CALIF. REVIEWS $5M RECYCLING PACT.

California is reviewing its $5M recycling communications account currently with Riester-Robb.

The account covers PR, social marketing, advertising and business outreach for the Golden State’s Dept. of Conservation. Budget is capped at $5M a year.

R-R has handled the account since 2000, when the state passed its “bottle bill” to increase the number of containers from which Californians can receive a rebate for recycling.

The firm helped develop a state-wide campaign and website, www.bottlesandcans.com, and later shifted the drive’s focus from urging Californians to recycle to demonstrating how to do it. But recycling rates have not kept pace with increases in sales of recyclable container beverages, the state notes in its new RFP.

The overall goal of the campaign is to raise beverage container recycling rates and boost the number of public and private venues with recycling programs.

Mark Oldfield ([email protected]) of the DoC’s public affairs office is taking questions.

GOWERS, OF FT FAME, TO LEHMAN BROS.

Andrew Gowers, the former editor of the Financial Times, has joined Lehman Brothers as chief of corporate communications, advertising, brand and marketing strategy for Europe.

He reports to John Phizackerley, a member of Lehman’s European Executive Committee in London, and Scott Friedheim, global head of strategy and CCAB&MS in New York.

Christine Chinnery, head of corporate communications in Europe, reports to Gowers, who began his journalism career at Reuters in ’80.

He joined the FT in ’83, and left in November.

RF BINDER SHOPS AT STAPLES.

RF Binder Partners has picked up Staples in a shoot-out with Tilson Communications and Alan Taylor Communications, Carolyn Kravetz, director of communications at the world’s largest office supply chain, told O’Dwyer’s.

She said Staples will add at least 70 stores in ‘06, its 20th anniversary year. RFB has market expansion program experience as evidenced by its work with Dunkin’ Donuts and ZipCar. Nancy Moss, who heads RFB’s Boston office, is responsible for the Framingham, Mass., chain. Kravetz said Staples uses a number of PR firms including ATC. Staples chalked up $16B in fiscal `05 revenues and projects earnings to increase from 15 to 20 percent in `06.

H&K HANDLES DUBAI ACQUISITION BID.

Hill & Knowlton is guiding Dubai International Capital as the United Arab Emirates-owned entity seeks to win the blessing of the Treasury Dept.’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. for its $1.2 billion acquisition of Doncasters Group Ltd., Kelli Parsons, general manager at H&K/D.C., told O’Dwyer’s.

The U.K.-based Doncasters runs nine aerospace plants in the U.S., supplying components to General Electric, Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, Hamilton Sunstrand and Honeywell. DIC announced the deal in December, but the potential acquisition moved into the spotlight following the political uproar connected with Dubai Ports World’s bid to run six major U.S. seaports.

Parsons says she is handling the account at H&K with Don Meyer, the former special assistant for communications strategy at the Defense Dept.

H&K is getting input from WPP Group’s public policy shop Wexler & Walker. That firm’s president Jack Howard and managing director John Duncan work on the DIC business. Howard was deputy director of the Bush II White House’s office of legislative affairs. Duncan joined W&W in `05 from the Treasury Dept.’s legislative unit.

B-M DEALS WITH HEINZ’S BABY FOOD CRISIS.

Burson-Marsteller denies a Greenpeace charge that a batch of H.J. Heinz baby cereal sold in China contained genetically-modified rice.

Greenpeace says it commissioned a German laboratory to test about 20 baby food and snack products sold in Beijing. The environmental group claims that testing found GM ingredients that carry a protein that is fatal to insects.

Heinz says its own independent testing did not find any traces of GM, and those test results have been submitted to China’s Dept. of Agriculture. Greenpeace wants Heinz to make public the results of its test.

The Chinese Government is conducting its own investigation of the Heinz products. China has not approved the sales of any type of GM rice.

GH PICKS UP DOW CHEMICAL.

