IKEA SHOPS FOR PR FIRM.

Ikea has launched a search to handle its U.S. commercial PR account, according to an e-mail sent by Diane Kokoska, a staffer at the Swedish furniture retailer.

She is asking targeted PR firms to submit their credentials. Jericho Communications had the Ikea business. That firm was merged into Lime PR, and spokesperson Jennifer Landis confirmed that Ikea remains a client. Lime understands the need for a review, according to Landis, because Jericho has had the account for a decade. She said Lime is excited about defending the Ikea business.

Ikea says it markets “affordable solutions for better living.” The chain has 27 units in the U.S., and plans to open its first New York City outlet in Brooklyn’s Red Hook section.

BRUNSWICK HANDLES BIG RUSSIAN OIL IPO.

Brunswick Group’s New York and Washington offices are handling U.S. investor relations for the initial public offering of Rosneft, Russia’s No. 3 oil company.

The IPO is expected to raise more than $10B when shares are offered next month on the London Stock Exchange. Credit Suisse says Rosneft will be the world’s ninth largest energy company in terms of stock market value.

Reuters reports the IPO is a major priority for Russian President Vladimir Putin. He wants to take the state-owned company public prior to hosting the St. Petersburg summit of G-8 countries that is set for July 17-July 18.

Brunswick receives a $40K a-month fee under its contract that runs through next February. It is to develop U.S. messaging, arrange for executive visits, court potential investors and brief U.S. policymakers and other influentials about Rosneft’s prospects.

Richard Mintz and Carmen McDougall handle the Rosneft account.

Durazo Communications has shut down following CEO Dan Durazo’s agreement to settle a lawsuit filed against the Hispanic-oriented PR firm by Fleishman-Hillard’s GMMB Inc. ad unit concerning payments due media for ads purchased on behalf of First 5 California/California Children and Families Commission.

Zeno Group’s Steve Singerman is joining Weber Shandwick’s Chicago office next month as executive VP in charge of its consumer accounts (Milk Mustache campaign, Harley-Davidson, Ace Hardware and Staples). He spent seven years at Edelman, ten at Ketchum and two at Hill & Knowlton before joining Zeno.

B-M RECRUITS TAPPAN.

Burson-Marsteller has hired Rob Tappan, the State Dept.’s principal deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, as head of its Washington, D.C., region. He joins the firm in July. His State duties include responsibility for 12 offices and 200-plus PA people.

Tappan also served as director of strategic communications for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. He was in charge of a staff of more than 100 military and civilian workers.

At B-M, Tappan will report to Patrick Ford, U.S. CEO. He also will oversee B-M’s Direct Impact operation, the grassroots unit in Alexandria, Va.
Tappan succeeds Ken Rietz, who stepped down in March. Rietz is chairman of National Media Group.

MONTANA SEEKS STAR BILLING.

Montana wants a PR firm to attract film and TV production activity to the state. Its RFP says Montana was a popular film setting during the `70s, `80s and `90s, but has since lost ground to Canada and other countries.

To remedy that situation, Montana passed the “Big Sky on the Screen Act” in ’05. The Act offers a 12 percent rebate on wages up to $50K for people involved in video production. It allows an eight percent rebate on food/lodging and equipment rental.

The RFP calls for the PR firm to meet with “filmmakers, TV/commercial producers, advertising agencies, still photographers and all other communications and executives that may potentially work with Montana as a project location.”

Gretchen Bingman (406-444-2575) is procurement officer. RFPs are due June 21. Oral presentations are set for July 17. The award date is July 31.

PRSA BOARD CHALLENGED; OWENS QUITS.

A proposal to disempower the board of PRSA and place it under the control of the Assembly has been made by the Central Michigan chapter.

In another major development, director Ron Owens quit the board after only five months of service on a three-year term. He is the second director to quit this year. Gary McCormick quit in February.

Central Michigan wants the Assembly to be the “ultimate policy-making body” of PRSA, able to make bylaw changes during an Assembly with no prior notification and able to block any board action until the Assembly approves it.

Both Owens and McCormick cited job pressures

(continued on page 7)

APPLE BLASTED FOR ‘SWEATSHOP.’

