Meet the City Road Comms team: Archie Osmond

As far as meet-and-greets are concerned, Archie Osmond was thrown in the deep end. It was two years ago that he showed up at the City Road Comms’ Christmas party (he was invited, to be fair) – it was his first chance to meet the team before starting his role with the agency in January 2022.

Archie joined CRC soon after finishing his politics and international relations degree at Leeds Uni. Ever since taking his first steps into the world of PR and comms, he has excelled in delivering great content, exceptional media coverage and assisting on a wide variety of accounts, ranging from mortgage clients through to personal finance and cybersecurity.

Away from work, Archie’s interests include live comedy, the languishing Chelsea Football Club, and a new-found love of running. Read on to learn more about our up-and-coming account executive.

What attracted you to work in PR and communications?

Strangely enough, I didn’t know I wanted to go into PR until I was sitting in a job interview for a comms role with a different agency. They asked me why I wanted the job, and I said that I wanted to be a journalist. They then said: “That’s not what this job is”, and the interview ended quite abruptly. 

However, when I then started doing some reading up – probably something I should have done before the interview – I learned that I actually did want to work for a comms agency, not a newsroom. 

Coming from a degree in politics and international relations, I knew I wanted to work in an industry that required you to have your finger on the pulse of current affairs. The rest, as they say, is history.

Which business is nailing it with their PR and comms?

Norwich City Football Club did a social media campaign for World Mental Health Day earlier this year, which I thought was fantastic. As well as changing their shirt sponsor to suicide prevention charity Samaritans for a game, the club produced a clever video that raised awareness for men’s mental health and encouraged people to check in on their friends, even if they don’t appear to be struggling.

It’s a really important topic considering that suicide is the leading cause of death among men under the age of 50. The video is on the club’s X (formerly known as Twitter) account, I’d encourage you to check it out if you haven’t seen it already. For me, it was a great example of how organisations or brands can use different platforms and forms of content to spark conversations around big issues.

What are you most likely to be found doing outside of work?

During the summer, I’d most likely be found watching the cricket. But now that the season is over, I spend most of my time running or cooking – although I don’t always do them at the same time.

What website do you visit the most?

I suppose I should say that Cision (the website we use for our media monitoring and journo database) is my most visited website… but I think it would be remiss of me to suggest that it was anything other than BBC Sport’s cricket page. 

Whether it’s keeping up with someone’s bowling average or checking in on the latest scores, I think it’s important for PR professionals to be on top of the world’s greatest game at all times.

What is the last book you read?

The Business by Iain Banks. He’s my favourite author at the moment, although this probably wasn’t his best work. Nevertheless, it had an interesting concept, and the main character was very likeable – I don’t think I’d want to do PR for her company though.

What is your coffee order?

Cappuccino with no cocoa powder on top under any circumstances – it’s a coffee, not a hot chocolate.