The former managing director of Communique PR, Nathalie Bagnall, is set to return to the agency scene next week when she opens the doors to her own PR consultancy.
Vertigo PR, which will operate from the centre of Manchester, will launch on Monday with a team of four, complemented by an associate network of six executives.
Bagnall left Communique in 2004, with the agency’s chairman and founder Paul Carroll. During their tenure, the firm became one of the UK’s leading PR agencies with a turnover in excess of £3million.
Following their departure, a number of Communique clients, including Aga, Focus Wickes and Velcro, were understood to have reviewed their PR accounts.
While details of the businesses Vertigo will be working with have not yet been announced, it is expected that some of Bagnall’s former clients could be targeted.
“A lot of clients are interested in talking to us,” said Bagnall. “It’s a competitive marketplace, but we’re hardly predicating the future success of Vertigo on former clients we may have worked on.”
Bagnall’s return to agency life is expected to have a big impact on the industry, particularly in the northwest – a region Vertigo’s founder believes is in need of a shake-up. “The current PR scene is dull, introspective and unambitious. Too many consultancies – and too many clients for that matter – are settling for mediocrity and second best,” she said.
“There are too many lifestyle businesses in the PR sector and not enough ambition. It’s time it was shaken up a bit. It’s safe, boring, and unspectacular. Maybe Vertigo will give a few of them a shot in the arm.”
In the last two years, Bagnall has been working at Zuma 011 – a marketing services consultancy set up by Carroll. Bagnall has now resigned as director of Zuma 011 in order to avoid conflict.
Explaining her ambitions for the new agency, Bagnall said: “Our first goal is to breach the £1m turnover barrier within two years, which would put us pretty much near the top of the northwest sector in double quick time. Having run a £3m business in the past, that’s a realisable target.”