The&Partnership Joins Forces with Wunderman and GroupM for News UK

This week will see the launch of Pulse Creative – a new type of cross-discipline agency devoted to News UK’s brands, handling all creative communications for The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and News UK’s betting and gaming business.

 

Pulse Creative will bring together the best talent from The&Partnership agencies CHI&Partners, m/SIX and The BOX, along with Wunderman and Mindshare, in one new, future-facing agency – housing skilled experts in strategy, creative, design, digital content creation, social and UX.

 

Pulse Creative will create everything from high-touch brand campaigns to fast-moving, news-led digital and social media campaigns, led by CHI&Partners and Wunderman. The joint venture will also borrow from the streamlined capabilities of The&Partnership’s bespoke agency offering The BOX, which offers maximum efficiency for fast-moving organisations such as publishing brands. 

 

Pulse Creative will also house a specialist division for News UK’s new betting and gaming business – working on and launching new digital products such as The Sun’s Dream Team, Sun Bingo and Sun Bets, to support News UK’s position as innovators within the digital marketplace. 

 

Targeted media strategies will help to build audiences and drive subscriptions across all News UK’s products and channels, drawing on the expertise of the m/SIX and Mindshare partnership.

 

Pulse Creative’s 70-person team will be headed up by Managing Director Danny Josephs and Creative Director Robin Garton, who formerly held the same positions at WPP’s Team News. The&Partnership’s Oliver Egan has been appointed Chief Strategy Officer for Pulse, Mindshare’s Matthew Mint has been appointed Head of Media, and Wunderman’s Nicole Cobble has been appointed Operations Director. The leadership team will work closely with News UK’s marketing teams, reporting directly into Chief Customer Officer Chris Duncan and Director of Betting and Gaming David Robinson.

 

Senior leaders from across the joint venture will also play an integral role in the agency’s output, including The&Partnership founder Johnny Hornby, CHI&Partners’ CEO Sarah Golding and CSO Neil Goodlad, m/SIX’s Global CEO Jess Burley, and Wunderman’s MD Chris Daplyn and EMEA CSO Richard Dunn.

 

Danny Josephs, Managing Director for Pulse Creative, said: “The launch of Pulse Creative marks a very special moment – bringing together the cross-discipline expertise of each of these agencies with a number of individuals who have an exceptional track record in creating highly successful work for News UK. We’re all very proud to be involved.”

 

Chris Duncan, Chief Customer Officer for News UK, said: “We've worked with a great team to design an agency set-up that can work along side our business and accelerate our performance. The mix of on-premise and on-demand skills gives us a balance of immediacy and insight, and we can manage bigger ideas and better execution across so many disciplines. Pulse Creative allows our marketing teams to spend less time connecting diverse agencies with competing interests, and more time bringing great campaigns to life for our customers.”