GEORGIA MOUNTS ANTI-HIV PUSH.

Georgia is seeking proposals from PR firms to develop and guide an HIV education and prevention campaign statewide.

Georgia’s Division of Public Health plans to tap a PR or marketing firm with five years’ experience with similar campaigns for healthcare and/or government clients. The work includes a baseline assessment (via focus groups or surveys), development of “culturally appropriate” messaging plans, promotion and development of a statewide hotline, among other tasks. The Division plans an initial six-month contract with four year-long options.

A 2002 report by the state found that Georgia has a relatively large number of reported cases of AIDS, the disease caused by HIV. Although 10th in population size, Georgia had the eighth highest cumulative number of reported AIDS cases, the seventh highest rate of AIDS among all states, and the seventh highest number of persons living with AIDS.

Past state PR campaigns included efforts targeting specific demographics like homosexual African American men (Promoting Awareness of HIV Using Safer Sex Education, or PAUSE), African American women and pregnant women, along with females of childbearing age. Atlanta-based multi-cultural PR/ad firm ImagesUSA led the PAUSE campaign in 2003, beating four firms for that assignment.
Proposals are due April 26. Ann Maize ([email protected]) is contracting officer.

FRONTIER IS LOOKING FOR PR FIRM.

Frontier Airlines has issued a request for bids to find a PR firm to put the carrier on the national radar.

The Denver-based $833M carrier operates routes in 45 US cities and recently added service to Mexico with an eye on other international routes.

Denver firm Schenkein is the airline’s crisis agency and will pursue the national PR contract. The Denver Post reported that Frontier hired a New York ad agency in 2002 and took some heat for that move.
Frontier was formed in 1994 and is the No. 16 carrier by passengers carried in the U.S.

Masterfoods, a unit of Mars Inc., has two internal PR jobs open. One post in Hackettstown, N.J., deals with “business transformation” (60 percent) and the company’s Intranet (40 percent). The other in Vernon, Calif., is to enhance communications with the Pet and Food business units. Rachel Schwartz of RRD Search is handling the search at 203/761-6664.

IPG SAYS WAIT TILL ’08.

Interpublic CEO Michael Roth assured investors today that the battered ad/PR conglom will be in fighting shape in `08 when it expects to achieve “peer-level” growth. He acknowledged that everyone knows that IPG is in a turnaround and its comeback “is not going to happen overnight.”

Roth said cutting the $200M tab for professional fees and severance pay is a top priority.

Steve Gatfield, CEO of IPG’s Lowe Worldwide, told the crowd at New York’s Puck Building that he plans to slash the number of offices to 19 from 37 in a bid to become more nimble. He envisions eight “hubs” of investment to service clients.

WEBER MERRITT GUIDES P&O PORTS.

Weber Merritt, a Washington, D.C.-based public affairs firm, said it was recently retained by P&O Ports North America to manage external communications during the sale to Dubai Ports World.

The firm said P&O has continued to retain its counsel throughout the remainder of the company’s sale of its U.S.-based operations to an undisclosed American entity over the next several months.

The deal sparked national rancor this spring over the security implications of allowing a Dubai-based company to assume some control of U.S. ports.

A variety of firms got involved in the tussle, including APCO Worldwide, Downey McGrath Group, and Clark & Weinstock’s Vin Weber. Bell Pottinger (DWP) and Brunswick Group (P&O) were involved in the original acquisition deal.

WAL-MART EYES TWO PR HIRES.

Wal-Mart is looking to beef up its PR staff with two positions on its media relations team.

The $300 billion retailer has brought in Crowe-Innes & Associates of Tiburon, Calif., to conduct a search for a director of media relations and senior director of campaign management. Both positions are based in Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.

The director post is for a national and local spokesperson for the company with 10 years of experience to “triage” all media inquiries, develop and handle communications for the company, and report to the senior director of media relations. The senior director position calls for similar experience, but also covers internal communications and executive correspondence reporting to the company’s VP of corporate communications.

Word of the job openings was leaked last week to the New York Times and Wal-Mart Watch.

GE IS CHALLENGED ON ‘ECOMAGINATION.’

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt’s high-profile “Ecomagination” plan of developing technologies to deal with global environmental problems, while reducing GE’s own greenhouse gas emissions faces a shareholder challenge at the April 26 annual meeting in Philadelphia.

Noted conservative activist and Fox.com columnist, Steven Milloy, contends that Immelt is currying favor in the environmental community at the expense of his job to create shareholder value.

Milloy, of the Free Enterprise Action Fund, is sponsoring a resolution that declares “company policy should be based on sound scientific and economic analyses and not appeasement of external activist groups.”

