Pure Insider

We were delighted to be able to support the BBC Audio Drama Awards on Sunday 27th January by giving the winner of the Tinniswood Radio Drama Award 2012 for Best Radio Drama Script a Pure One Classic Series 2.

The awards, which were held at BBC Broadcasting House, were hosted by actor David Tennant and are a celebration of the actors, writers, producers, sound designers and everyone else who works on the programme.

The awards were presented by the likes of Stephen Tompkinson, Nicholas Parsons, Siân Phillips, Stephen Mangan and Lenny Henry.

Pictured here with his One Classic Series 2 is Murray Gold, winner of the Tinniswood Radio Drama Award 2012 for Best Radio Drama Script for Kafka the Musical.

The winners of the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2013 were:

• Best Actor in an Audio Drama – Andrew Scott in Betrayal by Harold Pinter, produced by Gaynor Macfarlane, BBC Scotland for Radio 4
• Best Actress in an Audio Drama – Michelle Fairley in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, dramatised by Donna Franceschild, produced by Kirsty Williams, BBC Scotland for Radio 4
• Best Supporting Actor in an Audio Drama – David Troughton in Singles and Doublets by Martyn Wade, produced by Cherry Cookson, Rockethouse Productions for Radio 3
• Best Supporting Actress in an Audio Drama – Vicky McClure in Kicking the Air by Christine Murphy, produced by Heather Larmour, BBC Northern Ireland for Radio 4
• Best Audio Drama (Single play) – On It by Tony Pitts, produced by Sally Harrison, Woolyback Productions for Radio 4
• Best Audio Drama (Series or Serial) – The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll, abridged by Helen Meller, produced by Polly Thomas, Somethin’ Else Productions for Radio 4
• Best Adaptation from Another Source – A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Tanika Gupta, produced by Nadia Molinari, BBC North for Radio 3
• Best Use of Sound in an Audio Drama – The Cruel Sea, written by Nicholas Monsarrat, dramatised by John Fletcher, produced by Marc Beeby, BBC Radio Drama for Radio 4
• Best Scripted Comedy - Believe It! by Jon Canter, produced by Clive Brill, Pacificus Productions for Radio 4
• Best Online Only Audio Drama – Above and Below written and produced by Daniel Macnaughton, for Aboveandbelowseries.co.uk
• Imison Award 2012 for Best Script by a New Writer – Do You Like Banana, Comrades? by Csaba Székely
• Tinniswood Radio Drama Award 2012 for Best Radio Drama Script – Kafka the Musical by Murray Gold

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CES 2013 – the biggest consumer electronics show on the calendar in Las Vegas. It’s hard work but let us not forget how fun Las Vegas is. Here are a few snapshots from our recent trip to Paradise, Nevada where we showcased the new additions to our Jongo multiroom music system.

CES Unveiled might be the craziest press event but it has some fun elements (yes, really!). Colin Crawford, director of marketing, was interviewed for Dave Graveline’s Into Tomorrow radio show, we were all interviewed on camera and we also got to meet lots of US press and some familiar UK journalists.

Tuesday was the first day of the show and packed full of meetings with US journalists and UK press who we missed on Sunday at Unveiled. It was also the first time that Colin had been treated to a makeover for his interview with CNET on the Best of British panel!

We were really pleased with our stand at the Las Vegas convention centre and everyone was impressed by our Jongo wall. The colours of our Jongo products really drew people in and made for great video interviews for the likes of LAPTOP and CBS.

It was great to see so many UK journalists in Vegas and here are some pictures from some of our evenings out.

We also had great times with our colleagues at the show and at the Imagination Technologies company dinner.

We had a great CES 2013. We met some great new contacts, got great feedback and had some great nights out, so thanks to all of you who made it happen!

Cheers!

From Chloe and Vicky xx

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Chloe and Vicky have had a great first day at CES 2013 Las Vegas. We have had visitors from all over the world come and see our Jongo multiroom music system and learn more about Pure.

We have seen many journalists including the lovely Kenneth Butler from LAPTOP magazine USA who you can see here with Chloe as well as his great film crew.