GolinHarris spearheads an Interpublic team that has picked up the marketing communications account of Dow Chemical. It edged a WPP Group collection of shops that included Burson-Marsteller.

Dow selected the IPG group to “help accelerate its integrated, corporate reputation strategy on a global basis,” Dow media relations staffer Terri McNeill told O’Dwyer’s via an e-mail. 

YOUNG TAKES HEAT FOR WAL-MART TIE.

Andrew Young, former United Nations Ambassador, three-time Congressman and Atlanta Mayor, is serving as pitchman for Wal-Mart because the world’s largest retailer is “making middle-class lifestyles available to poor people.”

That representation has sparked controversy, according to Gannett’s USA Today. Young has taken some strange turns in his old age, Joseph Lowrey, former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, told the paper.

Young’s GoodWorks International, which promotes economic development in Africa and the Caribbean, is paid by Working Families for Wal-Mart, an entity headed by Pat Boone that receives funding from the Bentonville, Ark.-based chain.

Young, 74, said Wal-Mart’s critics don’t understand that “ending poverty means generating wealth and not just fighting to redistribute the existing wealth.” He believes Wal-Mart’s foes are anti-globalization, and are on the losing side of history.

Wal-Mart’s foes also fail to recognize the amount of poverty in the U.S. Young told the paper that the biggest underserved market in the world is neither China nor India, but the American rural poor and inner cities. “That’s approximately a $2 trillion market that nobody pays attention to,” he said.

Young will give interviews, speeches and write editorials praising the accomplishments of Wal-Mart. The former Martin Luther King aide has taken heat in the past for his corporate work. In ’97, he defended Nike’s labor practices overseas.

Young did rap Wal-Mart a bit, saying the chain needs more diversity among suppliers and should be more sensitive to community needs. He also feels Wal-Mart should put security cameras in some parking lots.

ALASKA LOOKS FOR PR HELP.

Alaska has issued its much anticipated RFP for a PR campaign to improve the state’s image in the “Lower 48.”

Gov. Frank Murkowski will pay a PR firm up to $150K for a two-month campaign to begin April 27.
The RFP says the “nation’s view of Alaska is sorely distorted.”

The state has been battered in the media over opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for energy development, and held up to “public ridicule in recent months by the ‘bridges to nowhere’ campaign.”

Those “national misperceptions and misinformation regarding Alaska impact other controversial issues with our federal government—disputes over selected land along the pipeline corridor, timber harvest in the Tongass National Forest, Glacier Bay access, predator control and wetland designation.”

The Frontier State trusts that hiring a PR firm will help establish a “factual basis concerning Americans’ current attitudes and perceptions about Alaska.”

R. Shawn Henderson (907-465-3899) has details about the RFP. Proposals are due March 30. The state will announce the contract winner on April 17.

RF ORGANIZES HINDUS.

Ruder Finn is setting up a panel of Hindu scholars in the bid to forge a better understanding of the religion in the U.S., Dena Merriam, RF’s vice chairman, told O’Dwyer’s.

Hinduism is the world’s No. 3 religion. It has 850 million followers, with more than 700 million of them in India, which is taking its place on the world’s stage.

RF’s effort is an outgrowth of the firm’s representation of Austin, Tx-based Vedic Foundation, which fought a battle this month with California’s Board of Education over the depiction of India in elementary and middle school textbooks.

Merriam said California did approve some changes in the textbooks. For instance, a “Where’s the beef?” title for a section on India was removed.

The Foundation, however, believes the approved textbooks are an insult to Hinduism. The organization, which some criticize as a right-wing nationalist group, advocates on behalf of “authentic Hinduism.” It believes the “age of materialism,” British colonial rule and anti-God elements have distorted the meaning of the religion.

Merriam, who studied Hinduism while earning a masters’ degree at Columbia University, denied that VE is a fringe group.

Misperceptions about Hindus and Indian-Americans abound in the U.S., according to Merriam. She said that was clearly evident in the aftermath of 9/11 when people branded Indian-Americans as terrorists.

