welcome to diffusion

Bring Tomorrow Closer

We enable innovators to take on the status quo and transform the future faster. We help scaleups to master the new mainstream, challenger brands to grasp the mantle of leadership, and innovative incumbents to reinvent their legacy. We believe meaningful progress is impossible without effective communication. Today, that means using PR to elucidate and overcome persistent barriers to change, to inspire movements that power business growth and to defend hard-won advances by protecting reputation. Above all it is about work that delivers meaning and impact, for our clients and for our team.

PR is not an exercise in vanity. All the challenges we take on have clear commercial objectives. If you don’t have them already, we insist on working with you to set the KPIs in place to measure our impact. Experience also teaches us that our consultants add the most value to your bottom line when we are fully brought into an organisation, and able to inform thinking from the start of the conversation. Last but not least, we are in the people business. Whether you are a colleague or a client, we never compromise in only working in partnership with smart, decent, and supportive professionals. Together, let’s bring tomorrow closer.

The values that drive us:

Live Creatively

Know the rules, so you can break them effectively
The best ideas should scare you
Creativity also lives in the small things
Stay connected to culture

Make Everyday Count

Work with purpose on purposeful work
If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it
Recognise and celebrate the big wins and the small
Excellence is contagious, and always rewarded

Move Mountains

Reach for the harder questions, not the easy solutions
Seek diversity of perspective and opinion
The truth is in the numbers
Conviction, courage and collaboration makes nothing impossible

Challenge Convention

Change doesn’t come from above
Be tenacious in confronting the status quo
Never let fear of failure stop you taking intelligent risks
We leap together

Lead with Empathy

Our successes and failures are owned as a team
It’s not enough to do things right, we must do the right things
Listen intently, communicate transparently
The head rarely wins without the heart

The clients that inspire us:

It’s impossible for one agency to be the right fit for everyone and we never pretend to be something that we are not. Experience has taught us that our most enduring, deep and successful partnerships with clients have a common thread. Firstly, our clients are firm believers in the power of PR, they “get it”, all the way to the very top of the organisation. They understand that PR is something which requires sustained budget and they don’t suffer from commitment issues. They are clear and open at the outset on objectives and expectations and the first to let us know as these evolve internally.

Every relationship is a two-way street, we are never needy and pride ourselves on our proactivity, but there does need to be a commitment from the brand to invest time in PR, not just in the exciting early-days but through-out. Knowledge is power, and while we are your external eyes and ears, we need to be embedded deep in your organisation to advise you creatively, and be trusted to be among the first to know. The counsel we provide will always be honest, sometimes it will be difficult to hear, but we add the most value where clients take the advice from the experts they are paying for.

The Diffusion journey began in London in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. Many would argue it was not the opportune time to launch a new agency. However, for Diffusion’s founders Ivan Ristic and Daljit Bhurji, with economic pressures highlighting many of the flaws in the traditional client-agency relationship, the time was ripe to challenge the status quo. From a rejection of the old retainer model, of over-promising and under-delivering, of PR bullsh*t rather than honest counsel, to chronic over-servicing leading to burned out teams – it was time for something new.

Today there are still additional barriers that have not been completely overcome, and the fight goes on. Whether that’s clearer measurement of the impact of PR to both the bottom line and the balance sheet, ensuring our teams better represent the diverse audiences our clients need to reach, to operating as sustainably as possible, to name just a few. It’s the recognition of these anchors holding back change and our determination to take them on, that makes us who we are.

Diffusion opened its first international office in New York in 2012, driven by client demand, with three US-based clients we had been working with in London, appointing us without a pitch. That faith in us was driven by a track-record in delivering strategy that was aligned to business objectives, a fresh creative approach and faultless tactical-delivery, where we push for the highest quality, highest-tier media results possible. Through our US expansion, we believed we could offer something genuinely different. Our aim was to be a real alternative to large high-cost/low-value Holding Co. agencies, moribund firms too reliant on news wire “coverage”, and those lacking the scale and reach to operate internationally.

Diffusion was at the vanguard of the so called ‘British Wave’ of UK agencies launching in New York at the time. The reason we survived and thrived (opening our LA office in 2018) while most of our compatriots sadly did not, was our model and our commitment to attracting and growing the best home-grown US talent at every level. The values that drive us across all our offices are universal, but it’s our determination to innovate alongside exceptional local industry knowledge, that together continue to deliver such powerful campaigns for our clients in the US.

Today many innovators have the ambition to be truly international brands from the get-go, often launching services in many markets simultaneously. As well as providing that robust bridge across the Atlantic, over the last 12 years Diffusion has created an enviable network of like-minded, award-winning agencies driven by creativity, accountability, and excellence.

By acting as your single creative and co-ordination hub, we remove the headache of day-to-day management of multiple agencies. By ensuring you are represented by the best experts in each market, you can avoid the expensive compromise of working with a network agency that may be strong at the centre, but inconsistent on local delivery. Our model of international co-ordination provides clients with both speed and flexibility and the ability to scale up and down quickly in response to market priorities.