This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m pleased to welcome founder and CEO of Manifest Alex Myers.
Manifest is a self defined brand communications agency and has a fee income of £3.5m.
Manifest has grown by 70% in the last financial year and has offices in London, New York and Stockholm.
Here is a summary of what Alex and I discuss:
- How Alex got into PR
- PR outside of London and the burgeoning Huddersfield PR scene!
- Why Alex, a northern lad, set up his PR firm in London
- How the start of Manifest London came about through a mixture of naivety and bravado
- Whether Alex regrets initially having two other partners in Manifest
- Why Alex enjoys managing a business
- How, unwittingly, Manifest has taken a creative approach to building the business – from deciding what computers to use, to developing an appraisal system, to hiring new staff.
- How having children has changed the way Alex manages Manifest
- Why Alex found having a boss more stressful than being a boss
- How the hierarchical structure of large businesses can prevent a collaborative approach
- How Alex learnt the importance of brand communications over product-focused communications
- What was the genesis of Manifest’s approach to communications?
- Why communications is now the product for brands – and will define whether your customers buy your product
- Why modern communications is about building communities around brands
- How did Alex grow Manifest by 70% last year
- Why Manifest seeks out brands that will allow it to do the type of work it wants to do
- Why hires from outside of PR are vital to how Manifest has grown
- Why Manifest pays new employees £1,000 if they want to leave in the first three months
- How finding out new ways to think helps Alex come up with new ideas.
- Why a mix of cultures in a PR firm is vital to coming up with relevant ideas
- Why Alex believes everyone is creative – some people have just had it taught out of them
- Alex discusses his views on a “Shoreditch” approach to creativity
- How the Manifest offices in New York and Stockholm came about