Muckle Media, the creative PR and digital marketing agency, has bought Platform PR, one of the north’s leading communications consultancies.

The deal will see Platform PR become part of the Muckle Media Group. Platform PR managing director Jane Cumming and director Jenny Macpherson will join Muckle Media’s board.

Muckle Media has completed the deal to support its ambition of growing across the UK to increase annual fee income to £2.8mn by 2020. The Platform PR acquisition will grow Muckle Media Group to a team of twelve with year one turnover in excess of £750k. Muckle Media will focus on additional growth in the central belt of Scotland, following the opening of an Edinburgh office last year. In 2016, Muckle Media expects to open its first office south of the border to service an increasing number of clients seeking UK wide regional communications support.

The agency’s Highland team will work from Muckle Media’s Inverness city base and the Edinburgh team will move to a new city centre office on St Colme Street, having been supported by Entrepreneurial Spark at its South Gyle Hatchery for several years. Muckle Media’s experience in media relations, social media marketing and communications strategy for primarily corporate, consumer, public and third sector and technology firms will complement Platform PR’s PR and public affairs expertise in the renewable energy, food and drink sectors to form a creative agency which offers support across all sectors with a specialist senior team of practitioners. Existing Muckle Media clients such as Gett and Entrepreneurial Spark will be complemented by long standing Platform PR clients including Marine Harvest and Gordon & MacPhail.
Cumming, managing director at Platform PR, says, “After more than 30 years in the industry and 13 years in consultancy, I’m excited about this new chapter, joining forces with Muckle Media. Things won’t change for our existing clients, with Jenny, I and the Platform team continuing to lead on their accounts, but we’re relishing the opportunity to work with a new team and share skills and best practice. They’re a very talented bunch of people and we’ve already been working together very successfully on some projects.”

Muckle Media is currently recruiting for a number of roles in its central Edinburgh office to support exciting expansion plans.