Milloy believes the jury is still out on whether human activity is causing the planet to warm. His resolution says that mathematical models that attempt to predict future climate change resulting from manmade greenhouse gas emissions have not been validated against historical climate data.

Milloy wants a report on the specific scientific data and studies relied on to formulate GE’s “climate change policy.” It should discuss the extent to which GE “believes human activity will significantly alter global climate, whether such change is necessarily undesirable and whether a cost-effective strategy for mitigating any undesirable change is practical.”

GE Responds

The company says Ecomagination is part of management’s strategy to respond to the needs of customers for technological solutions to regulatory requirements.

Ecomagination, according to GE, is a response to new regulations instituted worldwide restricting the use of raw materials such as lead, cadmium and mercury, and anticipated regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.

The program will make GE more efficient and its products more appealing, which will ultimately boost shareholder value, according to GE’s response.

EDELMAN THINKS LONDON.

Edelman is handling the opening of Think London’s New York office, which wants to increase U.S. investment in the U.K.’s capital.

The U.S. already accounts for 50 percent of foreign direct investment in London, and 10 percent of its GDP, according to TL’s numbers. More than 6,700 U.S. companies currently operate in the city.

David Riches, TL’s North America director, says opening its first U.S. office in New York was an easy decision since both cities share similar profiles, leading the world in creative industries, finance, media, business services and life sciences.

His operation will provide American companies business advice and market intelligence about setting up shop in London. The office also will pitch the commercial opportunities that the city offers leading up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

TL has helped Hartford Life, Amgen and Delta Airlines either set up or expand in the city during `05. They employ more than 1,000 workers.
Edelman’s Mike Holloway handles the TL account.

BANNERMAN REPS ABBAS.

Bannerman and Associates, which once represented former PLO chief Yasser Arafat, has an oral agreement to rep the Office of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, through the end of the year.

Graeme Bannerman was a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations committee and held a top policy planning post at the State Dept. His firm began working for Abbas this month.

B&A was hired to enhance the relationship between the Palestinian Authority and the U.S. Government by courting Washington officials in the White House and on Capitol Hill.

Abbas remains in office despite the defeat of his Fatah party by the militant Hamas group in January. A Hamas-led government was put into power on March 29.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Abbas on March 30 as somebody who “stands for the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

The U.S. has cut off aid to the Palestinians because of Hamas’ failure to renounce terrorism and accept Israel’s right to exist.

A Hamas spokesperson told the March 30 Guardian that it has the right to “armed resistance” against Jewish settlements on the West Bank, but ruled out suicide attacks in Israel.

FREEMAN JOINS CALVERT.

Bennett Freeman, who headed Burson-Marsteller’s global corporate responsibility group, has joined Calvert as senior VP/social research & policy. Bethesda-based Calvert is a leader in social investing. Its 32 mutual funds have nearly $12 billion in assets under management. Freeman is to manage the social analysis team that was led by Julie Gorte, who was upped to chief social investment strategist. He reports to Barbara Krumsiek, Calvert’s president & CEO.

Prior to B-M, Freeman was principal at Sustainable Development Strategies in D.C. where he co-authored a human rights impact assessment for BP’s multi-billion energy project in Indonesia.

He worked in the State Dept. during the Clinton Administration, serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

TRONE NABS S.C. PR PACT.

Trone PR has edged four competitors for a $250K assignment to implement a marketing communications plan for South Carolina’s technical college system.

North Carolina-based Trone’s contract is with the S.C. State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education, the administrator of 16 technical colleges and the Center for Accelerated Technology Training in the Palmetto State, which funds the program with $129M/year. The system educated 237,093 students last year, 60 percent of which were women.

Laine Communications (Knoxville, Tenn.), Simpson Scarborough (Williamsburgh, Va.), Brains on Fire (Greenville, S.C.), and Wordsmith, Inc. (Myrtle Beach, S.C.) competed for the account.

ROLLING STONE SHUT DOWN IN CHINA.

The Chinese Government has pulled the plug on Rolling Stone after a 125K run of the maiden issue of the magazine.

The mag may have upset Chinese officials with a cover story about Cui Jian, the “father of Chinese rock & roll.” He had played in Tiananmen Square in ’89, and one of his songs became a protest anthem for Chinese dissidents.

WAL-MART STIFFS MARKETING NEWS.

Wal-Mart refused repeated requests for an interview with Marketing News, which ran an April 1 cover story about the “brand we love to hate and the retailer we love to hate.”

