Sonos & Lenovo Dump Major PR Agency

12 months after Interrepublic PR Agency Weber Shandwick tried to nobble ChannelNews for revealing the Sonos Soundbar ahead of the official launch, the Company has been dumped by Sonos, they have also also dropped as the PR agency of choice by Lenovo.

In an email sent to 4Square Media on Friday Sonos advised that Weber Shandwick is no longer their agency of choice and that the US network sound Company is working with PR agency Hidden Characters, a part of the global Saatchi network.

The Sonos account in Australia will be headed by Hidden Characters Managing Director Annalise Brown and Group Account Director Kirilly Mallard according to
Phillipa Thomas, Head of Communication and Sustainability, ANZ for Sonos.

12 months ago, to the week, serious questions were raised over the actions of Weber Shandwick when we four weeks before the launch of the award winning Sonos Soundbase, we broke the news that Sonos was set to expand their product range.

When it came to the official launch of the Soundbase in Australia, Weber Shandwick not only isolated ChannelNews and SmartHouse from the preview program, they chose to release the official press release to us hours after other media had the information.

Sonos were furious when they found out what had happened.

Weber Shandwick executives at the time claimed that we had been snubbed because we had no right to reveal what they deemed “confidential information” which they claim was the subject of an NDA among resellers not media.

They told us that “we had no right” to write our original “leak” story.

“You did not have permission from Sonos” they said.

At no stage had Weber Shandwick approached 4Square Media or our staff about the Soundbase or asked us to sign any NDA documents at the time.

This is the same PR Company who was recently dumped by Lenovo after less than 12 months handling the PC Companies accounts.

No explanation for the Lenovo exit was given.

About Post Author

David Richards

David Richards has been writing about technology for more than 30 years. A former Fleet Street journalist, he wrote the Award Winning Series on the Federated Ships Painters + Dockers Union for the Bulletin that led to a Royal Commission. He is also a Logie Winner for Outstanding Contribution To TV Journalism with a story called The Werribee Affair. In 1997, he built the largest Australian technology media company and prior to that the third largest PR company that became the foundation company for Ogilvy PR. Today he writes about technology and the impact on both business and consumers.