A Director on the Board of disgraced PR company Bell Pottinger was in Praia da Luz before Madeleine was reported missing

The role of Michael Frohlich and Tricia Moon of Resonate before and after the reported abduction of Madeleine McCann around 10pm on Thursday 3 May 2007

One of our interests in the events of the week of 28 April to 5 May 2007 in Praia da Luz is to ask: “What were these two (Frohlich and Moon) doing in Praia da Luz before the reported abduction?”

‘Frohlich’, by the way, is the German word for ‘happy’, or ‘jolly’.

First we must establish that they actually were there before 3 May. We were first alerted to their presence there when a Madeleine McCann researcher (‘NickE’] found this article in the PR Week of 9 May 2007.




It said:

MARK WARNER HIRES BELL POTTINGER

Mark Warner, the holiday company at the centre of the Portuguese kidnap story, is using the Bell Pottinger Group for help with the crisis.


It continued:

“Head of Issues and Crisis Management Alex Woolfall is on location in Portugal and reports directly to MD David Hopkins.

Mark Warner brought in Resonate on a generic brief a week before three-year-old Madeleine was kidnapped from its Portuguese resort in Praia da Luz. MD Michael Frohlich then referred the firm to his parent company’s crisis specialist.

Frohlich and Resonate Director Tricia Moon are helping liaise with the British Consulate in Portugal, the Portuguese and UK Media”.

But some other screenshot captures of this page included this final sentence:

“They are working with staff at Mark Warner’s Kensington headquarters”.

Taken literally, that could mean either that they were physically working in the Kensington headquarters building, or, surely, far more likely, that they were located in Praia da Luz, Portugal, and were simply liaising with other members of staff at headquarters.

The key sentence in the PR Week article is this:

“Mark Warner brought in Resonate on a generic brief a week before three-year-old Madeleine was kidnapped from its Portuguese resort in Praia da Luz. MD Michael Frohlich then referred the firm to his parent company’s crisis specialist.

Why were Frohlich and Moon ‘brought in’? They were ‘brought in’, says the article, from whatever they were doing, to work on Mark Warner matters. Why were these two suddenly ‘brought in’? What had happened to merit the top two members of Resonate to suddenly drop everything they were doing, and dramatically switch to work for Mark Warner?

The answer that PR Week gives us is: “They were brought in on a generic brief”. So, then, Mark Warner, if we are to believe it, suddenly contacted Frohlich and Moon and said: “Come and work a while on a generic brief”. It doesn’t sound very likely, does it?

Then we read that while Frohlich and Moon were working on a ‘generic brief’, Frohlich, after (presumably immediately after) Madeleine was reported missing, then referred the firm to his parent company’s crisis specialist [Alex Woolfall].

So, the clear impression we get from the article is that there was a hasty decision from Mark Warner to ‘bring in’ Frohlich and Moon (on a ‘generic brief’), and that while, that week, they were merrily engaged on some vague, ‘generic brief’ for Mark Warner, suddenly one of the children in the resort was apparently kidnapped, and Frohlich and Moon then ’phoned up their parent company and said: “Something’s happened! Get Alex Woolfall down pronto!”.

Let us bear in mind that that in that rather unlikely scenario, we don’t know when Frohlich and Moon were made aware that Madeleine was missing. Was it the night of Thursday 3 May? Or the following morning? And if this was a kidnapping, why would it be necessary for the Head of Risk to have to come and jet in to Praia da Luz the following day?

The PR Week article says that Frohlich and Moon “had been brought in a week before the kidnapping]”. That would be Thursday 26 April, two days before the McCanns began their Praia da Luz holiday. The actual date they went out to Praia da Luz is not given.

So here is a possible scenario. If we hypothesise that Madeleine may have suffered a serious event on the Sunday evening (29 April), were Frohlich and Moon sent over the following day as a kind of ‘advance PR party’ to make contact with the McCanns and perhaps liaise with other key figures in this drama, for example, the British Ambassador to Portugal? 

After all, as we now know, the number of, and seniority of, the high proflie PR, police, legal and state security service personnel who positively rushed over to Praia da Luz in the days after 3 May, was astronomical. So much so that it seemed that the disappearance of Madeleine McCann somehow threatened the vital interests of the state, not just a couple of distraught parents.

Bearing in mind that possible scenario, let us examine a few more facts surrounding the sudden despatch of Frohlich and Moon to Praia da Luz.

