Team – GingerBread

FROM PERFORMING ARTS and brand PR to innovative experiential activation

GingerBread brings together the very best of the world of arts and brands - expanding the possibilities of a deeper audience connection.
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Our core team consists of leaders from the worlds of performing arts publicity, advertising, immersive theatre, branding and brand partnerships. The diversity of our combined backgrounds makes us uniquely qualified to identify and capitalise on the most exciting emerging cultural and behavioural trends, developing content ecosystems, tailor-made to work in an ever-evolving world.
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Together we create prestigious brand experiences, with inspiring storytelling which spills into real life and we find new paths to establish value, fortify connection, influence consumption patterns and anchor brands back into the process.

REVOLUTIONISE THE RITUALS OF OUR WORLD

managing director

MADELAINE
BENNET

ran Prospero PR - a boutique PR and Marketing company specialising in performing arts - from 2005.
In 2011, Madelaine took a year-long sabbatical from Prospero to head up the global PR for Time Out. Madelaine then ran Prospero until she joined Premier PR the largest Arts, Culture, and Entertainment agency in the UK in 2016. At Premier as Publicity Director, she headed up the Performing Arts department between 2016 & 2020, and in that time, she led the PR on over 300 high-profile arts, culture, and entertainment film and TV projects. In early 2020 Madelaine left Premier and established TheGingerBread Agency

where she has worked on a wide range of both arts and brand clients.

In the past few months she has represented (amongst others) Fringe First winner Laura Horton’s Breathless; multi-award-winning Australian theatre company Salvador Dinosaur’s The Anniversary; Edinburgh Comedy Award Newcomers Crybabies; anarchic comedy producers and events creators STAMPTOWN Edinburgh Comedy Award Newcomer Nominee Emily Wilson; Award Winning theatre makers Wildcard Theatre’s Ruckus; Emmy nominated sketch duo BriTANicK; the multi award-winning Australian circus company – A Good Catch and breakout star of the Edinburgh Fringe 2022 - comedian Jordan Gray.

THE BORN STORYTELLER

ceo

GABY
JERRARD

Gaby Jerrard has worked in entertainment PR specialising in comedy PR, since 2007.Beginning her journey in the world of comedy and television PR at Avalon she went on to work with some of the top entertainment PR agencies, working with talent including Monty Python, Lenny Henry, Phill Jupitus, Rhod Gilbert, Jason Byrne, Jason Manford, Sarah Millican, Jack Whitehall.
GingerBread’s sister agency ‘Gaby Jerrard

PR’ has become an exceptionally established brand in comedy and entertainment Public Relations across the UK, and one of the leading comedy PR agencies at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and across a wide spectrum of culture and entertainment, from television to live shows, books to podcasts. At GingerBread Gaby lends her expertise in the world of entertainment to creative brand projects, marrying extensive experience in events with GingerBread’s experiential and activation initiatives.

THE BOLD BUCCANEER

Associate Director

EMILY
LEARY

started her career in corporate comms, heading up social teams for EON and BT, before making a sharp pivot in 2011, creating the multi award winning blog ‘A Mummy Too’ as an outlet for her love of family food. Today, Emily is a multi-award-winning author, presenter and blogger and millions of people visit Emily's blog every month for easy, delicious recipes designed with busy families in mind.Emily’s cookbook, Get Your Kids to Eat Anything was published by Octopus (a Hachette imprint) in 2019 and reached #1 in the Amazon Food & Drink chart.

But alongside her creative food career, Emily has maintained exceptionally

strong relationships in the branding world, creating branded content, partnerships, recipe development as well as presenting and vologging with numerous household names including Stacey Solomon and Gino D’Acampo. She has worked with almost any food brand you can name and her ability to devise innovative impactful campaigns is legendary.

It is these skills that she brings to GingerBread. In addition, she is delighted to have dusted off her PR hat and led on numerous arts PR campaigns for GingerBread over the past year. With a deep understanding of the arts and culture landscape she is dedicated to promoting and enhancing the reputations of artists, performers, and other creative organizations.

THE Multi-disciplined magician

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

VIRGILIU
ANDONE

has an extensive career as a Creative Director that spans some of the top creative agencies in the world, culminating in a stint as Global Creative Director at Geometry Global (at the time the world’s biggest activation network, now VMLY&R COMMERCE), one of the largest global full-service advertising agencies. Growing out of the traditional agency mould, he branched out into publishing and content creation, true to his taste for pioneering branding models

and his insidious passion for being ahead of the game. Throughout his career, Virgiliu has specialised in creating innovative events, experiences, and interactions that forge lasting emotional connections between brands and their target audiences. His key skill lies in devising new ways to engage in direct engagement with consumers through creative, memorable interactions and he has done this for numerous companies across the globe, including Alfa Romeo, Orange Mobile (EE), Kraft Jacobs Suchard, Bobby’s of Bournemouth, Scania Trucks, Dominoes and Greenpeace.

THE EVER CURIOUS PIONEER

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR – special projects – edinburgh festival

AmEe
Smith

has worked alongside various GingerBread founders since 2010 when she managed numerous Edinburgh Festival projects alongside Madelaine Bennett at Prospero PR. Since then Madelaine and Amee have worked together on nine Edinburgh Festivals, PRing world class artists from across the globe.

In addition to heading up arts PR projects within GingerBread Amee brings

a vital level of expertise in creating a vital level of expertise in creating groundbreaking immersive theatre, which is invaluable during the development of GingerBread’s experiential activation offering.

As a creative producer and a performer Amee has worked within theatre companies including ImmerCity to create intricately nested experiences of stories within stories, and with Flabbergast theatre where she was part of the original cast and creative team of the astounding and award-winning Swell Mob.

THE ORIGINAL INNOVATOR

Creative Consultant

CLIVE
DREW

is a creative PR, Communications and Partnerships Consultant with over 15 years’ of experience in the consumer and business-to-business sectors. He’s worked for some of London’s most-respected agencies (Mischief, Splendid Communications, Diffusion, DawBell, Seven Dials PR), as well as in-house as PR Manager at £200 million music licensing company PPL between 2016 and 2018. He has experience working with a number of globally-recognised brands (Budweiser, Casio Pianos, Dove Men+Care, Global Radio, Google, Jack Daniel’s, London Stansted, Lynx, MoneySuperMarket.com, Universal Publishing Production Music, YouTube), as well as businesses at start-up and challenger outfits.

Clive has also worked as an artist publicist, representing names across the worlds of music, comedy and theatre.

A musician and former music writer, Clive specialises in the culture, lifestyle and music spaces and was responsible for leading Jack Daniel’s ‘Jack Rocks’ UK music initiative for two years and played a key role in establishing and booking acts for the first-ever stage for new and emerging bands at The Isle of Wight Festival 2015. He also helped set-up the first-ever ‘airside’ music concert in the departure lounge of London’s Stansted Airport featuring Boy Better Know MC Jammer and launched former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham’s ‘Sounds and Vision’ podcast in 2018.

THE INSIGHTFUL MAVEN