I Heart Soho
Soho, London, media land and home of PR. It’s my favourite place to work in this amazing city and not just because I work in PR and my office happens to be in Soho Square. Granted I am slightly biased, but with very good reason.
One of the best things about London, I’m sure most people would agree, is its diversity. Soho epitomises diversity. No where else in the city do you find such a melting pot of ethnicities, cultures, and workforce stereotypes.
My walk through the Square in the morning is a perfect illustration. I’m greeted by the ever persistent Hare Krishnas singing their happy hearts out: I hit the Square and am offered a tinnie by the local drunks, as the suited business men rush passed to their morning meetings and the Crossrail builders live up to their stereotype and tip their hard hats.
Come lunch time and it’s all change. The tourists are out in force, having stumbled off Oxford Street, loaded down with shopping bags. Young actors dashing off to their next auditions, make for good celeb spotting. Only last week Sir Paul McCartney gave me a smile as he headed into his office.
By the end of the working day it’s different again. Walking through Soho Square on a sunny evening feels more like walking through a festival than a small patch of green amongst urban office space. The trendy media types lounge around twiddling their beards, sipping their craft beers and discussing the latest ads they’ve edited, while the LGBT community flock to the Square in a barrage of pumping pop tunes and air kisses, ready to kick off their thirsty Thursday night out.
Diversity aside, it is undoubtedly the place to be if you work in PR. Some of the biggest and most respected agencies in the World have offices in Soho, setting the tone for smaller agencies to follow suit. And for those that can’t quite manage the outrageous rent on the Square there’s always Soho House, Dean Street Town House and the House of St Barnabas to host the ever important journo lunches, so many houses to choose from!
The summer months, in particular, see Soho turn into the hot spot for PR stunts and product launches. A few that have stuck in my mind this year include #OCheerUpWater courtesy of Oasis, my #dietcokebreak (free cardboard chair included), getting a £5 manicure during the #Birchboxmanithon with all proceeds going to Coppafeel cancer charity, and the KrispyKreme I was handed just for downloading new social networking app Activitypal. It really is a hive of PR activity.
And if all that isn’t enough, Soho is a stone’s throw from every high street and department store imaginable, with more cafes, restaurant and bars than you can shake a stick at, available for lunch options.
TimeOut describes Soho as ‘sleazy, sexy, sleek and saucy. Many things to many people’. To me it’s my home, well, my work home. So as Onyx continues to grow and someone suggests moving to bigger offices in Mayfair, my response ‘I’d rather be squashed in like a sweaty commuter on the circle line in summer, than move out of Soho’.
