LONDON — Western Digital, one of the world’s largest HDD data storage manufacturers, has handed Harvard its pan-European communications account, after a competitive pitch.

The new EMEA brief comes after Western Digital, which has a market cap of more than $17 billion, spun off its flash drive business, SanDisk, into an independent publicly-traded company. SanDisk continues to work with The PR Network, its agency partner for several years.

Harvard will work with Western Digital’s global product communications team, reporting to EMEA PR and communications lead Franziska Huber, to execute the company’s UK communications programme, as well as acting as an EMEA-wide strategy and coordination hub for Western Digital’s agencies across the region.

These include La Nouvelle Agence in France, Prima Pagina in Italy, Wallis PR in UAE, Be Confluence in Spain, and incumbent Flutlicht in Germany.

Western Digital's global product communications team recently selected The Hoffman Agency in APAC and works with Highwire in North America.

Western Digital’s VP channel sales and marketing, worldwide, Nigel Edwards, said: “We are committed to constantly innovating our HDD solutions so customers can maximize their storage efficiency and optimize their total cost of ownership. Telling this story is just as important. Harvard’s deep expertise in the tech sector and its strategic approach to multi-market programs will help us connect with the right audiences in meaningful ways.

“We are excited to work with Harvard to amplify our message, reinforce our innovation leadership, and drive greater impact in the storage market.”

Harvard executive chair Rachel Friend told PRovoke Media that the new brief reflected Harvard’s experience as an EMEA hub, working with independent agencies around the world: “Our approach is to align local agencies and teams behind a centralised strategy, while incorporating the valuable and rich thinking from our market teams – some of which we have worked with for over 10 years – to ensure strong, locally-rooted programmes for our clients.”

She added: “We’re thrilled to work with a brand as established and respected as Western Digital. Our experience helping brands deliver comms programmes which challenge, excite and inform audiences, even when they’re well established, makes us the perfect partner to drive consistent, creative and differentiated comms.”

Western Digital is the latest in a series of new business wins for Harvard, which brought in 27 new clients last year, many of which operate in frontier technology segments. Client wins this year include the UK brief for AI-led data integration and automation firm SnapLogic.