Nokia issues brief for international agency to consolidate US and UK PR

By Matt Cartmell, prweek.com, 04 January 2011, 01:16PM

Three agencies have been put on alert as Nokia has issued a PR brief to consolidate its agencies in the US and UK, while supporting its head office.

Nokia: Seeking global support

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The Finnish mobile telephone giant is at the early stages of a process to appoint an agency.

The pitch will affect three agencies: Ketchum, which currently holds the business in the US; Good Relations, which has the business in UK; and Golin Harris, which supports the head office's comms needs.

Nokia head of media relations Doug Dawson said: 'We are actively seeking a single agency to support our PR efforts in the United Kingdom, the US, as well as support for our communications needs from our head office. We believe this model will offer us greater synergy and results in two key media markets. We have no plans to change our agency model in other markets.'

The process is expected to be complete by the end of March.

Good Relations scooped Nokia's UK consumer business in October 2009, worth up to £400,000 annually. The agency, part of Bell Pottinger Group, stole the business from two-year incumbent Lexis.

Nokia’s global comms is headed up by senior vice president, communications Arja Suominen.

Last November, Lee Brooke left his role as MD of Bell Pottinger agency Harvard PR to become global comms director for Nokia’s new mobile solutions group.

Last January, Nokia decided to keep Ketchum as its AOR for North America.

This article was first published on prweek.com