Lippe Taylor is pushing a new service model termed "Public Relevance" which will combine content marketing, communications and influencer management with digital capabilities such as virtual reality, augmented reality and tech-enabled experiential marketing.

FrFred Gerantabee
Fred Gerantabee, former Grey Advertising digital leader, will serve as chief digital officer, leading accounts in the health, lifestyle and beauty sectors. His experience includes campaigns for CoverGirl, Pantene, Marriott Hotels, Eli Lilly, Volvo and Canon USA.

While at Grey Gerantabee worked under Tor Myhren who became Apple's VP of marketing communications earlier this year.

CEO Maureen Lippe insists the firm is not abandoning its PR communications roots, but feels evolving digital capabilities will "turbocharge" existing expertise.

“Lippe Taylor’s heritage as a PR agency doesn’t limit us – in fact, it gives us a unique and advantageous view of the digital ecosystem, which allows us to use our strengths in large-scale media, strategy, and creativity in a much more impactful way than a pure-play digital or traditional agency may,” Gerantabee said.

Other key hires are VP of digital George Wright and insights manager Michael Hansberry. Wright came over from digital marketing agency 360i where he led their NBCU account, working on Braveo, Oxygen and USA networks. Hansberry managed digital panel and qualitative research at Deep Focus.