WHO SIGNED THIS OFF: MARCH EDITION
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MARCH EDITION:
WHO SIGNED THIS OFF?!
It’s been quite the month:
Channel 4’s Dirty Business brought the scandal of water company raw sewage dumping back into sharp focus; Oatly got banned from using the word “milk”; Mark Zuckerberg lived through the ultimate media anxiety dream; and the RSPCA invited you to castrate your ex for a tenner.
Kick back and enjoy the March edition of Who Signed This Off? from Harpswood…
Guardian journalist Aaron Sharp came into Harpswood HQ to talk about news and PR in the digital age as part of our ongoing Harps Meets series. He touched on how major events can throw the everyday news day cycle - and PR campaigns - into disarray. (His words were prescient: a couple of weeks later, the new war in the Middle East did just that.)
Harpswood headed west to Bristol to tour the impressive offices of new client Rowden. The engineering enterprise develops technology that helps people communicate in remote, outdoor environments. We took a peak into Rowden’s anechoic chamber and then got to work understanding their business.
Octopus Energy hosted California Governor Gavin Newsom, followed in quick succession by Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Governor Newsom was in town to expand a partnership between California and the UK, of which a key part is a near-$1billion commitment to California firms and projects focused on clean tech. The Chancellor popped in just over a week later to highlight the reduction in the energy price cap.
📱 As social media and legacy media morph ever-closer together, it’s perhaps no surprise the ex Google chief Matt Brittin is being spoken of as frontrunner for the BBC Director General. The Times reports that “multiple sources” are linking Brittin, 57, to the Beeb’s top job.
🎤 Meta mogul Mark Zuckerberg faced the indignity of his own media training notes being read back to him as he gave evidence in a landmark social media addiction trial. Mark Lanier, attorney for the anonymised plaintiff, claimed Zuckerberg’s responses to questions bore the hallmarks of media training. Lanier referred to actual media training notes which urged Zuckerberg to be “authentic, direct, human, insightful and real”. It also suggested he should not be “try hard”, “fake, robotic, corporate or cheesy”. Sidenote: if you feel you’ve got being ‘human’ and ‘real’ licked but could still benefit from a bit of media training, drop us a line at whosignedthisoff@harpswood.com.
🗞️ The bidding war to own the Daily and Sunday Telegraph is hotting up. DMGT, owners of the Daily Mail, seemed to have secured the prize for half a billion quid. But Dovid Efune, publisher of the New York Sun, alongside German media conglomerate Axel Springer, has offered to increase their joint bid. The proposed sale to DMGT has been referred to the Competition and Markets Authority and media regulator Ofcom.
FOUNDERS UNFILTERED
"WE WERE MISSING A CENTRAL CONVENING FORCE CAPABLE OF BRINGING THE RIGHT PEOPLE TOGETHER"
This month Juliette Devillard CEO & Founder of Climate Connection is in the hot seat. Climate Connection uses networking to help turn climate startups into commercially successful scale-ups. It hosts 'Climate Tech Time', the UK's largest monthly event for climate founders, investors and service providers, featuring talks from startups as well as huge players such as Innovate UK, Google and EDF.
The company runs over 40 events a year, has facilitated over 25,000 connections in just a few years and also runs Connection Studio a private events consultancy for major climate players to create more impactful events.
What's the scrappiest thing you've done so far to make progress?
Our team once carried £400 worth of beer, wine, and groceries up an elevator when our venue fell through. We had to procure our own catering last minute!
In one sentence - what was your lightbulb moment for starting the business?
I realised the speed of business in the UK was far slower than in the US, and we were missing a central convening force capable of bringing the right people together through high-quality events.
What's the best piece of advice you've ever received as a founder?
Manage energy levels, not time.
What are you most excited about with your business right now?
The level of impact we're having on supporting founders, thanks to 1:1 meetings with experts across different fields.
Which purpose-led company do you most admire, and why?
Climate Fresk: I'm really impressed with the way that they've created a scalable model that’s brought climate education to so many people across the world.
