Birmingham-based integrated communications agency HROC has won the Media Relations Award at this year’s PRCA DARE Awards.
The marketing agency scooped the Media Relations honour at the 2026 PRCA DARE Awards North England and Midlands, for its work with Project SHOUT – a national carbon monoxide awareness campaign. The media relations initiative is HROC’s most successful campaign in its 10-year's leading the project.
HROC also achieved finalist status in the Digital and Social Media category for its work with Pyrex® Cookware.
For Project SHOUT’s 2025 campaign, HROC delivered a data-led public relations strategy to raise national awareness around carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning incidents across the UK. After uncovering data to suggest that poisoning events had more than doubled since 2020, HROC set out to achieve widespread coverage designed to educate the public on safety best practices.
HROC generated strong results for the Project SHOUT campaign, which included extensive broadcast coverage across ITV News, 5 News, and Good Morning Britain. The integrated communications agency also achieved national and regional press attention from a breadth of titles, including BBC News, Mirror, and Yahoo, elevating CO poisoning from a niche safety issue to a national conversation.
Celebrating the very best PR and communications professionals across the UK, the PRCA DARE Awards take place across the UK and give agencies, in-house teams and individual contributors the opportunity to earn recognition from the world’s largest PR association.
The award comes as HROC embarks on a new chapter, with the integrated marketing agency pushing for greater national recognition and continued growth, following its recent rebrand and move into new headquarters at Rum Runner Works, in Birmingham city centre.
New HROC managing director Steve Sherran said: "We’re delighted to be crowned the winner of Media Relations category at this year’s PRCA DARE Awards. HROC has led Project SHOUT for 10 years and we’re so proud of the team for their hard work, talent and creativity in making it one of our most successful projects over the past year.”