Resonate acquired by Bell Pottinger, January 2007

On 23 January 2007, Chime Communications published the following press release (LINK: http://chimeplc.com/press-releases/bell-pottinger-consumer-and-resonate-come-together)  

Bell Pottinger Consumer and Resonate come together

“The merger of Bell Pottinger Consumer, and Resonate, gives the Bell Pottinger Group a new concentrated consumer public relations offering and creates an agency that would immediately slot into PR Week’s top 15 consumer agencies in the UK. It will be led by Michael Frohlich with Tricia Moon and Graham Drew as Board Directors”.

In effect, Resonate had become part of the gigantic, and ill-fated, Bell Pottinger Empire, the group that allegedly received £500,000 from the McCanns’ Find Madeleine Fund, received millions of pounds from the corrupt regime of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and which finally collapsed in 2017 amid a welter of fraud and corruption allegations.

So, if something so serious had happened to Madeleine as to threaten the very interests of the state, never mind those of Mark Warner, it is easily possible to conceive that the bosses of Mark Warner were notified straightaway, and that in turn they contacted Bell Pottinger, a premier PR agency that frequently represented government and politicians’ interests.

But a recent simple search of the Companies House Register of Companies throws a deeper searchlight onto the significance of the involvement of Tricia Moon. Companies House lists her as a former Company Secretary of Bell Pottinger, resigning in on 20 August 1996. But she stayed on as a Director of Bell Pottinger until 19 September 2007. That means that though ostensibly merely a manager at Resonate Communications. Moon was actually sitting on the Bell Pottinger Board of Directors at the time Madeleine was reported missing, and for a further four months after that. Whilst this may only be a coincidence, she removed herself from the Bell Pottinger Board just 12 days after Gerry and Kate McCann were named as suspects in their daughter’s disappearance by the Portuguese Police.

====================================================== 

So what became of Michael Frohlich and Tricia Moon?


This story, on the Weber Shandwick website, written up by Arun Sudhaman, appeared on its website on 30 March last year (2021):



Michael Frohlich


Michael Frohlich Departs Ogilvy To Become Weber Shandwick EMEA CEO

Michael Frohlich takes on key leadership position at Weber Shandwick after almost a decade at Ogilvy, during which he expanded his remit beyond PR to encompass group oversight
Frohlich is leaving Ogilvy to become EMEA CEO at Weber Shandwick, PRovoke Media can reveal, after a leadership search that followed Tim Sutton's exit from the Interpublic Group PR firm 12 months ago. Frohlich departs after almost a decade at Ogilvy, during which he expanded his remit beyond PR to encompass group oversight of the UK operation. After joining Ogilvy from Chime Communications in 2012, Frohlich led the firm's UK and EMEA PR operations, before being named Ogilvy UK CEO in 2018. 

At Weber Shandwick, he will report to chief growth officer Susan Howe, who oversees all of the firm's regions. In addition, Frohlich will head the firm's new 'global transformation program', reporting directly to global CEO Gail Heimann.

Do we know how long Resonate staff stayed? Did they return to the generic brief later on?

I doubt such a detail is known - why should it be?  The internal management of the Ocean Club and/or Warners agency is no ones business but their own.

Nothing to stop the curious asking either one but I think the answer will be a negative, they are not obliged to answer questions about their internal operations, their management and administration.

Unless one wishes to go down the warren along with the allegations of Portuguese police incompetence, personally I believe the presence of Resonate prior to Madeleine McCann's reported disappearance  to be a white elephant.  I totally believe in the competence  of the Portuguese police, if there was a single element that might raise questions like who why where and when, the PJ would have thoroughly investigated.

They, Resonate Communications, were there on legitimate business, why should that be considered suspicious?

Sorry but all this 'they were all in on it' - I don't buy it.

None of this makes any sense, why would a tour operator - a travel agent, become embroiled in a criminal investigation into a three year old child's disappearance.  The Ocean Club's business was as normal until hit by the case of a child's disappearance allegedly whilst on their premises.

Of course they will jump into action to protect their reputations, they'd be very stupid not to but that would be after the event, not before.

Seriously, there is nothing to suggest Resonate was brought in to conspire with a pre-planned company agenda.

It's oh so easy to conjure, create, information to fit an unreasonable scenario - that's what I see happening here.  Looking for a non-existent piece to fit the puzzle.

Nothing wrong with that providing there is substance to move forward with the assumption - that essential ingredient is missing here.

Queryquery wrote:Do we know how long Resonate staff stayed? Did they return to the generic brief later on?

I have the greatest admiration for Verdi's honest willingness to believe that a Director (Tricia Moon) of the thoroughly corrupt, disgraced company Bell Pottinger could be capable of anything other than telling the plain, unvarnished truth about being sent to Praia da Luz on a 'generic brief', the very week that Madeleine disappeared after being photographed on Sunday 29 April 2007.