Merriam, who has handled a number of interfaith events at the United Nations, recommends that Hindu organizations take a page from Jewish and Muslim groups, and get better organized in the U.S.

She said RF’s work to promote greater awareness and understanding of Hinduism is an independent effort.

PHOENIX RETHINKS DROUGHT PR.

The City of Phoenix, not satisfied with a five-year ongoing regional water conservation effort, has put out a request for qualifications for a firm to develop its own campaign to increase conservation in the desert city.

Arizona made national headlines this month after a record 143-day drought ended with a winter storm. That record eclipsed the 103-day mark set only six years ago. Ongoing drought conditions are part of a decade-long pattern of below normal precipitation both locally and in the watersheds serving Phoenix, according to city data. Recent planning investigations indicate that pattern could extend for another 10 or more years.

Phoenix has been part of a regional push, “Water: Use it Wisely,” but says recent drought years have led it to re-evaluate its role in that joint public information campaign. The city foresees its own marketing and public information effort to gauge public perception of water sources and drought conditions, to analyze segments reached with drought preparedness messages, and communicate conservation messages to different segments of the public.

Proposals are due April 7 to Shannon Autwell of the city’s Water Resources and Development Planning Section.

MCCLATCHY TO UNLOAD DOZEN KR PAPERS.

McClatchy Co. CEO Greg Pruit said that he will sell a dozen of Knight Ridder newspapers following the completion of the $4.5B takeover deal that creates the No. 2 publisher after Gannett.

The targeted papers include the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, San Jose Mercury News, Akron Beacon Journal (OH), Wilkes Barre Times Leader (PA), Aberdeen American News (SD), Grand Forks Herald (ND), Fort Wayne News-Sentinel (IN), Contra Costa Times (CA), Monterey Herald (CA), Duluth News Tribune (MN) and St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN).

Pruitt described those newspapers as “terrific publications, but they do not fit our long-standing acquisition and operating strategies.”

Price tag called ‘bargain’

All the talk about the “death” of the newspaper industry allowed McClatchy Co. to acquire Knight Ridder for a “price that would have seemed an unimaginable bargain only a few years ago,” wrote Pruitt in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece. He argued that “newspapers are still among the best media businesses-and the most important.”

Pruitt noted that 91 million people watched Super Bowl XL last month, while nearly 125 million people read Sunday newspapers.

Adding newspaper web sites to paper readership shows that “far from shrinking our audiences are growing steadily,” wrote Pruitt, whose firm is paying $4.5B for the No. 2 newspaper chain.

In an editorial, the Christian Science-Monitor cheered Pruitt’s view, noting the CEO’s view of the newspaper business as a combination print-online enterprise. “When looked at that way, McClatchy’s total audience is growing, and so is the potential reach of newspapers – though it's taken a while for the industry to fully embrace this view.”

Hilary Black, founding editor and entertainment director of Meridth Corp.’s More magazine, has been named editor-in-chief of Tango. EIC Elise O'Shaughnessy has left the “love and relationships” magazine “to pursue other commitments,” according to founder/president Andrea Miller.

Black, a former Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster book editor, had a key role in More's rate base rise from 300K to 1.3M.

FAST CO. IDs ENDANGERED CAREERS.

Fast Company identified six careers it said won't exist in 2016, including gatekeepers, bloggers and Indian customer service representatives.

The magazine said gatekeepers like TV schedulers and Wall Street researchers are endangered, as well as bloggers ("Pay someone to write snarky comments?”), advertising creatives ("Talented amateurs making ads for fun and posting them online seem to better at your job than you are."), and Indian call-center operators ("American customer service is rescued from oxymoron status as companies realize that being nice to the people with the money is the only way to win.")

HEARST ACQUIRES FITCH STAKE.

Hearst Corp. is making a push into the credit ratings business via acquisition of a 20 percent in Fitch Ratings.

