(MENAFN- PRovoke) LONDON - A new agency focused on building a team based on socio-economic diversity and working with brands to reach working class audiences, Work & Class, has launched with backing from Ready10.
Work & Class is led by founder and managing partner Laura Burch (pictured, right), who previously spent nearly 10 years at Inkling Culture, latterly as managing director. Her new agency becomes part of the newly-formed Ready Media Group, which includes Ready10 and Klaxonn, the live experiences agency it founded last year.
At Inkling Culture, Burch worked on campaigns for the likes of WWF, Sky, Barclays, The National Lottery, Birds Eye and Heinz. She previously worked at Shine Communications, leading comms for brands including eBay, GHD and EA.
The new agency's aim is twofold: to tackle the PR industry's poor record on socio-economic diversity in its workforce, and to connect brands with often-neglected working class audiences It is thought to be the first UK agency to specifically focus on“changing the narrative” for working class people, both inside the industry and with its creative campaign work.
Its offer includes PR, influencer marketing, paid and organic social, content strategy and creation, community insight and employee engagement.
Burch cited PR industry research, including from the PRCA and the Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre, showing while around half of the British public are working class, only 16% of people in creative careers and 22% in marketing careers identify as such. A quarter of UK PR practitioners attended private school, compared to just 7% of the general population, and there is an 18.2% class pay gap across the marketing industry.
This lack of representation can lead to a disconnect with audiences, with 44% of people saying they want to see greater socio-economic inclusion in campaigns, and 41% of those who identified as being from 'lower' social grades believing that media representations of people like them are "stereotyped" and“caricatured” by brands.
Burch said she“accidentally” found her way into in PR more than 20 years ago when a temp agency placed her in an admin role at the BBC:“Having grown up on a council estate with parents on benefits, and having not gone to uni, it was very clear as I looked around me that not many people had grown up like I had. All these years later and I am still an anomaly in this world. While there has been an increased (and much-needed) focus on DE&I across the industry, class is rarely part of the conversation.”
She told PRovoke Media:“As I've grown in confidence through my comms career, I realised that no-one was paying attention to working class audiences, both in the industry and in the work we're putting out. David was thinking about investing in something new: what about an agency completely powered by people from working class backgrounds, who can connect with working class audiences, and he loved it.
We can build from the ground up in terms of socio-economic representation in the team from the beginning.
She added: "In more than 20 years, I can count on one hand the briefs I've been asked us to consider people from lower socio economic groups – but they are still buying food, toys, clothes, and going to attractions. Working class people also like nice things, and are influential. Brands are really missing out on targeting consumers who are waiting to be heard, spoken to and considered.
“This isn't just a niche DEI agency for a niche set of clients and a niche target audience. It's much more than that.”
Work & Class has developed a community insight model to test campaigns with people from relevant working class groups. In addition, 10% of all agency resource will go towards supporting working class communities and social mobility initiatives, it will offer work experience and paid internships (at National Living Wage or higher) exclusively to people from lower socio- economic groups, and will help to educate young working class people on the comms careers choices available to them, through school visits and 121 mentorship programmes.
Ready10 founder David Fraser (pictured, right), who is also MD of Ready Media Group, said:“I've wanted to do something like this for a long time and when Laura came along with the proposal for Work & Class, I knew we had to be a part of it. We've always worked hard to do our bit to equalise access to comms for all and to make Ready10 and Klaxonn as inclusive as possible and I'm so excited for us to get started on this journey with Laura.
“There is, or at least should be, a collective shame at the lack of access for working class people in comms as there is a tendency to talk and not do. Well, Laura is doing it and her experience means she will offer a best-in-class service to brands who want to connect with working class audiences.”
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