Just one of those coincidences, no doubt!

But to answer your question, yes, both Frohlich and Moon stayed on many days afterwards in a high profile role of liaising with the Portuguese and British police, the British ambassador and others. So they moved seamlessly from their 'generic brief' to being an integral part of one of the world's greatest-ever cover-ups.

Funny that.

We don't actually know, however, how long they stayed in Portugal.

What would you have me do Tony, ban myself - as you've suggested I do to any member who dares to oppose the mainstream train of thought .... correction - your particular train of thought?

As far as I'm concerned, CMOMM is a level playing field, we don't discriminate because of difference of opinion, unless there is clear evidence of mischief.

You scratch my back I'll scratch yours, you scratch me I'll scratch you.

I bid you goodnight!

There are too many unanswered questions for opinions to be frozen in time - hence CMOMM is alive and kicking after thirteen years of sometimes very stormy waters.

This is no place for play-safe landlubbers.   CMOMM - 'The Pirates of Uncharted Seas'.



It's quite usual for a large international tour operator to appoint a public relations body, or 'Communications' as Resonate was formally known.

The tourist industry is probably one of the most vulnerable in terms of the unexpected - the recent pandemic being one such example. Just as a nations leader and it's circle of elected representatives, any large conglomerate rely heavily on advisors, if nothing else the tourist industry needs PR to market their product.

It doesn't surprise me in the least to learn Resonate Communications were present at the beginning of a new season, the summer of 2007. According to the company profile, Frohlich was/is a flamboyant go-getter always at the forefront of the action - quite typical of a PR agent. Stand alone, Resonate Communications was quite a small outfit - a free trip to have a few meetings in the sun, I know where I would be and it ain't dark dank smoggy London!

crusader wrote:
Frohlich and Moon arrived in Praia da Luz in the week before the McCann family arrived, nobody disputes this, so to suggest they arrived on 30th April is only to fit in with a certain scenario and unless this can be proved it is speculation.

I don't believe this is correct. I don't have access to my computer right now, but the evidence that Frolhlich and Moon were in Praia da Luz sometime during the week Sunday 29 April to Saturday 5 May comes, I believe, solely from an article in the Press Gazette.

Again, if memory serves, the rather loose wording of the Press Gazette article said they were in Praia da Luz "the week *before Madeleine disappeared*".

If that is taken to mean the week 23 to 30 April 2007, then clearly their trip to Praia da Luz was nothing to do with Madaleine McCann.

What I think some members on this thread are missing is the entire aspect of the apparatus of the state and its allies in the media being used to establish and maintain this gigantic cover-up: Blair, Brown, MI5, Special Branch, Control Risks Group, the Head of the Media Monitoring Group, Bell Pottinger, the top-level group set up under the Chief Constable of Leicestershire Police on 8 May, the nation's 'most-feared' libel lawyers, Jon Clarke of the Olive Ptess...on and on the list goes.

Contrary to Verdi's working assumption that all these must be assumed to be telling the truth, unless we can prove otherwise, my own starting assumption is that all these agencies were involved in an organised conspiracy of lies to cover up the awful truth.

Where did the Press Gazette get their statement that Frohlich and Moon were merely in Praia da Luz on a "generic brief"? Most likely from Frohlich and Moon themselves,  remembering that Resonate was a mere subsidiary of Bell Pottinger.

Do I trust this most corrupt, disgraced and powerful PR company to tell the truth, as Verdi and others appear to do?

*No way*

Where to start ....

It would be greatly appreciated if people would stop re-inventing my thoughts, re-creating what I write.  

To set the records straight, I have never said I believe nor disbelieve anything Resonate/Bell-Pottinger have said - indeed they've said hardly anything at all so how can I comment on what they've said.  I wish they had, then there might be something to work on rather than trying to fathom press reports, what they mean or don't mean, again to set the record straight, I do not trust any PR outfit.  Their sole purpose is to market a product - to wrap something shoddy or in it's infancy or going through a rough patch, in nice shiny new packaging to make it look good through the eyes of the consumer.  It's certainly big business that's gradually made itself all but indispensable to big business.

Add to that, PR people live a life of theatrics, prancing about the stage balancing a champagne flute and super long cigarette holder in one hand and a caviar canape in the other whilst they superficially work their around the auditorium with idle chat - dwaaarling being every other word uttered, thinking they rule the universe.  They speak another language.

No I don't trust PR!