What's one book you think everybody should read?
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander
One word you hope people use to describe you - and one word for your business?
Encouraging and connecting.
NEWS-O-METER
🤩 NAILED IT
Rarely has a headline hit so hard: “Castrate your ex for £10!” The RSPCA’s Altrincham, Cheshire, branch hit upon a novel way to raise funds on Valentine’s Day. It offered folk the chance to name a feral cat after an ex partner shortly before they were to be castrated (the cat, not the partner) in exchange for a small donation. The story was gleefully (and aptly) reported on by the Knutsford Guardian.
🥶 FAILED IT
The BBC often gets an unfair kicking from rival media, but it doesn’t always help itself. The incident at the BAFTAs involving Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson’s involuntary racial slur while black actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage felt entirely avoidable. It was baffling that it wasn’t edited out on the iPlayer. On a night when understanding of Tourette’s should have advanced, it was instead set back.
🥊 FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT
Sir Keir Starmer wants everyone to know he’s ready to “fight”.
So keen, in fact, that during a speech to a room of glassy-eyed teenagers, the PM used the word 26 times. Theresa May vowed to “fight on” as her premiership ebbed away. Boris Johnson insisted he was “fighting on”… and Iain Duncan Smith used the word around a dozen times in a speech shortly before colleagues forced him out. The repeated use of “fight” tends to surface when leaders feel boxed in rather than in command. As ever, listen carefully to the words politicians choose. Especially the ones they choose 26 times.
🔥 HOT TAKE
The UK’s first geothermal power plant to provide renewable energy for consumers was turned on in Truro, Cornwall. Developers Geothermal Engineering Ltd drilled the deepest onshore well in the UK. Water heated by rocks three miles below the earth’s surface drive turbines to generate electricity. Around 10,000 Octopus Energy customers will use the geothermal-generated green power.
FROM THE WEBSITE
THE UK HEALTH TECH STARTUPS TO WATCH
Digital health is a quickly-scaling sector with the global market expected to be worth almost $9 billion by the end of the decade. Discover the five UK healthtech startups shaping the future of preventative care. Read more on our website.
HARPSWOOD RECOMMENDS
📘 READ BY HARPSWOOD
London Centric is consistently producing some excellent journalism about the capital city. The subscription newsletter was launched by Jim Waterson – ex media editor at The Guardian and political editor at Buzzfeed – in late 2024. Its investigations into fake anti-immigrant TikTok accounts and the battle over the use of London’s parks for music festivals have had wider impact.
👀 WATCHED BY HARPSWOOD
Channel 4’s docu-drama Dirty Business shone a spotlight on UK water companies repeatedly dumping sewage into rivers – and the apparent complicity of the Environment Agency. The hard-hitting three-part series has been compared to ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which intensified pressure on the Government to compensate wrongly-prosecuted subpostmasters. The two shows represent an interesting development in PR and media too: fictionalised versions of scandals that have had significantly more impact than factual newspaper or TV news reports.
SPEAKING PLAINLY
🗣️ MIND YOUR LANGUAGE
Don’t cry over spilt milk plant-based drink: Oatly can no longer use the word “milk” in its marketing following a ruling by the UK’s Supreme Court. Oatly had tried to trademark “post-milk generation” but Dairy UK objected. Oatly described the ruling as “stifling competition”. Dairy UK said it helped with “clear meaning”.
HARPSWOOD IRL
MEET OUR LONDON TEAM IN JANUARY AT:
🗓️ Roxhill’s Q&A: How to pitch business news to This is Money@ MyoBankside on Thursday 5th March
🗓️ Venture Cafe London @ 1 Triton Square on Thursday 12th March
🗓️ Climate Tech Time @ The Conduit on Wednesday 25th March. Before the event we will also be hosting PR office hours. Email whosignedthisoff@harpswood.com to grab a slot.
🗓️ Climate Coffee a monthly networking opportunity @ St James's Café on Thursday 26th March
🗓️ Venture Cafe London @ 1 Triton Square on Thursday 26th March