Take a look at our ‘Jongo wall’, a striking feature of the Pure booth comprising of all five eye-catching Jongo S340B colours!

The show is on until Friday so if you are here comes visit us at the South Hall Upper Level #36254.

To view our CES Press pack please visit imagebank.pure.com and enter the following details:

Username – cespress2013

Password – Pure2013

For more information please view our website www.pure.com or email Sarah.riley@pure.com

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Vicky and Chloe were joined by Colin Crawford, Pure’s director of marketing, Noam Meppen, director of Sales US and not forgetting Alasdair Hibberd who got everything up and running! After a few hours setting up we were ready to preview our new additions to the Jongo multiroom music system – Jongo T640B, a powerful, wireless stereo speaker, and Jongo A140B, a wireless hi-fi adapter. Both new products, which will be available in the first half of 2013, will sit alongside the Jongo S340B portable wireless speaker.

After a couple of sneaky journalists got in early the crowds arrived in force at 4pm for video and radio interviews and to learn more about Pure and the Jongo multiroom music system. We met with journalists from all over the world and of course it was great to see so many friendly faces from the UK who were keen to see our new products.

We had set up some radio interviews with some US journalists and here is a picture of Colin doing is recording for Dave Graveline, Into Tomorrow. Noam also did a recording for Bootcamp Radio in the US amongst others

Now time to focus on the show. If you’re at CES pop by our stand – #36254 in the South Hall Upper Level. If you’re not in Las Vegas this week check out our blog and follow us on Twitter – @Pure_Insider for all the latest news and pictures from the show!

To read the full press release about Jongo T640B and Jongo A140B please visit www.pure.com. To download high res images go to imagebank.pure.com and enter the following details:

Username – cespress2013

Password – Pure2013

For further information please email sarah.riley@pure.com

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Pure PR team members, Vicky and Jenny were lucky enough to attend Smooth Radio’s Love Live Music event last night at the amazing Union Chapel in Islington, London. We invited a small group of journalists along to be entertained by Russell Watson, Kristina Train, Honey Ryder, The Noisettes and the legendary Jocelyn Brown.

We were bowled away by the venue. The atmophere and acoustics at Union Chapel were second to none and we were fortunate to be able to accompany the eclectic mix of music with a mulled wine or two!

First on were Honey Ryder, a great band with folk and country influences who really got the crowd going with some audience participation and a moving rendition of Annies Song. They then choose to do a cover of the festive E17′s ‘Stay’, which really got the crowd going.

Kristina Train, an American  singer/songwriter followed with a collection of soulful tunes from her new album, Dark Black.

Then the legendary American R&B singer, Jocelyn Brown, took to the stage and raised the roof with a rousing performance of ‘Somebody Else’s Guy’. Jocelyn even gave the audience an insight into the story behind the song. Salford born, Russell ‘The Voice’ Watson then joined Jocelyn on stage and they performed Amazing Grace together. After a quick change, Russell then came back on stage to perform a number of tracks including a very emotive version of ‘Sweet Chariot’.

The Noisettes topped the bill, were full of energy and sounded fantastic. Accompanied by a harpist, which filled the chapel with gorgeous sounds, lead singer, Shingai Shoniwa, looked amazing in a beautiful white sequinned long dress. She entertained the audience with a collection of soulful but upbeat songs and energetic antics including performing a forward roll on the stage and climbing up to the balcony to finish one of the band’s biggest hits, ‘Never Forget You’!

For more information, please visit www.smoothradio.co.uk and to listen to Honey Ryder, Russell Watson, The Noisettes, Jocelyn Brown or Kristina Train, please visit www.pureconnect.com

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“You must be winding down for Christmas by now?” is a question I have been asked a lot recently and the answer is a definite “no!” Now we have launched Jongo S340B in the UK, it is time to do the same for our international territories and then there is a small consumer electronics show to plan for in January (CES 2013 – Las Vegas for those who don’t know)!

