Video produced by Influence Media. Article written by Tim Goodfellow.
“Hull is like a magnet. It keeps pulling you back,” says David Prescott, who returned to his hometown to set up Larkin PR, a boutique consultancy helping startups make some noise.
Our chat takes place in the upstairs boardroom at C4DI, where he’s a member. With incredible views of the Humber Estuary, it seems fitting that he has brought his guitar along to perform a sea shanty before we begin.
The guitar is for a regular folk jam he’s heading to afterwards. If it wasn’t already clear, Hull is in his blood and the shanty, Roll the Old Chariot Along, is a throwback to the city’s maritime heritage.
But he didn’t move back to sing songs about ships. After many years in London, working in politics, PR, and journalism, he decided the time was right to set up his own PR agency.
We talked about what PR looks like today, why this move made perfect sense and why in a post Covid world, this is the place to be.
Coming into port
Throughout his career, David has spent a lot of time in London, which he acknowledges, used to be where you would go “if you wanted to make it big.”
“You don’t need to do that anymore,” he says. “The pandemic has shown us that we can work remotely, and the cost of living and the cost of property in London means more and more people are moving towards hybrid working.” Setting up on his own after moving back to Humberside, seemed to make a lot of sense.
Like any good PR professional, he has a relevant statistic ready and waiting to go.
“We were one of 56,000 companies that launched in the month lockdown began, back in 2020. It all started from my kitchen table. After being in politics and other consultancies for several years I came back to Hull to start up here.”
Like everyone else, he hadn’t anticipated the disruption Covid-19 would bring but it was a challenge he was willing to take on. "I started off with my first client Frugalpac, a company who makes sustainable packaging, such as the world's first paper wine bottle (with winemaker Cantina Goccia), which we helped to launch in June 2020. Since then, the company has gone on to great success."
Larkin PR has also grown from one client to several, as well as expanding the team to include PR consultant Sara Kendall. They use a number of collaborators including Influence Media, and others based in C4DI, to bring their campaigns to life.
David and colleague Sara Kendall with Frugalpac paper wine bottles.
Joining the startups of Hull
Joining C4DI was the obvious next step after starting the business at home. “Once restrictions were lifted, I decided it was time to look at C4DI and get membership there.”
He commends the energy and collaboration that takes place and it’s good for business too. “You can win and work with clients but also work with suppliers. I love being able to walk upstairs and talk to someone instead of firing an email off and hoping to set up a zoom at some point.”
“It’s an excellent place to work and it’s a great atmosphere with people spurring each other on.” Not to mention the views you get from the board room.
He’s been proud to show clients and collaborators around which makes the Hull location even more appealing. David points out they’ve been able to compete with the big boys, despite being up ‘ere in ‘ull.
“We have beaten London based multinational PR companies [on pitches]. Because we've got the ideas, we've got the experience and because we are a boutique consultancy that uses some of the best campaigns around, but we don't have to be in an office all the time. We have a network of people across the country that we can build teams from.”
For the many not the few
Larkin PR’s success can partly be attributed to the network which David has developed over years of working with decision makers in the media and politics.
After leaving Hull the first time around, the son of the former deputy Prime Minister, worked in London for GMTV as a producer and reporter. He was later headhunted to help launch Look North as it is today. The brainchild of then BBC Director General, Greg Dyke, it aimed to create the first new regional television service in a decade and serve a more focused region of Yorkshire, covering East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire. It was a success and remains popular over 20 years later.
“When we launched, we were getting a share of the audience that was even larger than Eastenders. I think we tried to tell the news, get under the skin a bit, but also provide a bit of light as well as banter. We were using new technology and reporters were going out to film the report, get the content and edit it. And I think people saw something a bit different. I don't think we took ourselves too seriously. I'm proud to have played a part in that.”
He's also had first-hand experience of politics and campaigning, working for Jeremy Corbyn whilst he was leader of the Labour party. He had a key role in bringing the now infamous slogan ‘For the many, not the few’ to the forefront of a campaign that some would argue defied expectations.
“We were about 26 points behind in the polls when the election was called in April 2017 by Theresa May (then leader of the Conservative Party), and not many people gave us much hope.”
“What I learned from a comms perspective, was having policies that people could associate with and understand, told in a simple way and repeated. My little part in that as Jeremy's speech writer, happened whilst trying to find a line to end his New Year's speech in 2017, to set out our direction and make clear what we stood for.”
He adapted a line from a Labour membership clause, resulting in a phrase which was “repeated ad infinitum in every press release and every speech during the campaign. It got to the point where people were asked 'what does Labour stand for?' in polling, and they replied, 'for the many not the few'. We went from 26 points behind to one point behind on polling day, and within about 2400 votes of forming a minority government.”
It's an impressive case study of communicating something that resonates with people and getting a message out there against all odds. It’s something that David and Larkin PR continue to do today.
Getting the word out
“Public relations is about engendering goodwill towards a person, product or place. And it's about bringing out the best in what you have but doing it in a concise and engaging way.”
“Broadly speaking this is what we do at Larkin PR.” They ask questions about where the client wants to be and craft a strategy to get there.
And it’s not just about mainstream media or social media even, it’s also about fostering partnerships and relationships with the right people. Having face to face conversations with people who can establish and grow the reputation of a business or product.
Even if PR itself hasn’t fundamentally changed, the platforms used have. After all, “papers are dying.”
“It’s an elegant decline. But that’s why they have made the transition to online, which is where it will all be eventually. Kids aren’t buying newspapers.”
But this isn’t such a bad thing for marketing and PR. “They used to measure coverage in column inches and work out the value based on that. And it was so spurious, because there was nothing about whether it encouraged people to buy things, what the level of engagement was etc.”
Now of course, the internet has opened up opportunities for coverage, just about everywhere. The downside is that that’s true for everyone, so creativity is needed to stand out. Another way is leveraging existing content creators to amplify a brand.
“[PR] is about using everything as a channel, whether it's YouTube, Tik Tok, or even something like this,” he says, holding up one of the paper wine bottles manufactured by client Frugalpac. “This is media. You can print all the way around it and use that as a form of promotion.”
Big wins for clients in UK and abroad
Their strategy and expertise have paid off for Frugalpac who have gone from strength to strength. They sold their first paper bottle machine in Canada and there are more expansions in the pipeline. “That’s great to see because that’s creating jobs and exports,” David says. “Which is being acknowledged by the Department of International Trade.”
Other client wins include a great collaboration within C4DI between Larkin and MediMusic, a Healthtech startup dedicated to dispensing music as medicine. They were recently invited to be part of a startup incubator based out of the most famous studio in the world.
“To be standing in studio 2 at Abbey Road where the Beatles and Pink Floyd recorded their albums and to see MediMusic present their ideas to music industry leaders and tech investors was a great moment.”
These examples not only show how Larkin PR have helped startups get out there but also of how close the working relationship is between them and their clients.
The real winner is Hull
It’s not just clients he wants to see do well. With Hull once more being his home, he recognises the opportunity and the need to retain talent in the area and bolster the local business scene.
“To come back and see how the city has changed for the better is wonderful… I want to make sure I can play a small part in helping the next generation of Hull sons and daughters stay here.”
“To do that we need to bring more business here. We've got to get [young people] the training they need but let them know there are great opportunities here.”
“I couldn't think of a better place in the world to launch a business.”
We’d have to agree.