Award-winning PR for Nottingham, Derby and Leicester businesses from a Leeds agency that has worked in the East Midlands for years. Straight answers, trade press first, national when the story earns it.
Nottingham is about an hour and a quarter from our office in Leeds, straight down the M1, which is roughly the time it takes to cross London in a cab. I say that first because the obvious objection to hiring us is that we are not local, and I would rather deal with it than pretend the office is on Maid Marian Way.
We have run PR for East Midlands businesses for most of the fourteen years Prohibition has existed. Some came to us because they wanted a bigger agency than the city offered; some because they had used a local firm and wanted a change; a few because a client in Yorkshire recommended us. In every case the work ran on calls, a shared channel and a monthly meeting at their place.
What Nottingham businesses usually need
The East Midlands has a lot of firms that are excellent at what they do and almost invisible outside their customer base. Engineering, logistics, life sciences around BioCity, professional services, universities, food manufacturing. Their competitors in London or Manchester are no better, just louder.
Fixing that is mostly a trade press job. Your buyers read two or three sector titles and a handful of LinkedIn voices. Get you into those, consistently, and the sales team notices within a quarter. Regional press (Nottingham Post, East Midlands Business Link, The Business Desk) helps with recruitment and local profile. National press is a bonus, and we will tell you if the story is not there yet.
PR services for Nottingham and the East Midlands
Media relations, crisis and reputation management, social media, content and video, all delivered by the same team in Leeds. We shoot our own video, which matters if you want a case study film or a product launch clip without hiring a second supplier. Crisis work is the service we would rather you booked in a quiet month: we build playbooks, run simulations with boards, and handle live incidents.
East Midlands and Sheffield-corridor clients we have worked with include Nottingham Trent University, the National Ice Centre, Freeths, Interflora, Meadowhall, Huthwaite, Watches of Switzerland and Aggregate Industries. Universities, law, retail, floristry, sales training and construction materials: a fair spread, and every one of them a trade press job first.
Why a Leeds agency, and why us
Prohibition has been going since 2012. We are a team of around 25 in Leeds city centre, two minutes from the station, and we are on PRWeek UK’s Top 150 Consultancies list for the fifth year running. PRIDE has named us Outstanding PR Agency three times. I mention that once because it answers the obvious question about whether we are any good, and then I would rather talk about the work.
The work is a mix of B2B and consumer. Recent campaigns include the launch of Big Zuu’s Drip drinks brand, ongoing consumer PR for Astonish cleaning products, and the communications around Freeths’ win in Mr Bates v The Post Office, which is about as high-stakes as media relations gets. We have run PR for Microsoft, Kurt Geiger, Primula and a long list of regional firms you will not have heard of because their PR was about trade press and buyers, not fame.
Chris Norton and Will Ockenden, the two directors, have been in PR for more than 45 years between them and still sit in client meetings. Both co-host the Embracing Marketing Mistakes podcast, which is where a lot of our thinking gets tested in public.
Brands That Trust Us
How it works
We keep the first month simple, because the fastest way to lose a new client is to spend it in workshops.
- Week one: a call or a visit. We want to know what you sell, who buys it, and what a good result would look like in twelve months. Bring the awkward questions.
- Week two: we come back with a plan, a budget and the three or four stories we think will land. If we do not think PR will work for you, we say so and suggest what might.
- Weeks three to six: the first stories go out. Trade press first, because that is where buyers are, then regional and national where the story earns it.
- Monthly: a one-page report on coverage, share of voice and website traffic that came from it. No AVEs. We stopped using those years ago.
Questions Nottingham clients ask us
How often will we see you?
Monthly in person as standard, at your office. Weekly on video. Daily on Slack or Teams if something is moving. Nottingham is close enough that we have driven down for a 10am and been back for the afternoon, more than once.
What does it cost?
Retainers start at around £3,750 a month, depending on the results you are after and the outputs it takes to get them. Video, crisis and campaign projects are priced on their own. You get a real figure after the first call.
Do you know the East Midlands media?
We pitch the Nottingham Post, East Midlands Business Link, The Business Desk East Midlands, BBC East Midlands and Notts TV where a story suits them, and the trade press for whichever sector you are in. For most B2B firms the trade titles do the heavy lifting; the regionals are for profile and hiring.
Why not a Nottingham agency?
Tank, The Tonic, Jennie Holland and Cartwright are all decent local options and you should talk to at least one of them. Choose us if you want a 25-person team with in-house video and a crisis unit, and an agency that can take you national. Choose them if being on the doorstep matters more.
Our Latest Work
Talk to us
If your business is better than its reputation and you are tired of losing pitches to louder rivals, book a 30-minute call with Chris Norton. It is a conversation, not a pitch.
Call 0113 430 4160, email info@prohibitionpr.co.uk or use the contact page.
No deck, no pitch team. A straight conversation about whether PR is the right lever for your business.
