Chime Communications Plc

Chime is the holding company for the UK’s biggest Public Relations Group (Bell Pottinger, Good Relations, Harvard, Insight, Resonate, Ozone, De Facto, MMK, Rare and Traffic); it also owns research and consultation group (OLR and SMART) and VCCP as part of an advertising and marketing services group, including specialist agencies in financial services (Teamspirit) and in property marketing (TTA) and in Contract Publishing (Rare).

Chime is part owned by WPP

Executive Directors

• Lord Tim Bell - Chairman
• Piers Pottinger - Deputy Chairman
• Christopher Satterthwaite - Group Chief Executive
• Mark Smith - Financial Director

Chime consists of three divisions: Public Relations; Advertising and Marketing Services; and Research. Public Relations Division

According to its website:

Public relations companies in Chime have been shaping public opinion for decades. We help clients to announce important results and win investor confidence. We help them to shape regulatory environments and lead important public debates. And we help them to win more customers, increase sales and build brands. Increasingly, we help them to communicate better with employees and win the commitment needed to make employees brand advocates wherever they go.

We also have to save companies from crisis, defend reputations, calm hostile media and prevent unwelcome takeovers. We even advise governments how to win elections and sometimes campaign to change national agendas.

The Public Relations division, together, serve more than 600 major UK and international brands, as well as governments, government departments, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, charities, not-for-profit organisations, professional service firms and famous people.

Major clients include, Vauxhall, MFI, Emirates, AEA Technology, McDonalds, Autoglass and Vodafone.

Marketing Services Division

The Advertising and Marketing Services Division is the fastest growing marketing services group in the UK incorporating the recently acquired VCCP.

The VCCP Group acts as a 'brand integrator' on behalf of its clients offering advertising, direct marketing, digital communication, sponsorship exploitation, point of sale, sales promotion and specialist media planning and buying.The VCCP Group won three IPA Effectiveness Awards in 2004: Gold and Grand Prix for O2 and The Effectiveness Agency of the Year 2004 (billings below £100m). Its clients include Dyson, IPC, Coca-Cola, Hyundai, ING Direct, O2, Texaco and Alfred Dunhill.

Our specialist advertising and marketing services group comprising through the line financial services communications in Teamspirit, through the line property marketing communications in TTA and contract publishing in Rare Publishing. Clients of our specialist group include Scottish Widows, Norwich Union, St James Homes, Ballymore, Somerfield and bmi. Research Division

The Research Division is made up of Opinion Leader Research and The SMART Company.

Opinion Leader Research is the UK's No. 1 opinion leading research company that specializes in a number of key areas: Understanding and evaluating reputation; Deliberative and collaborative approaches to involve people in decision making; Social and policy research; Consultation with opinion leaders _ professional and social; Understanding and harnessing influence; Thought leadership. We are well known for developing innovative, bespoke solutions for clients that help transform the status quo. We believe that the best research is active, engaging and part of the communications process, not a passive exercise in measurement. Key clients include Accenture, BBC, British Airways, BT, Department of Health and Department for Education and Skills.

The SMART Company is a leading consultancy specialising in Corporate Social Responsibility, community investment and related cross sector partnerships. We take a pragmatic, business focused approach that emphasises CSR as an integral part of mainstream organisational practice. We help clients understand and respond to the CSR agenda; develop strategies and integrate these into business practice; identify, build and evaluate community investment programmes; and measure and report on social, ethical and environmental performance. SMART is increasingly working with other Chime agencies to provide an integrated service, particularly around communications; for our long-standing client HBOS, we joined forces with Good Relations to support HBOS in developing its stakeholder dialogue work. Other retained clients include Scottish & Newcastle and Pearson, and we have well established relationships with PwC, Centrica, Lloyds TSB and the Building Societies Association.

Subsidiaries

Public Relations Division

Bell Pottinger CORPORATE and FINANCIAL Bell Pottinger NORTH Bell Pottinger Public Affairs]] Bell Pottinger SANS FRONTIERES Bell Pottinger SPORT AND SPONSORSHIP

• Bell Pottinger USA
• QBO Bell Pottinger
• De Facto
• De Facto Medica
• Good Relations

GOOD RELATIONS HEALTH CARE GOOD RELATIONS WALES

• Harvard Public Relations
• Harvard GmbH
• Insight

MMK OZONEOZONE RARE CORPORATE DESIGN RESONATE SUNESIS

• Traffic Advertising

Research division

• Opinion Leader Research
• The Smart Company

Advertising and Marketing Services division

VCCP Group: VCCP RARE DIGITAL SFW PURE MEDIA GASOLINE

Specialists

TEAMSPIRIT TTA PR/Creative RARE PUBLISHING

Source [1]

External links

Jamie Doward 'Chime urged to sell off its ad business' Sunday November 17, 2002 The Observer [2]