Dear Friends,
Ann and Clair (pictured here in snowy Whitby!) would like to wish you a restful Christmas when it comes, and a Happy New Year. We’re jumping in early to share our Year in Review….kindly read on….
2025 was a big year for us. We re-branded (ever so slightly) changing our name from Cause UK to Cause & Effect PR, to reflect our expansive portfolio, AND we marked 15 years of business.
We had some glowing testimonials for our work, but were probably most chuffed with this from the blockbuster author, Lee Child:
“Cause and Effect is that rare thing – a first-rate PR agency with a heart and a conscience. I have seen their work up close over many years and I can’t recommend them highly enough.”
A Writing Chance
2025 started on a PR high. At the tail end of 2024, we ran a lobbying campaign for New Writing North to help secure DCMS funds for a new centre for writing in Newcastle on BBC Radio 4 Today, PM, BBC Radio 2, the Guardian, The I Paper, and the BBC. In January 2025, it was announced they successfully secured the £5m funding.
Creating a Buzz
New Writing North returned to launch their new platform for working-class writers, The Bee, in May. We were thrilled to place the story on BBC Radio 4’s PM, in The Guardian and BBC online, with an impassioned comment in the Telegraph.
We secured a feature interview with Mark Gatiss for The Bee as well as Lee Child for The Bee podcast.
We worked with New Writing North again to help launch Durham Book Festival in the summer, alongside a new podcast with Fiona Hill, securing an exclusive interview with Fiona in The Guardian, as well as profile for the festival in Marie Claire, Yours, Cultured North East, BBC online, The Week, and Good Housekeeping.
Lights, camera, action!
Also in January, we secured one of our clients, Articulate Agency, on the BBC Breakfast red sofa.
Their young actor Matilda Firth (then 9) discussed her role in a major Hollywood movie, Wolf Man. In a full-circle moment, this December we helped promote Matilda’s latest role (she’s in demand!) – playing Kiefer Sutherland’s daughter in the Sky Cinema film, Tinsel Town.
In just over a year of working with the agency, we’ve achieved 176 pieces of media coverage, not including broadcast, such as BBC Radio, BBC Look North, and BBC Breakfast.
As well as extensive regional media, we secured profile in key trade publications, including The Stage and Deadline. National press included comment in The Guardian on the agency’s work around the Netflix-hit Adolescence, and profile in The Radio Times.
Unlocking Potential
For over a decade, Ann has put her journalism skills to work interviewing inspiring social entrepreneurs for Key Fund’s annual social impact report. The report demonstrates their impact to investors and influencers.
It’s inspiring to tell the stories of the remarkable people working in this sector and the brilliant, empathic, committed team at Key Fund steered by Matt Smith CBE.
2025’s was a special one, as Key Fund marked 25 years of investing, supporting social enterprises, community businesses, and co-operatives to do amazing things. Please do see the incredible difference being made – See the report here.
Caught Read-Handed
In spring, we helped the national charity The Reading Agency launch World Book Night and their Quick Reads initiative.
Quick Reads encourages reluctant and lapsed readers back into the habit. We helped organise a free Quick Reads giveaway and author talk at one of the country’s most beautiful bookshops – Waterstones Bradford – during the City of Culture celebrations, filmed by BBC Look North.
The launch was tied to the charity’s latest research on the nation’s reading habits, which saw media stories in The Bookseller, The Sunday Times, The Independent and Times Radio.
We’re thrilled to be working on the Quick Reads campaign once more for World Book Night 2026 in the National Year of Reading.
Criminally Good PR
It was a big year for book festivals. 2025 saw the final CrimeFest in Bristol.
In the five years we supported the crime genre’s leading convention, we secured some PR highs, such as inviting Tim Adams from The Observer to come along. It resulted in a three-page feature in the Observer magazine. Tim said he couldn’t resist our pitch: How many crime writers does it take to solve a murder? The CrimeFest team – Adrian Muller and Donna Moore, and the volunteers who help make it happen – were a complete joy to work with. They were ready to retire after 16 years, and said goodbye in style.
Moor to Explore
2025 saw us return too to support the North’s longest-running literary festival, Ilkley Literature Festival.
We first started supporting Ilkley in 2019, and have raised its profile in regional and national media. They were incredibly supportive of our work with Whitby Lit Fest (see below), and we’re in awe of what they achieve each year, programming dozens of events across 19 days each autumn.
This year, we secured over 90 stories including profile in the BBC, Country Life, Marie Claire, and Good Housekeeping.
Whitby: An Undying Legacy
We began working with Whitby Lit Fest in the spring to help programme and promote its first ever literary festival, which took place this November.
Whitby Lit Fest is led by a committee that consists of Lois Kirtlan, owner of Hetty and Betty and founder of the festival, Fiona Duncan who runs The Whitby Bookshop, the Community Development Librarian Adele Duffield, Place Development Officer at Visit North Yorkshire, Jamie Wallis, and locals Jack Barber, an IT guru, and Mark Williamson, who works in the heritage and cultural sector.
The committee recruited the remarkable Kate Fenton as Festival Patron. Kate was a producer of Radio 4’s Bookshelf, and is an author herself. She played an integral role during the event.
As well as providing PR, we helped programme the first Whitby Lit Fest, securing circa 40 authors for the four-day event, including headliners Lee Child, Miriam Margolyes, Shaun Usher, Rob Rinder, Steph McGovern, and Sir Alan Ayckbourn.