The New York-based publisher paid $592M to France's Fimalac SA for the investment. It was attracted to Fitch because of its strong profit performance and growth prospects.

Fitch competes with McGraw-Hill’s Standard & Poor’s Rating Services and Moody’s Investors Services.

BUSH, L.A. TIMES TRADE WORDS.

President Bush and the Los Angeles Times traded words last week after the Times ran an article referencing devices designed to thwart improvised explosive devices in Iraq, a story which the president said aided "the enemy."

Bush criticized the paper in a March 13 speech saying insurgents had posted instructions on the Internet for defeating new technology aimed to thwart IEDs within five days of its publication.

The Times said the article was about an internal Pentagon debate on the anti-IED technology and did not provide specific information about the actual “Joint IED Neutralizer.” The paper said it deliberately withheld some details about such netutralizers from its report. The Times also said it spoke to several Defense Department officials before the article appeared and that none expressed concern that its publication could endanger U.S. troops. It also noted that “no one in the U.S. government came to us after the story was published to complain about it.”

Bush did not name the paper specifically, but White House officials later said it was the Times story that the president was referring to.

ATLANTIC VETS HEAD TO VANITY FAIR.

Cullen Murphy, former managing editor for The Atlantic Monthly, and national writer William Langewiesche have joined Vanity Fair as a part-time editor and correspondent, respectively.

Murphy, ME for 20 years, effectively stepped down from that post at The Atlantic after the magazine moved to Washington, D.C., late last year. Langewiesche has written for the magazine for 15 years.

The New York Times’ media writer David Carr jibed: “That is an awful lot of editorial firepower to put under a cover that is typically anchored by someone like Paris Hilton tugging at her clothes.” But he noted VF, under Graydon Carter, “has invested in new editorial resources at a time when other news organizations are madly cutting anything that is not nailed down.”

In addition to Mr. Murphy and Mr. Langewiesche, Carter has recently hired Todd Purdum, a former reporter in the Washington bureau of the Times, and Douglas Brinkley, the presidential historian.

The Newspaper Assn. of America has kicked off a $50M ad campaign via The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va., to be carried by 700 newspapers highlighting “how engaged consumers are with newspaper advertising.” Info: www.naa.org/advertiser.

(Media news continued on next page)

Briefs ___________________

The New York Times will drop its daily stock table listings on April 4, promising expanded market information on its website. The move saves the paper newsprint costs.

The Times will replace the tables with two-pages of market and economic information. Complete stock tables will be published on Sunday.

The paper has also launched a blog by wine critic Eric Asimov (thepour.blogs.nytimes.com).

Crain’s New York Business featured former PR exec Mallory Factor in its “gotham gigs” department.

Factor’s Free Enterprise Fund sued last month to overturn the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Fund has hired Kenneth Starr to pursue the case.

Factor contends that SOX burdens Corporate America with unnecessary costs.

Meredith Corp., the media company which publishes 24 magazines like Better Homes and Gardens and Fitness, has established Meredith Video Solutions to distribute past and current content.

Paul Karpowicz, president of Meredith Broadcast Group is in charge.

Comcast Corp. is negotiating to buy E! Entertainment Television from 40 percent-investment partner Walt Disney Co., according to a report in Broadcasting & Cable. EET is composed of the Style Network, which provides fashion news to about 40 million homes, and E!, which reaches more than 85 million homes with celebrity news.

The people briefed on the negotiations would not disclose a price, but analysts put the value of E! Entertainment at more than $2.5 billion.

Court TV has hired Morris + King Co. to promote its public affairs programs. The PR firm will “shine a klieg light” on offerings such as CTV’s “In Pursuit of Justice,” “Choices” and “Careers in Justice,” said Judith King, partner at M+KC.

Time Warner and Liberty Media are 50-50 joint owners of CTV.