Charles Fishman, author of “The Wal-Mart Effect,” said the basic problem “Wally World has is that it doesn’t actually understand how to behave as an enormous company. They still act like a small, regional retailer and they are struggling to adapt.”

MN says Wal-Mart hired Edelman and “dozens of prominent and highly paid political advisers and lobbyists to rally its causes in state and national political circles, to monitor and react to criticism, and to direct positive messages about the retailer.”

MN traces Wal-Mart’s image woes to its push into larger markets with more aggressive media. It may take years for Wal-Mart to change its small town culture, according to MN’s report.

RIDDER ADVISED AGAINST PURCHASE.

Tony Ridder, chairman and CEO of Knight Ridder, began to raise money to buy the San Jose Mercury News and two other papers in Northern California but his lawyers and bankers advised against it, the Mercury News reported. Ridder told the staff of the MN of the aborted attempt in two meetings this week.

The Mercury News, Contra Costa Times and Herald of Monterey County were the three papers he was pursuing. They are among 12 put up for sale by McClatchy, which is buying KR for $4.5B.

The paper also reported that MediaNews has put in a bid for the three papers, along with the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Philadelphia Inquirer and Phila. Daily News. Los Angeles investment company Yucaipa Cos. and the Newspaper Guild have teamed for a bid on all 12 papers up for sale, and a group of local investors have bid for the two Philadelphia titles.

LAW.COM BEEFS UP BLOG ROLL.

ALM, publisher of American Lawyer and Corporate Counsel, has added two new contributors and three weblogs to its Law.com network.

Robert Ambrogi, a Massachusetts lawyer, writer and media consultant who writes the LawSites blog, and Carolyn Elefant, a solo practitioner and author of the My Shingle blog, have signed on the pen Law.com's Legal Blog Watch.

The three sites added are Future Lawyer, a site focused on technology for law offices; Human Law, another tech related law site, and The Professional Marketing Blog, which covers the marketing of law firms.

CELEBS USE ‘GOSSIP’ AS FORM OF PR.

Call it a love-hate relationship, but celebrities thrive on gossip for public visibility, said a March 22 panel of columnists at Dillon’s Lounge in New York.

“A celebrity’s stock is raised or lowered by the news they make," said Jo Piazza, columnist for the Daily News.

Hosted by the Entertainment Publicists Professional Society, the panel discussed PR’s place in celebrity culture, explaining who gets media coverage and why.

Publicists are key to the advancement of celebrities, the group said. A surprising amount of celebrity news is generated by behind-the-scenes agents, and it’s even common for publicists to leak information most would typically view as “scandalous” in order to raise awareness.

“We do get a lot of publicity plants about things – and that’s fine – that’s our dirty little secret,” Piazza said.

David Caplan, deputy NY bureau chief for Star Magazine, said the need for celebrity news works on a hierarchy of popularity. While A-list celebrities needn’t do much to make headlines, B- or C-list stars need to pique interest in the press. Reality TV show appearances or an affiliation with someone higher on the celebrity “food chain” always helps, Caplan said, but scandal is a sure way for a lesser-known to get print.

Michael Musto, columnist for the Village Voice, believes that scandal is the best type of story, and in this vein, said it behooves agents with lower-level celebrity clients to be transparent with the press about any outrageous activity.

“The best copy is gossip – we need someone to go on the record and say something scandalous. It doesn’t have to be mean spirited, but it needs to go outside the box,” Musto said. “And that’s why I love the B-, C- and D-list celebrities. They make great copy. They’ll say and do outrageous things because they want to become more famous.”

Caplan agreed, adding that celebrities aren't always guaranteed print simply because they have A-list status.

“The celebrities that get written about are the ones that behave in a way that’s out of the norm. Look at Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Matt acts more like an ordinary kind of guy, while Ben Affleck dates celebrities and as a result, generally does more to get attention,” Caplan said.

According to New York Magazine’s Jada Yuan, cultural barriers often drive a wedge between celebrity publicists and columnists, resulting in shaky relationships and miscommunication.

Publicists operating in the glamour-centered West Coast Hollywood culture often do not understand the more “power-centered” East Coast columnists who write about them, Yuan said.

However, Yuan insisted that publicists and their famous clients should embrace the press as an outlet for visibility. “Approach us like you would approach a marketing campaign,” she said.

Musto agreed. “How can a publicist create a better relationship with us? Getting to know us always helps. It doesn’t mean that your story will always run, but it does mean that you can pitch us or your client when the time comes,” he said.

(Media news continued on next page)

KARMAZIN: PROFIT NOT IMPORTANT AT SIRIUS.

