Grist Acquires Assets Of Environmental Magazine ‘Pacific Standard’ (mediapost.com)

We are delighted to announce that Steve Lister is joining HH Global in the role of Sustainability Director - Global Brands and Retailers. In this newly created role, Steve will report to Kevin Dunckley (Chief Sustainability Officer) and will focus on launching and delivering our Sustainability Consultancy Services to clients. This addition to our growing sustainability and ESG team demonstrates our ongoing commitment to and investment in this core part of our proposition and will further develop our market-leading Innovation with Purpose sustainability program. Steve has been hugely passionate about his focus on sustainability for the last 15 years and brings a wealth of experience in delivering sustainable solutions on diverse projects for brands including Unilever, Heineken, Coca-Cola and Nike.

The coolest British brand in the skies? Virgin Atlantic. But don’t take our word for it – the airline is regularly voted the best British travel brand in CoolBrand’s annual report. Which is why it made perfect sense for Virgin Atlantic to pair up with Ink to reimagine its inflight magazine, Vera, and manage their ambient advertising on the ground and in the air. If you’re lucky enough to be travelling onboard a Virgin Atlantic flight to the US, Caribbean, Africa, Middle East or Asia this month, you’ll get a chance to flick through the gorgeous, new-look Vera. The new magazine is packed with stories cleverly relating to Virgin Atlantic’s award-winning onboard entertainment and dazzling destinations. For the relaunch, we bagged an exclusive interview and cover shoot with English rose turned Hollywood golden girl Annabelle Wallis. Readers can watch her go toe-to-toe with Tom Cruise in The Mummy, and then read about how she deals with her high-profile relationship with rock star Chris Martin, saving us all in an Apocalypse (probably), and life lessons she learned from Madonna. And during the shoot we got to see those life lessons IRL. If you’ve seen Annabelle star in Peaky Blinders you’ll already have heard her sultry singing voice, but at London’s Claridge’s she gave us an impromptu performance of her favourite Madonna hits. We won’t forget her Like a Virgin in a hurry. Click Read More below for more of the story.

If 2020 was anything but business as usual in the world of direct mail, 2021 is most certainly cut from the same cloth. From lockdowns in the beginning of the year to – what appears to be – a sharp economic rebound, the COVID-19 economic roller coaster is ever-present in the acquisitional direct mail markets. At the time of this post, we have seen paper supplies become constricted and schedules move out, all while marketers appear to be clamoring to reach their consumers (flush with cash and new-found freedoms) in reliable and effective ways. Direct mail contractors that understand today’s paper market, forge and maintain strong alliances with their vendors, and understand the importance of a schedule will be far better equipped to fair the tumultuous seas of 2021. For a decade, mills have been shuttering doors one-by-one to try to control the supply-demand equation. Today, however, mill operating rates are well above 95%, have put all its customers on allocation (which prevents hoarding and is typically a function of historic usage), and have little to no flexibility in scheduling. It’s widely expected that mills will have another increase this summer (some are announcing at the release of this memo) and that schedules will stay tight through the end of the year.