Ex-Midas trio found Colour PR

Three former members of the senior team at Midas Public Relations have joined forces to launch a new London-based PR agency for the publishing, arts, entertainment and leisure sectors. 

Boasting more than 30 years’ combined experience between them and all in their thirties, the founding directors Zekra Rahman, Liz Mallett and Daniel Freeman have launched Colour PR today (6th March).

Between them they have worked with brands including Audible, the London Book Fair, Books Are My Bag, The Booksellers Association, ITV Crime Thriller Awards and Bonnier Publishing UK and have "a holistic understanding of the book trade and a strong instinct for important emerging trends", they said.

They have also coordinated the Sharjah International Book Fair, worked with Bonnier Publishing and its various imprints such as Hot Key Books, Zaffre, Totally Bound, John Blake, Igloo Books, Blink Publishing and built profiles for a range of publishing service providers and book tech companies, handling mass-market book publicity campaigns for Mirror Books. They also supported Pavilion books and Laurence King to "take the colouring book trend to the masses" as publicists for illustrators Millie Marotta and Johanna Basford.

The trio have described Colour’s philosophy as a “streamlined and versatile approach”. The agency will provide five distinct services - Colour Media, Colour Social, Colour Content, Colour Events, and Colour Consult - and will also offer tiered pricing packages.

With a collective team of director-level PR consultants, the founders say they will focus "solely on servicing clients and delivering first-rate campaigns, while eliminating management structures and high overheads".

Zekra Rahman, formerly an associate director at Midas, left at the end of January while fellow associate director, Daniel Freeman, left in December after seven years.

Liz Mallett, Daniel Freeman and Zekra Rahman

The announcement comes days after Midas revealed Jason Bartholomew is leaving Hodder & Stoughton to become joint c.e.o.

Rahman described her time working at Midas as “a formative, enriching and wonderful experience”.

“We feel extremely lucky to have gained so much experience there, but feel the time is right to spread our wings as an independent agency,” she said. "Having built up many years’ experience in the industry, we will continue to work with brands in the publishing sector as a collective.

“We have spent a lot of time analysing what a client wants from a PR agency in 2018 and our agency model has been founded with these principles in mind.”

Freeman said: “Over the years the three of us have developed a huge passion for the world of books and publishing and established strong relationships with the people we’ve worked with all over the world. What makes Colour such a dynamic proposition is that each of us have very different backgrounds and skillsets, having each worked across different aspects of publishing.

“This means we are able to publicise all kinds of books and develop PR campaigns with trade, education and academic publishers and book brands, while promoting festivals, book fairs, trade bodies, awards and industry initiatives.”

Mallett revealed that coming from an in-house PR background, she is “aware of the of the vital importance of press coverage to drive book sales and to transform author profiles”.

She said: “It is sometimes essential that PR campaigns take place as part of a dialogue between different departments and that publicists understand broader aspects of publishing, distribution and sales to have the most impact with their campaigns. Our agency model will place integration and collaboration at the heart of how we work with publishers.”

Colour PR can be contacted through its website and can be followed on Twitter via @princolour.