CMP Media has revamped Dr. Dobb’s Journal, a print magazine for professional software developers and managers, by merging it with Software Development magazine. CMP says expanded editorial coverage and contributions from the industry, as well as integration with DDJ.com and SD Events are all a part of the overhaul. The new incarnation of the 30-year-old Journal will be unveiled with its June 2006 issue.

Billboard has launched JadedInsider.com, a weblog that aims to connect the music magazine's editorial staff with fans. Initial coverage focuses on the South by Southwest Music & Media Conference and Festival.

The magazine says the new blog is the first forum for readers to give opinions and comments in real time.

BabyUniverse, a Fort Lauderdale-based retailer, has produced an e-zine and website, PoshCravings, which the company says is its initial foray into the content arena. The move follows BU's acquisition of PoshTots and includes news on topics like baby clothing fashion designers, parenting advice and family travel.

AARP Publications has set up a proprietary research service for advertisers to cover the 50+ market. Industry trends, market projections, ad effectiveness and brand awareness studies, and direct marketing services are all included in the AARP Publications Market Intelligence package.

People ___________________

Steve Butler is leaving Knight Ridder’s Washington bureau to become executive director of the Institute of Current World Affairs. He was foreign editor.

John Battelle, founder of the Industry Standard, has launched Federated Media Publishing to link advertisers with bloggers.

Douglas Trueblood, who managed the marketing and custom publishing division at The Desert Sun, a Gannet unit, has joined Billboard as executive director of marketing and brand development.

Trueblood oversees marketing, PR and promotional efforts for Billboard Information Group’s products, including the magazine, directories, books, web properties and other entities.

Earlier in his career, he was director of marketing and promotions for The Hollywood Reporter, a sister publication under Billboard’s parent, VNU.

He was formerly VP of entertainment marketing for Buy.com and director of marketing for Universal Studios in Florida and Japan.

Sheila Mahony, former marketing director for Time Inc.'s Women’s Group, has been named director of brand strategy for Time Inc.’s Cottage Living.
The two-year-old title recently boosted its rate base to 900K.

Mahony was formerly group sales development director for corporate sales and marketing for Time Inc. and sales development director for Real Simple.

Mike Wallace, 87, has become “correspondent emeritus” on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” He has been with the show since its debut in ’68.

Wallace who once remarked that he would only retire when his toes turn up, said they are “beginning to curl a little.” He will keep an office at CBS headquarters and finish out the current season.

Joan Boykin, former director of marketing, new products, PR and retail for natural snack food company The Hain Celestial Group, has joined InnoVision Health Media as its new president. InnoVision publishes Alternative Medicine magazine, as well as the peer-reviewed journals Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine and Integrative Medicine.

Former president Karolyn Gazella has been named VP of the company’s book division, which is slated to publish The Definitive Guide to Cancer in early 2007.

Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld’s speech on the role of media to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York Feb. 17 is being seen as a landmark statement on U.S. PR policy.

Media don’t like his view that communications rather than U.S. policy itself is the culprit. “The Administration still doesn’t get it,” headlined The Economist Feb. 25. Locking up prisoners for years without trial in Guantanamo Bay is against U.S. principles and “no amount of spin” will erase this, said the magazine. Bush Administration attempts to “reserve the right to torture people” cannot be spun away, it adds.

Rumsfeld’s theme was that foreign media are full of anti-U.S. propaganda while U.S. media are critical of our government’s media forays, such as the Pentagon’s paying for positive stories in Iraqi media.

U.S. media jump on any flaw in U.S. PR moves while not complaining about the anti-U.S. foreign press, said Rumsfeld. Media do not “apply the same standard to the enemy or even sometimes to themselves,” he said.

An example given by Rumsfeld was the anti-U.S. propaganda that swept the world after (false) charges were made that a Koran had been flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo. People were killed in the ensuing riots. Rumsfeld says it took the U.S. too long to rebut the charges. This recalls Mark Twain’s observation that a lie will be “half way ’round the world before truth gets its boots on.”

