Jeremy Probert MCIPR, Managing Director

“I started The Wordmonger after 15 years as a PR advisor, in agency and with large companies, working mainly in food, drink, leisure and retail. My experiences – if anyone would believe them – finally made me realise that, all too often, PR and communications are misunderstood, undervalued, overpriced and approached in a fairly haphazard manner.

Sure, there are great people and agencies out there, but for every example of good PR, there’s a handful of examples of bad communications and failure to assess the consequences.

On that basis, what chance do businesses that are choosing or changing their agency, or creating or expanding a dedicated team, stand of getting good PR advice?

The Wordmonger doesn’t set out to be ground-breaking. It won’t take you into cyberspace. It doesn’t beat the chest of guerrilla marketing. It won’t laser your logo on the moon. It will, however, provide reliable, realistic and reasonable PR and communications services, plainly and simply. That’s what we do.”

A few of Jeremy’s career highlights:

• Taking a party of leading food journalists to the Gaza strip to see cherry tomatoes growing
• Surveying 200 Olympic athletes in five countries on where they wanted the 2000 Olympics to be held (Sydney, obviously) and releasing the results a day before the decision was made
• Making sure the late Emlyn Hughes got his Mateus Rose at a gala dinner
• Launching German Weissbier in the UK
• Appearing on S4C (Welsh Channel 4), to discuss a pint of Guinness
• Hosting Radio 5 at a pub opening – in Shanghai
• Accompanying Jazz FM for a week of live broadcasts in Cork
• Taking the FT to eat oysters in Galway
• Doing a live interview with a Japanese radio station on the topic of gay advertising
• Handling the media when a Page 3 girl stabbed her boyfriend to death over steak and chips in a well-known restaurant chain
• Telling the chairman of a FTSE100 company to ‘lose the jacket, roll up your sleeves and loosen that tie’
• Saying ‘We’ve offered £2.8 billion, which we think is fair and full value’ into a mobile ‘phone, on a crowded train
• Defending and re-building the corporate reputation of a FTSE100 company during and following a failed takeover bid
• Handling financial and corporate communications around deals worth in excess of £5.3bn
• Inventing MINTs – Middle Income, No Ties – the ultimate, footloose, fancy-free consumer
• Declaring 2000 individual pubs to be separatist states of the Scottish nation in order to get round licensing laws on New Year’s Eve. It didn’t work
• Being on the Steering Committee of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group
• Receiving an award from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport for developing a festival of Irish Culture at the Barbican in London

………….and then there’s the stuff you couldn’t make up.

Jonathan Miller MCIPR, Non-Executive Director

“When Jeremy outlined his vision and plan for The Wordmonger, I couldn’t help but agree with one basic premise - that providers of best practise communications offer companies a real competitive advantage but they are too few in number and often too difficult to find.

“Successful public relations isn’t just the domain of large companies who recognise its value and who have big budgets. There are also thousands of small to medium size companies who don’t necessarily understand the importance of PR and the benefits it can bring. The challenge then is to demonstrate to these companies that building their reputations among their key stakeholders not only generates goodwill but can also boost revenue and profitability. If it’s done right.

“Which is where The Wordmonger comes in - providing reliable, realistic and reasonable communications services plainly and simply by highly qualified and experienced practitioners in the field. And, because of its unique operational structure, it can deliver at a highly competitive cost compared to traditional PR agencies.

“As someone who has spent 15 years in all aspects of communications – both in agency and in-house – I know that The Wordmonger offers companies of all sizes the sort of high quality PR solutions that will add value to their business.”

A summary of Jonathan’s career background:

• Experience of all aspects of PR – from trade and consumer brand communications, national and international corporate and financial communications, public affairs, media relations, sponsorship exploitation, issues/crisis management and internal communications
• PR career spent working for agencies and in-house at several FTSE 100 companies – main experience spans FMCG, Retail and Business to Business
• Managed media programmes and training for all levels of organisations from Chief Executives and senior directors to shop floor employees
• Produced series of PR publications and lectured on Effective Media Relations; How to Develop a PR Plan; How to Hire a PR Agency; How to Publicise Sponsorships; How to Publicise Irish Pubs (!)
• Conducted PR workshops around the world for senior management teams to demonstrate the importance of PR and to help them devise strategic brand and corporate PR plans
• Managed new product launches, from Electric Shavers in the UK to Guinness in El Salvador
• Leveraged Guinness’s sponsorship of the Rugby World Cup 1999
• Act as company spokesman

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