As Senior PR Executive for Pure I am responsible for international PR in France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, the UAE, USA, Switzerland and Australia and I also help Vicky, Jenny and Sarah with UK activities. As part of my role, I’m extremely fortunate to visit a lot of these countries and over the last couple of weeks I have been lucky enough to visit Germany, France, Norway and Switzerland and here is just a sneaky peek in to what I got up to:

My first visit was on Tuesday 6th November when I headed to Frankfurt to meet with our country manager, Ralf Reynolds and his office executive, Pia Fauerbach who I work with on PR for Switzerland and Germany. This gave me the chance to visit their new offices in Stockstadt and spend some time going over our plan for the remainder of the year. We also met with our colleagues at LEWIS PR, at their German office in Frankfurt, where we demonstrated Jongo S340B and went through our PR plan. In the evening we went along to their social media event.

My busiest week was Monday 12th November when I headed to Oslo, which was ever so slightly colder than my trip to Dubai in June! Fagbladet Elektronikkbransjen, a Norwegian consumer electronics trade magazine, were hosting their Christmas gift award event and we, along with our distributor – Selek, were part of the exhibition along with other consumer tech brands and our friends at Digital Radio Norway. We met with journalists and retailers and demonstrated Jongo S340B as well as showcasing our other products such as Evoke Mio, Move 400D, Move 2500 and the One family.

After one night in Oslo I headed to Leipzig, Germany for the World DMB General Assembly with our director of marketing, Colin Crawford, who was well equipped with his Mo in aid of Movember! World DMB are responsible for defining the standards of the Eureka-147 family which includes DAB and DAB for digital radio. Their goal is to promote the awareness, adoption and implementation of these services around the world. They work with sound and data broadcasters, network providers, manufacturers, governments and official bodies to encourage international co-operation and a smooth, coordinated roll-out of services. The WorldDMB General Assembly was the flagship event of the year and brought together the international digital radio industry so it was a great opportunity to catch up on the digital radio situation across the world.

In the evening of the first day we were treated to a networking event by private German broadcaster, Regiocast. This was a great event and included a tour of ’90Elf’ – Germany’s digital radio only football station. Colin and I also had a few minutes to check out our products in ‘Saturn’ at Leipzig station and we were very pleased with the display!

On a personal note Leipzig is a very beautiful place, and whilst I didn’t get much time to see it, the parts I did see were beautifully historical and the train journey from Berlin is very comfortable! It is also worth noting that it was at this event where I beat Colin at pool but don’t worry I let him win once!

After three days in Germany I thought I should spend some time in the office. That didn’t last very long as on Thursday 22nd November I went to one of my very favourite places in Europe – Paris. I met with our Country Manager, Laura Klauck-de Branche and we had a good catch up about our PR plans for the year, which we discussed at great lengths in a meeting with our colleagues in the LEWIS PR Paris office. We demonstrated Jongo S340B to them and starting planning out launch event for next year. After our meeting Laura and I headed to the Champs Elysees to see our products in-store.

Travel tip: If you travel alone to Paris, even if you have a small wheely suitcase, get a MotoCab from Gare du Nord to the city. This is a motorbike taxi and is much quicker and cheaper than a normal taxi! They give you a helmet, gloves, jacket and a blanket and you even get to see some of the sites – a great way to do a bit of site-seeing on a business trip (albeit a little bit scary in the Parisian traffic)!

My last stop was to Geneva on Wednesday 28th November where I visited our PR agency Cohn and Wolfe at their very funky new offices! This was the first time I met with my lovely colleagues Inge and Amelie who work on our account and as you can see they love the Pure brand!

I absolutely love travelling for work and it truly is one of the most valuable parts of my jobs. Meeting with my colleagues at the PR agencies really helps to build relationships beyond the conference call and the millions of emails that are exchanged and it gives you the oppportunity to get creative and bring a new energy to a project.

Now bring on CES!

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On Thursday 15th November, the Pure PR Team exhibited at the CES Unveiled London preview press show at the Inmarsat Conference Centre.  It was a great opportunity to showcase our recently launched products including the Jongo system and Avalon 300R Connect set top box.

The Jongo wireless system is the world’s first family of mainstream multiroom audio products and allows users to distribute synchronised music and audio to multiple devices from a single source, including the new Pure Connect App for iPad, iPhone and Android, as well as an increasing number of Pure’s connected products. The first product to launch from the Jongo range is the Jongo S340B portable, wireless speaker with Bluetooth (SRP £149.99), which can either be used on its own or grouped together with other Jongo speakers. Jongo products use Wi-Fi to stream perfectly synchronised audio within a single or multiroom environment.

