Banter expands to PR, appoints Alt Shift’s Andie Crawford to lead
Andie Crawford, the former managing director and co-founder of Alt Shift Sydney, has joined brand experience agency Banter as it expands into the PR and social space, Mumbrella can reveal.
Crawford will bring her experience across PR, earned media, influencer strategy, and content marketing areas to grow Banter’s offering to “drive engagement, conversation and cultural relevance”.
With the addition of a PR and social arm, Banter hopes to engage consumers, media, fans, communities, and creators under one roof. Crawford will lead the division, as the agency’s new head of PR and social.
She joins Banter after six-and-a-half years at the helm of Alt Shift Sydney. In March, she announced her departure, saying it was time to “move on” and explore something new.
Andie Crawford
“The business that I leave behind is one that I’ve been proud to shape, grow and lead and I will miss it, and my team, immensely,” she wrote on LinkedIn at the time.
Prior to that, she held roles at Blue Planet PR, Porter Novelli, and The Red Republic.
Crawford told Mumbrella there’s a reason that agencies and clients alike are taking earned media seriously, and that is because “it’s an absolute necessity for brands wanting to grab and hold both media and the ever-more savvy consumers’ attention”.
She said: “We need to move with the evolution that we are seeing in the media landscape. Earned exists to make and sustain connections, both online and offline. Earned places brands firmly in culture and in the right conversations.”
She told Mumbrella she’s excited to start something from scratch, similarly to how she did at Alt Shift, but now she has the backing of the Banter team and its clients — who had been asking the agency for earned media.
“I am so excited to be joining the very talented Banter team in its next iteration.”
Paul Den, co-founder of Banter, said clients need stories that travel, campaigns that earn attention, and results that are felt in the real world.
“Andie’s appointment is about setting a new standard,” he told Mumbrella. “We’re not adding services for the sake of it, we’re building a new creative engine inside Banter to drive even bigger outcomes for our clients by meeting consumers where they are and forging deeper connections between brands and audiences, amplifying engagement across physical and digital channels.”
Crawford will officially begin at Banter on May 12.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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