. PR companies are becoming much more aligned with media organisations channeling information in written form, as well as audio and visual.”

He added: “The boundary between on and off line doesn’t really exist. We’re equally at home with Twitter and the Times.”