Net profit is not something that concerns Sirius Satellite Radio CEO Howard Karmazin, who was profiled in the April 2 Wall Street Journal. Sirius posted a $863M net loss on $223M in ’05 revenues.

Karmazin does focus on “free cash flow” because it enables a company to pay down debt, make acquisitions or buy stock.

He expects SSR will be cash flow positive on a $1B revenue base in `07. The No. 2 satellite radio company to XM Radio expects $3B in `10 revenues and $1B in free cash flow.

Karmazin told the WSJ that the signing of Howard Stern was the company’s “crowning moment.” He took $15M “from under his mattress” to buy stock in the company after Stern was hired.

Sirius trades at $5.14. It traded as high as $7.98 and as low as $4.36 during the past year.

Placement tip _______________

Debbi Karpowicz Kickham, former editor of Robb Report and Bridal Guide magazine, has been named editor-in-chief of Mirror, the year-old beauty magazine covering the Boston area. The quarterly publication targets women 18-54 in eastern Massachusetts with an eye on also luring men ages 18 to 39. Copies are mailed free to "upscale towns" throughout the state.

Kickham said she's looking for info on spas, beauty products, trends, skincare, cosmeceuticals, dermatologists, plastic surgeons, cosmetic dentists, and other related topics with a connection to the Bay State.

Kickham also writes the "Beauty in Brief" column for the magazine.

Contact: [email protected]; 781/407-9305; mirrorboston.net.

People ___________________

Ben Smith is leaving the New York Observer for a blogging spot at the New York Daily News. He will write about politics, and do a weekly column for the paper.

Cosmo Macero is out of the Boston Herald after a nine-year run. The assistant managing editor for business joins O’Neill and Assocs. as VP in its communications group.

Brigid Hughes, former executive editor of The Paris Review, has launched a quarterly magazine on literature and culture called A Public Space.

The new publication is based in Brooklyn and includes fiction, poetry, opinion pieces and journalism. Topics in the inaugural issue include the James Frey publishing scandal, a report from Rwanda, a feature on Japanese writers.

Contributors include Paris Review editor-at-large Elizabeth Gaffney and novelist Richard Powers.

Hughes, 33, took the reins of TPR after George Plimpton’s death in 2003 and left in April 2005.
Contact: [email protected]; 718/858-8067.

Jamie Young, who joined Back Stage as an editorial assistant in 1995, has been named national editor-in-chief after serving in that title since November. She is based in Los Angeles for the VNU title, which covers the firm, theatre and TV industries and caters to actors.

VNU’s Training magazine, which covers employee training, management and HR issues, has named Jackie Augustine publisher of the magazine and VNU Business Media’s Performance Group. That group includes Presentations, Incentive and Sales & Marketing Management.

Glenn Coleman, assistant managing editor for Money, has been named deputy editor of Popular Science.

Arthur Harper, former president/CEO of General Electrics equipment services division, has been named to the board of directors of Gannett Co., owner of USA Today and 17 other papers, among other media properties.

Steve Friedman is now VP-morning broadcasts at CBS News, replacing Marcy McGinnis. He is charge of “The Early Show,” “The Saturday Early Show,” “CBS Morning News,” and “Up to the Minute.”

Friedman is a veteran of Public Broadcasting Service’s “Flashpoints USA.”

Betsy Frank has been named chief research and insights officer at Time Inc. She had been consulting at Viacom, where she formerly had the executive VP and planning post. Frank also held that title at Viacom’s MTV Networks unit.

Briefs _______________________

In Style magazine has set its “Inside In Style” fashion and beauty event for May 6-7 at the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach. The second annual event is open to the public and includes fashion shows, makeovers, spa treatments, food tastings, shopping and other events.

The magazine has tapped Miami-based Tara, Ink. to handle PR and special events counsel.

The Hispanic Communications Network, an Hispanic-focused media company, has partnered with the Self Reliance Foundation, a non-profit, to produce a social marketing campaign to educate Hispanic youths and their parents on gangs and youth violence.

The U.S. Dept. of Justice, which estimates 46 percent of gang members are Hispanic, is providing a grant for the effort.

HCN has 200 radio affiliates in the U.S. and its newspaper columns are syndicated in 97 Spanish-language papers.

The American Family Association, a conservative group that has drawn media attention for its criticism of Ford Motor Co. advertising in gay publications, has filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against FOX Network. AFA says FOX broadcast NASCAR driver Martin Truex Jr. using the “s” word in a post-race interview. AFA says FOX could’ve bleeped the remark and that “millions of viewers, including children, were offended by the crude profanity.”

