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February 21, 2000 Issue of PRWeek

Ford nabs Nissan vet to drive its PR machine

DEARBORN, MI: It took a while, but Ford has finally found its man.

Site lets users e-mail newsmakers

SEATTLE: Seattle PR veteran Wiley Brooks is talking big about his new venture, TellThemNow.com, billing it as ’a milestone in modern communications.’ But there’s reason to believe ...

MPA looks for firm in dollars 10m offensive

NEW YORK: The Magazine Publishers of America are looking for a PR agency to spearhead a dollars 10 million integrated campaign designed to fend off a proposed ...

Austin Powers wins top PRWeek award

NEW YORK: On a night that celebrated the best and brightest of 1999, it was New Line Cinema that had its mojo working overtime.

NEWS BRIEFS

WASHINGTON, DC: The Legal News Network, an online news service that is part of top legal PR shop Levick Communications, has added Larry Smith and Susan Post ...

Alan Taylor creates dollars 2m tech unit

NEW YORK: Alan Taylor Communications, best known for its work in the sports arena, has formalized its hi-tech practice with the launch of an Internet division and ...

Bush’s ex-PR head Beckwith joins NCTA

WASHINGTON, DC: Former George W. Bush communications manager David Beckwith - exiled from the campaign following clashes with some influential members of the Bush High Command - ...

Michigan police use PR to buckle new seat belt law

LANSING, MI: When a new state mandatory-seat belt-use law kicks in on March 10, the Michigan State Police will find themselves forced to confront a major PR ...

Dot-com clients help double C&W hi-tech practice

ATLANTA: Cohn & Wolfe’s Atlanta outpost has generated somewhat of a hi-tech hot streak, adding four new accounts last week that effectively double the size of the ...

PR is about to hit the playing field in Atlanta

ATLANTA: PR is about to hit the playing field in Atlanta. Major League Baseball last week tapped Cohn & Wolfe/Atlanta to promote the John Hancock All-Star FanFest, ...

Foundation ready to make dollars 2m deal

WASHINGTON, DC: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is close to announcing its choice of agency for a dollars 2 million, multi-year campaign promoting the needs of Americans ...

E-Stamp places its PR into review

SAN MATEO, CA: E-Stamp, whose successful national roll-out last summer made the PRWeek Awards shortlist for Hi-Tech Campaign of the Year, has surprisingly put its PR account ...

The Geek Factory snatches dot-com firm from Ogilvy

NEW YORK: Hi-tech boutique The Geek Factory, which until recently was a one-man operation, has pulled off a major coup by snatching business-to-business Web site Mondus.com away ...

Kozmo.com drops RLM for Edelman’s ’reach and scale’

NEW YORK: The names change, but the story remains the same: Dot-com meets hi-tech boutique PR firm. Dot-com gets amazing press. Dot-com abruptly ditches boutique for big-time ...

Web attacks leave users unfazed

NEW YORK: It appears that PR departments handling the recent attacks on sites like Yahoo! and Amazon have managed to keep the corporate reputation of their companies ...

Hyundai opts for network of firms

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, CA: Hyundai is getting serious about its PR, planning to hire a network of regional firms and to spend in the high-six-figures on PR before ...

Imperato to helm C&W’s healthcare

NEW YORK: Cohn & Wolfe has rewarded one of its best-regarded staffers, healthcare ace Donna Imperato, by bumping her up to the newly created post of president ...

Citigate bolsters IR service with CIC

NEW YORK: Buying rather than building itself a larger US presence, Citigate Dewe Rogerson (CDR) has acquired the stockwatch and shareholder intelligence division of Corporate Investor Communications ...

Euro changeover a boon for EU PR

BRUSSELS: The European Union’s moves to sponsor the changeover to a single currency will lead to a windfall for continental PR agencies, sources told PRWeek last week.

Firefly opens new outpost in France

PARIS: Firefly, one of the top UK hi-tech agencies, is expanding its reach with the opening of an office in France.

Austria goes on offensive to counter negative press

VIENNA: Hoping to allay fears of a totalitarian, Hitler-like regime, Austria’s new government has launched an all-out publicity offensive.

Shandwick UK restructures its financial practice, appoints Lankester as new chief executive

LONDON: Shandwick UK has restructured its financial practice, appointing Charles Lankester as chief executive.

NATO recognizes PR weaknesses

LONDON: NATO may have learned the importance of media strategy as a result of the Kosovo conflict, but any change of senior military staff could leave the ...

Ketchum Thomas shuffles top posts

REDWOOD CITY, CA: Ketchum Thomas, the Silicon Valley hi-tech arm of Ketchum, last week bumped former Wilson McHenry EVP Stephen J. Jones up to SVP/office director, a ...

Orbis settles in following year-long executive mess

CHICAGO: Over a year after its acquisition by Healthway Communications, things have finally begun to settle down at the Orbis Broadcast Group.

IDG Books snags Jericho founder to put together ’PR for Dummies’

NEW YORK: IDG Books Worldwide, known for its breezy simplification of topics such as computers and taxes, has selected Jericho Communications co-founding partner and president Eric Yaverbaum ...

Trip to the beach lands NBC affiliate in hot water over junket policy

BOSTON: Yet another controversy surrounding the hot-button issue of press junkets bubbled to the surface last week, as a Boston-based NBC affiliate was accused of violating a ...