The sole issue here, I don't see any reason to believe or even presume Resonate were called to Luz in connection with a Madeleine McCann conspiracy cover-up.  Without something positive to work on, it is indeed just speculation.  There is nothing so far to make me think otherwise.  I could of course be wrong, in a way I hope I am, at least that would be good reason to pursue the issue with direction.

Anyway Tony, the important thing is your work is back in focus and that, as you know, is always at the forefront of my mind.  Whether or not you or anyone else disagree with my point of view, is immaterial.  You can't keep a subject alive if everyone agrees, it's only alternative perspective that keeps debate healthy and lively and above all else - productive!

Mark Warner hires Bell Pottinger

Mark Warner, the holiday company at the centre of the Portuguese kidnap story, is using the Bell Pottinger Group for help with the crisis.

9 May 2007

Head of issues and crisis management Alex Woolfall is on location in Portugal and reports directly to MD ­David Hopkins.

Mark Warner brought in Resonate on a generic brief a week before three-year-old Madeleine McCann was kidnapped from its Portuguese resort in Praia da Luz. MD Michael Froh­lich then referred the firm to his parent company’s crisis specialist.

Frohlich and Resonate dir­ector Tricia Moon are helping liaise with the British Consulate in Portugal, the Portuguese Police and the Portuguese and UK media.

They are working with staff at Mark Warner’s Kensington headquarters.

https://www.prweek.com/article/656479/mark-warner-hires-bell-pottinger

PROFILE: Michael Frohlich, managing director, Resonate

Based in airy Farringdon offices, with splashes of colour everywhere - from brightly coloured rugs to huge posters featuring scantily clad women on the cover of client Nuts magazine - Resonate is every inch the creative, consumer shop.

by Hannah Marriott 25 April 2007



Similarly, its managing director - Michael Frohlich - is consumer PR through and through, with a flamboyant, effervescent manner, a great sense of humour and heaps of restless energy.

‘My team will be the first to say that I have the concentration span of a gnat,' he says. ‘They hate taking me to client meetings. Well, not hate, but if I'm in the office for a day without a meeting, by the end of the day I'm going stir
crazy. I'm climbing the walls.'

But though Frohlich appears to run Resonate as a small hotshop, it has been part of Chime Communications' corporate PR behemoth The Bell Pottinger Group since its launch by Frohlich and Graham Drew in 2003.

It was nine-strong by the end of 2006, but a merger with Bell Pottinger Consumer at the beginning of the year saw staff numbers rocket from nine to 25. All staff now work under the Resonate moniker and report to Frohlich.

Lucy Freeborn - now associate direc­tor heading Lexis PR's youth PR offering, Six - reported to Frohlich at Shine. He taught Freeborn about running the ­finances of a company and was ­always ‘hilarious fun' and ‘treated every­one with respect'. She also praises his ­intuition: ‘He almost instinctively knows how to deal with people in different sorts of situations.'

Frohlich played an important role in the growth of Shine, where he was managing director during a period of ‘tremendous growth', but he is diplomatic enough to avoid discussing the finer details of his time at the agency.

Similarly, the usually open and chatty Frohlich will not be drawn on whether or not he owns part of Resonate. He does say, though, that ‘word got to Lord Bell' that he was interested in setting up alone, and then Bell Pottinger offered to back him.

Frohlich describes himself as someone who gets stressed by ‘not knowing' - ‘I hate not knowing what the client thinks or the staff members think - once I know, then I can deal with it. Or I hate it when you pitch for new business and you don't hear. I want to know now!'

Fittingly, he leaves nothing to chance where his own interview is concerned. He cannot help taking a peek at the camera's screen to check the results of the photo shoot, and he prepares four sheets of A4 to ensure he has all the rele­vant facts and figures to hand.

The figures include the fact that Reso­nate has won around £750,000 ‘gross new business' so far this year, and that - he says - they would be in the top 12 of the PRWeek's 2006 Top 50 consumer league table, implying the agency is above the £2.7m fee income mark.

The merger has been very successful, he says, but Resonate's ambitions go well beyond being a successfully merged entity. ‘The group vision is to have the top agency in each sector,' he says. ‘My goal is to become the top consumer PR offering in the UK.' He plans to be in the Top 10 of the PRWeek consumer league table by 2008, and eventually to employ around 100 staff.

‘I don't want it to come across that it's all about megalomania! I don't think there are many people who have the same opportunity to actually have the structure and the support to be able to grow a serious agency. I'm so grateful for the opportunity and I want to people to be proud of the agency - that's what I'm driving for,' he says.

