The Story of Colman Getty

Colman Getty was founded in 1987 by Dotti Irving who remains the company’s Chief Executive to this day.

It was, however, a very different company twenty two years ago. For a start there were only two employees -  Dotti and Sarah Brooks, who had been her PA during her time as PR Director at Penguin Books. And there were only three clients on the books – Chatto, who were launching Celia Brayfield’s first-ever novel Pearls, Next Interiors and Carolyn Warrender, an interior designer who revolutionised the art of stencilling. 

We’re frequently asked the question, ‘Why Colman Getty?’ The answer’s simple.  An early investor in the company agreed to put funding in on condition that that was its name  -  Colman denoting a household name product, the epitome of Englishness but with a touch of heat; Getty to signify hands across the ocean, untold wealth and powerful cultural connections. And it works.  Even today callers can be disappointed when they are put through to Ms Irving rather than Mr Colman or Mr Getty!

From the start Dotti had an interest in campaigning. An early and very significant client was Opportunity 2000, a Business in the Community campaign to encourage a greater level of women in top positions in business.  Opportunity 2000 had the support of a high-profile Target Team of top business leaders and was an important gateway to Colman Getty handling further top-level business-led campaigns such as Employers for Childcare, Employers’ Forum on Age and one-off projects for The Industrial Society.  We were even appointed by Sir Alec Reed, then heading up the Reed empire, to launch a Reed Bureau in Holloway Prison!  That was a story that certainly hit the news agenda.

As the campaigns team grew, we also started working with a range of charities – Tommy’ s Campaign was an early client -  and in 1998 we were appointed by Haymarket to handle all PR for their leading business magazine, Management Today. That is a relationship which continues through to the current day.

The work of the Campaigning team tends to mirror the zeitgeist and projects today include enterprise and education campaigns targeted at young people, diversity and social change issues and work with charities.

Growth was equally impressive on the arts front. What had been a mainly publishing-focused operation was strategically expanded so that today the four Colman Getty Culture teams operate in the worlds of the visual and performing arts, publishing, museums and galleries, music and dance.  An early important win was being appointed to handle PR in 1993 for what was then the Booker Prize. Eighteen years on,  Colman Getty handles all aspects of the prize - from the initial submissions of the books, to the PR, marketing, digital campaigning, and general administration. The awards dinner which we organise in London’s Guildhall is a star-studded occasion with 550 guests  - and a BBC TV live broadcast thrown in!

We are rightly proud of our fabulous client list, many of whom we have worked with for a number of years.  J K Rowling and Nigella Lawson are long-standing clients and we have been thrilled in recent years to add Jeffrey Archer, Patricia Cornwell, Felix Francis, Charlie Higson, Nick Hornby, Val McDermid and Stephenie Meyer to our list of household name writers.

Recent headline campaigns have included the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth in 2008, the 150^th anniversary of Big Ben in 2009, the Renewal of St-Martin-in-the-Fields and the Children’s Party at the Palace to celebrate the Queen’s 80^th birthday in 2007.

Today with a staff of 40 we offer marketing and digital strategies to complement our PR expertise and we are increasingly working across an international framework, with clients in China and the Middle East. Much of our work is digitally driven which is quite a contrast to the early days where we had one golf typewriter and computers, the internet and mobile phone technology were the province of academic boffins.

Crucially Colman Getty continues to be as much fun and as driven by the need to get the best results for our clients as it was when we set-up in January 1987!