By Kevin McCauley
Ketchum has been working with the Saudi Arabia General Investment Authority to create a media buzz for the Global Competitiveness Forum that ran in Riyadh from Jan. 22 to 25.
Beginning in October, the Omnicom unit contacted reporters including Sewell Chan and Motoko Rich (New York Times), Jeannine Aversa (Associated Press), Lesley Wroughton (Reuters) Francis Romero (Time), David Jolly (International Herald Tribune) and Bob Davis (Wall Street Journal).
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Saudi energy minister Ali Bin Ibrahim Al Naimi ranked among headliners at the Forum.
Ketchum has neither a formal contract nor written agreement with the Saudis. It has received nearly $60K from the Kingdom so far.
Qorvis Communications is Saudi Arabia's No. 1 PR firm, receiving $925K for the six-month period ended Sept. 30.
Russia and its energy giant Gazprom are Ketchum's other foreign clients. They kicked in $3.4M during the past year for services such as announcing the Twitter feed of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and arranging a Larry King interview for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
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