Frohlich is 35, married with two boys and lives in Pinner in Middlesex. ­Although he comes across as a very ­sociable man, and spends a lot of time at lunches and dinners with clients and journalists, he says he can be ‘an unsociable, grumpy old sod' at the weekend.

He studied politics and economics at Manchester University, but says he is ‘not a clever person', adding: ‘I'm quite creative and strategic, but I am very realistic about what I can and can't do.'

Frohlich identifies his strengths as his ‘ability to motivate people' and his ‘passion and hunger', which is just as well - such qualities will be required in abundance if he is to achieve the Bell Pottinger Group's vision.

CV - Michael Frohlich

2003
Managing director, Resonate

1999
Associate director, rising to managing director, Shine Communications

1996
Account manager, rising to account director, Bell Pottinger Marketing & Events

1993
Marketing manager, United Joint Israel Appeal

https://www.prweek.com/article/652625/profile-michael-frohlich-managing-director-resonate

crusader wrote:I would like to make it clear that in no way do I trust any PR company or media outlet blindly , nor do I blindly believe any other  scenario put forward without proof.

Tony Bennett wrote.

So here is a possible scenario. If we hypothesise that Madeleine may have suffered a serious event on the Sunday evening (29 April), were Frohlich and Moon sent over the following day as a kind of ‘advance PR party’ to make contact with the McCanns and perhaps liaise with other key figures in this drama, for example, the British Ambassador to Portugal? 

Without proof this ^^ is speculation in my opinion and relies solely on Madeleine dying on the Sunday.

The statements of Mark Warner staff, Mrs Fenn, the Smith family and former holidaymakers staying in 5a are dismissed because they don't fit in with the above scenario.

@crusader and @Verdi

Of course I respect your belief that the Press Gazette statement can be taken at face value and therefore we should believe it without even questioning it. It is just that we have a serious disagreement about that.

However, I must just address this statement:

Without proof this ^^ is speculation in my opinion and relies solely on Madeleine dying on the Sunday. The statements of Mark Warner staff, Mrs Fenn, the Smith family and former holidaymakers staying in 5a are dismissed because they don't fit in with the above scenario.


With great respect to you both, this isn't the case.

I have set out in very great detail on this forum many empirical reasons why we should completely set aside the evidence of both Mrs Pamela Fenn and the Smiths. Both are shot through with innumerable inconsistences so as to make them seriously untrustworthy.

By contrast, we have the photographic evidence. We have FIVE proven photographs of Madeleine alive on Saturday 28 April  and up to Sunday lunchtime. We have one more, the 'Make-Up Photo', which has many indications that it was taken later on Sunday afternoon. We have NO proven photo of her alive after that. But we do have a photo taken of her about 2pm Sunday 29 April which was falsely represented to have been taken on Thursday. That, I continue assert, is powerful evidence that something very serious occurred to Madeleine later on Sunday.

As for the references to Mark Warner staff and 'former holidaymakers', @crusader, again with great respect, I found Lizzie Taylor (HideHo)'s long and very detailed post on CMOMM analysing these statements very persuasive. She concluded that there was "no credible, independent evidence" in any of these statements that Madeleine was alive after Sunday 29 April.

Peace to you both. We have a big disagreement.

crusader wrote:...I would like to say, I am not saying the scenario laid out by Tony is wrong and I have great admiration and respect for all the work done by the researchers to date. However I think we should be able to look in other directions and follow other leads rather than concentrate on one scenario.

To try to draw a line under this, first of all thank you for your kind comments above.

I bracketed @Verdi with yourself because of Verdi's comment above that:

"Without something positive to work on, it is indeed just speculation.  There is nothing so far to make me think otherwise".

For the record, on the basis of the vague statement made by the Press Gazette, we just cannot know what date Moon and Frohlich arrived, and, for my part, I seriously doubt that they were sent on a 'generic brief' which I think Verdi accepts as the truth unless proven otherwise.

You and I have a serious disagreement about the validity of:
1) the evidence of Mrs Fenn
2) the evidence of the Smiths
3) the evidence of the Mark Warner staff and
4) the evidence of the other holidaymakers.

I am at peace with that view, though I sharply disagree with it, but reiterate the vital point that my judgment is not, as you suggested, based on "fitting with a death on 29 April scenario" but simply because I am wholly unpersuaded by any evidence at all in this case that Madeleine was alive after then. I take into account, as Lizzie Taylor did in her excellent review of the evidence, the lack of genuine independence of many of the witnesses and,. in other cases, the proven inaccuracies or vagueness of their statements.