Rapping with PR professors recently, we found many of them to be discouraged, even hopeless.

They say their students can’t even string a few words together in a meaningful way.

One arranged for 30 copies of the New York Times to be delivered to his class for a semester. Only two or three students would bother to take them.

“They don’t read newspapers,” was a common complaint of the profs who said, “If you don’t read, you can’t write.”

We have offered many PR professors free access to the O’Dwyer website for their students but it’s almost always turned down. “They don’t read what I assign them now,” say the profs.

The teachers are also discouraged by the scarcity of male students and see no change coming. Classes of 20-30 PR majors typically have two or three males.

“PR jobs, especially in New York, are mostly being handled by young women from wealthy families who have apartments,” said one prof. “They don’t need the money and can afford to work for low pay.”

Pay is so low that only women are interested in PR, the profs said. More grads now go into journalism where the Guild scale in New York is in the $60,000 range after several years of experience.

What touched this off is the lack of research on PR coming from the academic community.

Topics are begging to be explored by undergrads or Ph.D. candidates such as the near disappearance of the term “PR” from corporations; the takeover of hundreds of PR firms by ad conglomerates; the effect of high medical insurance on the PR job market, and how Johnson & Johnson handled the Tylenol crisis (Tylenol capsules were not removed “instantly” as claimed in “The Insider” movie in 2002 but seven days after the murders).

Many PR profs are doing PR “on the side” and many other PR “teachers” are actually working PR pros who are picking up some extra cash.

Our PR professor friends say PR depts. are headed by “double-dome Ph.D.’s” with almost no practical experience in PR and who are “completely separated from the realities of the PR world.” There is no “PR academic community,” our PR prof friends say.

We recently advertised two junior jobs at the O’Dwyer Co. and got more than 100 resumes. None of the candidates, many of them majors in PR and communications, had ever heard of us, PR Week or PR News.

The PR trade press is not taught in colleges, possibly on the fear that PR reality would intrude on what is being taught. PRSA controls the website of PR Student Society of America and won’t allow any advertisers unless they first pay a $25,000 “sponsorship fee.”

This helps to block students from knowing about the PR trade press.

African-American leaders such as Bill Cosby are opposed to the profanity-laden African-American comedy shows (such as are regularly featured on Time Warner’s HBO), saying they are damaging to the black community. Cosby has blasted the high rates of black juvenile delinquency and out-of-wedlock births and the use of coarse language.

“We’ve got to take the neighborhood back from those who are standing on the corner and can’t speak English,” said Cosby. He sets up inner city meetings with police chiefs, parents and teachers in a move to counteract what he calls “these knuckleheads ... the lower economic people who are not holding up their end in this deal” (Brown v. Board of Education that ended segregation).

Other black leaders who denounce the language and values in “gangsta/porno rap” are former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume and columnists Clarence Page and Leonard Pitts. The most active of the black critics was the late DeLores Tucker, former secretary state of Pennsylvania, who picketed stores.

The profanity-laden and graphic sexual shows presented on HBO create a conflict for PRSA president Cheryl Procter-Rogers, an employee of HBO who has talked about its “ethics” while also saying ethics are the chief concern of PR pros.

HBO says it has many award-winning shows besides those that are sexually explicit and notes that people don’t have to look at shows that offend them.

We say that HBO doesn’t have to produce them, either.

We would like to see more HBO content on sexual diseases. Because of ignorance of how easily genital warts and the human papilloma virus (HPV) are transmitted (mere touching), health experts say HPV infection has reached “epidemic proportions in college females due in large part to high risk sexual activity.” One study found 60% of college women to have one of these diseases (which can lead to cancer of the cervix) at some point in their college careers.

Once contracted, the virus never leaves the body. Even condoms don’t prevent its spread because the “entire area” is not covered, says a report. What makes HPV so dangerous is that people can have it without knowing it, thus unwittingly spreading it. Googling “HPV” brings extensive materials on it.

Comedian Ray Romano, noted New York Post columnist Cindy Adams March 30, is touring with a comedy show that has no four-letter words. “You can work squeaky clean,” Romano told Adams... columnist John Leo on March 6 said the Oscar given to a “pimp song” was a “new low for Hollywood.” Wrote Leo: “Even more amazing: almost all the blacks in the audience ... seemed to be delirious with joy at the honor paid to the gutter version of American black culture. Will journalists poke into this phenomenon, maybe telling us what combination of guilt and stupidity allowed the Academy to go slumming like this?”

--Jack O'Dwyer