BBC Look North did a brilliant preview film. Lee Child featured on the front cover of The Express Review magazine, and Steph McGovern was interviewed in Yours magazine. The festival was profiled in Condé Nast Traveller, Coast magazine, Marie Claire, and extensive regional press.
We were thrilled with the testimonials for our work – Miriam said it was ‘utterly wonderful’ and Rob Rinder declared it ‘full of heart.’
Read the full case study here: Whitby Lit Fest | Cause UK
And save the dates, for the 2026 festival. 19th – 22nd November 2026.
Putting the Class in Classical
Another festival we love to work with is the Northern Aldborough Festival.
It returned in June 2025, and it was a delight to get its young musicians for its annual New Voices Singing Competition to perform on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune. The festival also featured in Town & Country magazine, Opera News, the Gramophone Classical Festival Guide, BBC Music Magazine’s festival guide, with features in Yorkshire Life magazine and across regional press.
This month, we have just announced its exciting 2026 programme and look forward to working with them on the run up to next summer.
Launching Yorkshire Day
Our work with musicians continued as we supported the mercurial talent, composer and conductor, Ben Crick.
We’ve worked with, and been friends with Ben for many years, doing lots of incredible projects. This year, Ben bravely launched Bradford’s newest venue – Bradford Live – on Yorkshire Day (1 August) with poet Ian McMillan, Aled Jones, the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra and BBC Bantam of the Opera choir.
The opening of the night was broadcast live on BBC The One Show, who interviewed the stars of the show. We achieved extensive coverage in Northern Life, Yorkshire Life, Yorkshire Living, BBC radio, Times Radio, and more.
Operatic Heights
We supported Ben later in the year too with Bradford Opera Festival and the launch of his innovative opera on AI and the Luddites. We were really pleased to position an interview with Ben in the Guardian. Stories also ran on the BBC, Opera Wire and Yorkshire Post.
The Daggers
Also in the summer, we once more announced the annual Dagger Awards for the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA). We’ve built the profile of these genre awards over a number of years now, but this year was truly remarkable.
As the very first Japanese author won a Dagger, we co-ordinated five Japanese news crews and multiple Japanese newspapers to attend the London awards’ ceremony, with a bespoke press conference to cope with the unprecedented interest. The media monitoring service, Cision reports the Japanese prime-time broadcast and print media that morning had a total reach of a staggering 54.1M.
We also hit some big UK publications earlier this year, when we announced Mick Herron was the recipient of the Diamond Dagger. The press release was picked up in 143 press stories, with 1.28M views, with stories in The Guardian, Bookseller, The I Paper, Daily Express, BBC Radio 4, and Euro news. See the full coverage book here.
Coal Dust and Diamonds
In 2024, we launched a unique musical commission called Ancestral Reverb from the climate hope organisation Threads in the Ground, at Durham Book Festival in the Guardian, on BBC Radio 4, and BBC Radio 2. We captured national media attention as the musicians literally captured the sound of a coal mine for the track.
This year, they asked us to launch the vinyl record of the piece, which was uniquely embedded with coal dust. Could we achieve the same level of profile?
We were beyond thrilled to once more secure the story on BBC Radio 4 – this time during the primetime 8am bulletins on the Today programme, as well as a further feature in The Guardian, BBC online, BBC Radio 6, LBC, Capital, Smooth Radio, and filming with ITV Tyne Tees, helping secure a short documentary with ITV.
Ethical business
It was a joy to continue our work supporting ethical businesses.
Cause has supported the female-led research agency, Harlow Consulting, since their early days. They are a fast-growing, award-winning agency with a remarkable client base that includes the likes of Innovate UK, Historic England, the NHS, and National Housing Federation.
This year they were picked as one of Yorkshire’s Most Exciting Companies. Part of our work included helping to promote their survey work across trade publications, including their latest research for BFI and ScreenSkills.
It’s great to support such an ethical business (they give back to people and planet) whose research work helps push forward innovations, and identify best courses of action to make positive change across a range of vital industries, from healthcare to heritage.
Sign of the Times
We also welcomed a new client – Widd – supporting its PR activity during their re-brand.
Widd is remarkably the UK’s oldest signage company, and they continually to evolve with innovative, smart technology, that’s also ethical and sustainable.
Widd is a trusted partner for some of the world’s leading brands, including Primark, Marks & Spencer, and Berry’s Jewellers, delivering high-quality signage across the UK, Europe, the USA, and the UAE.
Culture Start
This week, we were delighted to be awarded the role of Advocacy Lead for the Sunderland Place Partnership programme supported by Arts Council England, Culture Start.
Our mission is to raise the profile of Culture Start, as well as build strategic relationships, develop a clear advocacy narrative and drive engagement with funders, policy makers, and influencers.
We can’t wait to get cracking.
We’d like to thank all of our clients for partnering with us in 2025, and we look forward to our work in 2026.
We’d also like to give a huge thanks to all the local and regional media who we work with year-in, year-out, especially the Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Living, Yorkshire Life, Look North, Calendar, BBC radio, and local newspapers across the region.
As a mission-led agency, it’s such a joy to work with like-minds. Whether it’s advocating, promoting, producing, or programming, we look forward to making waves for our clients in the year to come.
If you want to see how Cause & Effect can help boost your profile, footfall, visibility, reputation, and bottom line, please do get in touch if you’d like an informal chat.
Wishing you peace, health, and happiness.