Experienced Liverpool PR professional Damo Jones is celebrating 25 years in the industry with new contract wins. Tony McDonough reports
PR professional Damo Jones says he’s continuing to pick up new contracts as he celebrates 25 years working in Liverpool.
It was in 2000 when Damo sent out his first press release, for Chibuku Shake Shake, the club night he and his friends co-founded as students. Current clients include Bongo’s Bingo, The Art School, LEAF and city centre pub Ma Boyle’s.
Now he has secured new work with The Florrie, the Grade II listed, Victorian community arts and heritage venue in south Liverpool. He is also back on season three of Newsham Scream Park’s PR for Halloween.
He also recently launched Picante in Cains Brewery and Hume in the city centre and now manages consultancy projects with Numatic who make the Henry vacuums – aka Henry Hoovers.
“I started sending out info for Chibuku Shake Shake in the year 2000, with no idea how to approach PR other that it felt like a mad story to tell as an antidote to the superclub culture,” said Damo.
“Life was very analogue back then – a Nokia burner with limited minutes and Snake was as advanced as it got. There was no social media, no influencers – you needed word of mouth but getting mentioned in print or on air was always a triumph.”
In the early 2000s he was writing club reviews for magazines, eventually asking the clubs he’d written reviews for if they needed PR which led to TandemPR launching in 2005, with Circus, Garlands, Sankeys, Goodgreef and more as eventual clients.
Liverpool winning Capital of Culture in 2008 was a boost for Damo’s business. He also expanded into festivals.
From late 2015 he started working with Bongo’s Bingo across all locations, which rapidly expanded across the UK and internationally to great acclaim. He remained mainly in the events world until the pandemic hit in 2000 and everything changed.
Damo said: “It’s impossible to have a single, standout favourite campaign, but I think the period of work I’m most proud of was during the pandemic and trying to keep the media’s focus on Liverpool.
“I offered to work for free to stay sane and wanted to tell people’s stories of how they or their businesses were affected as the world turned inside out and initially got some local stories out there.
“I remember when all my normal work had either paused or stopped completely and it was a profoundly difficult time, but by chance I helped Channel 4 find some guests to speak during a live news broadcast from Content in Cains Brewery when everything was still socially distanced.”
He added: “Liverpool is such a great city for so many reasons – to live in, to have a family and to work. It’s got vibrant and supportive media and social media industries, because without them there would be no-one to amplify any stories at all.”