Here is the good part of the Rumsfeld speech that could be applied throughout PR. He wants a speedier government response system that can “anticipate and act within the same news cycle ... instituting 24-hour press centers and raising internet operations and other communications channels to the same status as traditional press relations...with less reliance on the print press.”

The message for the PR world is that both companies and PR firms should have this quick-response capability, with PR pros being on call 24/7. The first impression made is often the lasting one. How many company or agency websites have 24/7 phone and/or e-mail contacts? Too many PR units shut down on the weekends when the newsweeklies, newspapers and broadcast media are going full blast.

Much of PR today is integrated with other functions. Relying on committees to make decisions spreads responsibility but it’s often hard to get the committee together or agree on anything. One or two people with good judgment is what’s needed.

A problem for video news release producers is inflated claims of usage, which leads to lack of credibility for the entire industry. Hundreds of millions of “impressions,” sometimes representing double and triple the entire U.S. population, are claimed, notes Doug Simon of DS Simon Productions, who is campaigning for accurate reports. Actual viewers may be a fraction of the total claimed, he says. The real figures are still good when compared to the cost of a commercial, he points out. Nielsen remains the best source for audience measurement although it does not cover all the local cable channels ... the Canadian version of Sarbanes-Oxley is Bill 198, passed shortly after SOX in 2002. Bill 198, if anything, is stricter than SOX in demanding accurate financials and providing penalties. Yet PainePR, Irvine, Calif., was able to obtain from its publicly-held Canadian ad parent, Cossette Communication Group, a W-3 showing total payroll and was able to report its net fees of $11.4 million. Cossette is Canada’s biggest ad agency. But ad conglomerates WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic, Publicis and Havas continue to claim that SOX makes it too dangerous for them to release statistics on any of their hundreds of PR and ad agencies ... the U.S. trade gap of $725 billion in 2005 is not to be sniffed at, says an e-mail from Kenneth Russell of Huntsville, Texas. Says Russell: “We traded the cotton farm instead of the cotton. The garment factory instead of the garments. The cow instead of the milk and cheese. We traded the things that make products instead of the products.” He feels the U.S. should not be trading its basic wealth to China and other nations especially for items we can produce at home. There is no “trade gap,” he says. “What we traded are our factories, farms and businesses.” This was good writing – dramatic and fact-based – the kind of writing that’s needed in PR ... we noted here March 8 that debt of the five ad conglomerates was about $12 billion but we had not yet checked out the debt of Huntsworth, which sold back Citigate Sard Verbinnen to George Sard and Paul Verbinnen. As of June 30, 2005, the latest report available, Huntsworth had “net bank debt” of 71.5 million pounds (about $125 million at the current exchange rate of $1.75). Non-current liabilities totaled 118M pounds. Operating income for the first half was 54M pounds.

Non-current assets of 284M pounds included 270M in intangibles. Current assets of 90M included 73M in receivables. The firm has 45 offices in 22 countries.

The PRSA COO search committee sent a poll to leaders saying its job is to “attract the Society’s next leader.” Respondents are asked to pick among characteristics such as “visionary,” “charismatic leader,” and “accomplished speaker.” Obviously the committee feels neither president-elect Rhoda Weiss nor treasurer Jeff Julin have these qualities. How could they be “charismatic leaders” when they have been almost totally silent in seeking high PRSA office? The specs show the dominance of the staff in PRSA affairs. The new “leader” of PRSA is to be a staff person, not an elected member. Symptomatically, a list of 11 desirable skills has “association leadership” at the top and “media relations” at the bottom. Almost wherever one looks at PRSA, media get short shrift. Candidates must be aware of the undemocratic, anti-communications and anti-New York attitudes of both PRSA leaders and staff as well as the current dominance by the educators and past presidents. They should track down Rob Levy, former No. 2 staffer, and find out why he suddenly left in 2004.

--Jack O'Dwyer