Telus has selected a new public relations AOR, going with another dedicated, custom-built agency to handle the assignment.

The Pack will be comprised of staff from sister agencies National Public Relations and Cohn & Wolfe. The business will be led by Rick Murray, managing partner of National Toronto and – since September – managing partner of Cohn & Wolfe Canada. He’ll work with a senior advisory team of staff picked from offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Quebec City, Montreal and Ottawa.

The selection was made following a multi-agency review process. Telus previously worked with Edelman on PR.

Both National and Cohn & Wolfe Canada are part of the Res Publica consulting group. In 1995, National acquired the Canadian operations of Cohn & Wolfe and Burson-Marsteller, with Y&R (which owned the two PR agencies) taking a stake in National – a stake that was transferred to WPP when it acquired Y&R in 2000. National had been affiliated with the international Burson-Marsteller network, though that relationship has been transferred to Avenir Global, National’s parent company within Res Publica, since Burson-Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe were merged by WPP last year.

Telus previously went with a dedicated agency model in 2017, with creative AOR The&Partnership and media AOR Cossette Media joining forces to create a dedicated agency (since called “The Greenhouse”) to jointly handle all creative, media and CRM. The&Partnership, which entered Canada in 2014 after winning the Telus creative account, is also backed by WPP.