Avalon 300R Connect, our first set top box product, is a high-performance, easy-to-use Freeview+ HD digital TV recorder with a unique  state-of-the-art user interface, featuring Power VR Graphics from our parent company, Imagination Technologies. Avalon also includes the most advanced versions of BBC iPlayer and YouTube and full integration with Pure Connect for unlimited access to music and streaming.

Review samples for both products will be available very soon so please contact the Pure PR team to request units if you haven’t already done so.

We can also confirm that we will be previewing some new members of the Pure Jongo family at  CES Unveiled in Las Vegas, including a new wireless speaker and a hi-fi adapter so we hope to see you there or at our booth, which will be situated at the Las Vegas Convention centre, booth 36254, South Hall 4 Upper Level.

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To celebrate the launch of  Pure ‘Jongo’, the world’s first family of mainstream multiroom audio products, we invited guests from music, consumer tech and lifestyle press as well as representatives from the music industry, broadcasters and retailers to Paramount Bar at Centre Point, London. We were overwhelmed with interest and had almost 200 guests attending!

After a brief presentation and Q&A session with Colin, our director of marketing, guests enjoyed demos of the new multiroom system. Jongo S340B, an affordable portable wireless speaker with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and 360° sound, is the first product to launch from the Jongo multiroom audio family. We were also pleased to introduce to the stage – Folks – a great new band who went down a storm!

The last few weeks have been pretty busy at Pure as we launched our first TV set top box, Avalon 300R Connect, just two weeks ago and we are extremely excited to build on this with our first foray into the world of multiroom audio with the Jongo wireless system.

The Pure Jongo S340B will be available in stores from November in black, white, burnt orange, mango and lime green. You can pre-order the black and white versions now on Amazon.

For more information please visit www.pure.com.

‘I see Cathedrals’ – the new album by Folks is available now on Pure Music!

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Last night, at the Paramount bar, Centre Point in London, Pure announced Jongo, the world’s first mainstream multiroom audio product family. The Jongo system allows users to distribute synchronised music and audio to multiple devices from a single source, including the new Pure Connect App for iPad, iPhone and Android, as well as an increasing number of Pure’s connected products. Playing audio content simultaneously across multiple devices has never been so convenient, affordable or flexible.

The Pure Jongo multiroom audio family will be made up of a range of contemporary and attractive wireless speakers as well as a hi-fi adapter. In addition, compatible connected Pure products can easily become part of the system and seamlessly synchronise with members of the Jongo family for a class leading multispeaker and multiroom experience. The first product to be announced as part of the Jongo wireless system is the Pure Jongo S340B (SRP £149.99) an affordable portable wireless speaker with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and 360° sound.

The Pure Jongo S340B will be in store from November and will be available in black, white and a range of eye catching colours including lime green, mango and burnt orange.

You can also watch a short video about the Pure Jongo Multiroom System.

To access the press releases and images please visit imagebank.pure.com and insert the following username and password:

Username – purejongo
Password – Pure2012

For high res images and review samples please contact sarah.riley@pure.com.

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Yesterday, we held a press launch to unveil Pure’s first set top box Avalon 300R Connect at the Soho Hotel in central London. The event had an excellent turn out with around 80 attendees guests including press, TV, music and radio industry representatives. The evening consisted of a short presentation from marketing director Colin Crawford and a Q&A session in the hotel’s luxury screening room. Guests could then enjoy drinks and canapes with a chance to view live demos of the unit in each room.

The response received was extremely positive  as shown from bloggers, tweets and press coverage so far. With market leading features including versions of BBC iPlayer and YouTube, the easy-to-use Freeview+ HD digital TV recorder also has full integration with Pure’s leading internet radio and music services.

Avalon 300R Connect is available in both 500GB and 1TB versions. The set top box will be available in stores late October but is currently available to pre-order from Amazon and John Lewis.

To view the full press release and to contact the Pure PR team for review samples or high res images, please visit http://www.pure.com/purenet/press/

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