US drug policy RFP closer to release

WASHINGTON, DC: The long-stalled multimillion-dollar RFP from the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) seems to be coming closer to release.

IMF to embark on PR push with naming of new head

WASHINGTON, DC: With the departure of International Monetary Fund managing director Michel Camdessus last week, a new era may well be dawning for the institution PR-wise.

MTV Generation looks to parents for political views

CHICAGO: Political spin doctors who think the best way to reach young voters is through MTV appearances and similar Gen X- and Y-minded activities might need to ...

Conference ponders gay and lesbian PR challenges

CHICAGO: Although the gay and lesbian market numbers 16.5 million consumers with an estimated annual buying power of dollars 450 billion, few PR agencies have oriented their ...

McCurry, Blankley help spawn Grassroots.com to involve public

WASHINGTON. DC: Mike McCurry and Tony Blankley, two of Washington’s most prominent voices, have been signed up to advise Grassroots.com, a new Web site that seeks to ...

Mimeo.com attempts to ease document preparation for PR pros

NEW YORK: Busy PR pros who don’t have time to run to the copy center to prepare documents can now produce them from their desktops by using ...

Sony consolidates units for PlayStation 2 launch

FOSTER CITY, CA: Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), the subsidiary unit responsible for Sony’s PlayStation console and software business in North America, announced that it will consolidate ...

Earthlink sets aside dollars 3m for PR and doubles its staff

ATLANTA: ISP giant Earthlink, which recently announced the completion of a dollars 4 billion merger with Mindspring, has doubled its in-house communications department and earmarked approximately dollars 3 ...

Music auction site hires IR specialist

FORT DODGE, IA: Musichotbid.com, a pre-IPO auction Web site hawking musical instruments, equipment, memorabilia and recordings, has tapped Colorado-based IR specialist firm Carl Thompson Associates (CTA) for ...

AAHP steps up campaign for HMO Medicare funding

WASHINGTON, DC: HMOs have traditionally posed near-impossible challenges for healthcare PR pros. If the Association of American Health Plans (AAHP) has its way, however, this will soon ...

EDITORIAL: Ford moves its PR into the fast lane

It took them a while, but it seems that Ford’s top executives have once again decided to get serious about PR.

EDITORIAL: PR onus of integrated marketing

Integrated marketing is old hat. As a concept, it was being practiced and preached by PR pros like Harold Burson and Tom Harris long before the term ...

THE BIG PITCH: Which pro do you think would make the best author of a ’PR for Dummies’ book?

ROB COPELAND, Copeland Communications, New York

ANALYSIS: Crisis PR - Hack attacks test the brave new world of PR The dot-com dream recently turned into a nightmare when hackers launched an assault on some of the nation’s top Web sites. Although the site slowdowns were short-lived, the media fe

The dot-com world is a dangerous place. While most people may be more worried about hackers stealing credit card information than about being temporarily unable to access ...

THINKPIECE: Throwing money off the roof makes for good PR, but you need more than that to stay in business

’I believe hugely in advertising and blowing my own trumpet, beating the gongs, drums, etc., to attract attention, but I never believed that any amount of advertising ...

INSIDE THE BELTWAY: There’s a thin line between political consultant and PR pro. Why aren’t more firms crossing it?

Both President Clinton and Vice President Gore (and their ladies) were in attendance at political consultant Bob Squier’s funeral this month at the National Cathedral. President Clinton ...

ANALYSIS: Client Profile - dollars 100 million brands a new Arthur Andersen

When Matt Gonring pitched his dollars 100 million branding campaign to the partners at Arthur Andersen, he didn’t exactly receive a ringing endorsement.

ANALYSIS: Profile - The man who spurned a dollars 20m PR budget Don Spetner spent over a decade handling automotive PR, but his engine didn’t really begin to hum until he joined retirement savings giant SunAmerica three years ago. Claire Murphy si

Don Spetner has a heart-warming tale for all of you trying to squeeze those extra few dollars from the executive board for your PR budget, from his ...

WEEKLY WEB WATCH: Web attacks disable leading sites, enable others to prosper

Oh, the sweet irony of it. The most likely reason for the widely publicized attacks on several of the biggest sites on the Internet over the past ...

MEDIA: PBS’s ’Nightly Business Report’: the old standby

PBS’s nightly business show isn’t as jazzy as its cable-channel counterparts. But, as Claire Atkinson discovers, its coverage is a little more grown up.

MEDIA WATCH: Hackers attack Web sites, saturate media coverage

The three days of successive hacker attacks on leading Internet firms earlier this month prompted a national debate over the security of the Internet and e-commerce. In ...

THE INTEGRATED MARKETING PUZZLE: Should public relations control the full marketing jigsaw? Claire Murphy talks to PR pros about putting it all together

Step forward the new generation of uber-PR pros. The days of public relations being regarded as the press-release-writing poor relations to the marketing department are long gone.

MARKET FOCUS FOOD & BEVERAGE: Microbrews face down a flat market - The microbrew craze has settled like an old beer. The small suds makers face competition from re-energized mass brewers and from newly hot imports. As John Frank reports, the master

A decade ago, a river of microbrewers flooded the beverage scene, presenting consumers with a bar full of new beer styles and tastes. The trend began in ...