LONDON — Consumer intelligence firm Talkwalker has appointed performance-driven marketing and communications consultancy Hard Numbers as its PR agency in the UK. Hard Numbers has been appointed to help bring the consumer intelligence and media insights platform, used by 2,500 companies worldwide, to more PR, communications, marketing and insights professionals. Darryl Sparey, who co-founded the agency in 2020, said: “The team is excited to be working with a company that is at the forefront of analysing some of the most talked-about topics on the internet, whilst assisting Talkwalker in their ongoing efforts to assist brands with real-time data, that can help gain a holistic view of the market and identify opportunities.” Talkwalker UK and Nordics marketing manager Jack Richards added: “This was about more than selecting a PR agency. It was about choosing a partner we can work with collaboratively, who have a relentless focus on delivering against objectives. We're very much looking forward to working with the team at Hard Numbers.”

OXFORD, UK — Travel specialist PR and content agency Lemongrass Marketing will be trialling a four-day week for all staff from 1 September. Based on the 100:80:100 model – 100% of pay for 80% of the time, in exchange for a commitment to maintain 100% productivity – the team at Lemongrass will still get paid for five days’ work. The agency has devised a system of alternate shift patterns Monday-Friday to maintain full team productivity and output. For a trial period of four months, the agency will evaluate client happiness and staff wellbeing as well as business efficiency and productivity on a weekly basis.

JOHANNESBURG — Razor PR has joined Sermo, the independent global communications network founded by its sister agency M&C Saatchi Talk in 2009. The agency, named as PRovoke Media’s Africa consultancy of the year, will join a partnership of 11 communications agencies across 15 countries.  Razor partner and MD Dustin Chick said: “Being part of Sermo augments all our founding ambitions. We join a network that rightly believes that building and supporting influence means pairing the best of strategic comms thinking with an understanding of all the nuances of a local market.” Sermo co-president Ryan Woor added: “We are delighted to welcome Razor as our official South African partner. They are a young agency with big ambition and have achieved so much in such a short period of time. They are a great cultural fit and I believe they will add a huge amount of value to the network.”

LONDON — Signal AI has launched a new AI intelligence tool, External Intelligence Graph, to give organisations a real-time look at their risk ecosystem so they can track, manage and uncover the “unknown unknowns”. The External Intelligence Graph maps the relationships between the things a modern organisation needs to care about, such as climate change, supply chain risk or competitor intelligence, and highlights how an organisation is linked with these topics to help CCOs understand how their organisation is perceived, which topics they and their competitors are most associated with, and quantify concepts such as reputation, trust, and perception.

LONDON — Luxury online jewellery retailer Lily Arkwright, which sells sustainable and ethically-sourced engagement rings and jewellery made from lab-grown moissanite, diamonds and coloured gemstones, has appointed Lem-uhn to grow its brand awareness. Founded in 2021 by Riannon Palmer, who had previously worked at Mission and Four Communications, Lem-uhn was established to “promote happiness for employees and clients”, and supports B2C and B2B clients across the lifestyle, home and garden, wellness, fitness, health and tech sectors with PR, influencer engagement, SEO optimisation and event management.