Apple Computer’s in-house PR staff is dealing with fall-out from a report in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper describing brutal working conditions in a Chinese plant that manufactures the iconic iPod music player, according to an e-mail from Apple’s VP-worldwide communications Katie Cotton. “We do all our PR in-house,” she wrote.

The “iPod City” report tells of 15-hour workdays and exhausted employees who complain that working at Apple’s Foxconn subcontractor is like “being in the Army.”

Steve Dowling, senior manager in Apple’s corporate media relations unit, told O’Dwyer’s that he is the point man for the response.

He said Apple issued a statement saying the company is committed to “ensuring that working conditions in our supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity and manufacturing process are environmentally responsible.”

Apple, which has a five-page supplier code of conduct, is currently investigating the allegations regarding working conditions in the iPod manufacturing plant in China,” according to the statement.

Blow to Image

The China story could deal a blow to Apple’s carefully crafted image, says John Paczkowski, who blogs about Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News.

He acknowledged that though other companies outsource work to China and the Foxconn plant may meet global standards, Apple has “long portrayed itself as a progressive company.” Paczkowski added: “Reports like this one don’t jive at all with its “Think Different Image.”

CHINA SLAPS SORRELL; SHIFTS TO OMC.

Yan Gang, vice chairman of CITIC Guoan Group, has terminated a 14-year partnership with WPP Group’s Grey Advertising unit because he felt snubbed by Martin Sorrell.

The director of the China Advertising Assn. had requested a meeting with Sorrell to discuss the partnership with Grey, which WPP acquired last year.

Yan announced at a press conference that Sorrell acted “very rudely” and had “absolutely no manners, no upbringing, no culture.”

He told reporters that he was shifting his alliance from WPP to Omnicom.

OMC issued a release to announce the “strategic partnership” that unites the “unique capabilities and massive strength of both parties across all areas of advertising and marketing services in China.”

It noted that CITIC Guoan’s parent company played a key role in opening China to the West and has assets of $90B. CEO John Wren said it is an “incredibly exciting time for Omnicom in China.”
Yan is also a member of Beijing’s 2008 Summer Olympics Committee.

Hill & Knowlton was awarded that account in April.
An H&K staffer is confident that the shop will retain that business despite Sorrell’s fallout with the Chinese.

DELAWARE ENTITY WANTS PR PITCHES.

The Delaware River Port Authority, the development agency for Pennsylvania and New Jersey that operates four bi-state bridges, a cruise ship port and regional transit systems, is looking for a PR firm to handle strategy, media relations and market research tasks.

The primary goal of the minimum year-long effort is to raise awareness and support of DRPA, which, among its other tasks, has taken the lead and very public role of revitalizing the Philadelphia-Camden waterfront area.

President Truman officially created DRPA in 1951 with the responsibility to promote international trade for Delaware River ports. The entity has used the tagline “We Keep the Region Moving” in recent years.

The RFP is available from DRPA’s website.

KMI GETS HELP FROM JOELE FRANK.

Kinder Morgan Inc., the anti-Enron, is using Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher to deal with the proposed $22B management buyout of the gas pipeline company.

Rich Kinder, the former Enron president who resigned after CEO Ken Lay failed to hand over the CEO reins, and Mike Morgan proceeded to put together a 43,000 gas pipeline company built on Enron pipeline “cast-offs.”

A special committee of KMI’s board, on June 13, hired Morgan Stanley, Blackstone Group and Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom to consider the $100 a-share offer, which represents an 18.4 percent premium over the $84.41 trading price on the May 29 offer.

Joele Frank and Judy Wilkinson handle KMI.

GD PICKS ASHCROFT.

General Dynamics has retained the Ashcroft Group as its D.C. rep for trade and defense issues.

The AG team includes Juleanna Glover Weiss, a former press secretary to VP Dick Cheney; Susan Richmond, ex-chief of staff for management at the Dept. of Homeland Security and Lori Day Sharpe, director of intergovernmental affairs when John Ashcroft was U.S. Attorney General.

GD has been a key beneficiary of the Iraq invasion, according to a June 13 Washington Times profile. A “steady stream of orders from the U.S. Army, which now total about 25 percent of the company’s sales—provides a solid base that will continue for years,” said the WT. The company’s net sales have doubled to $21B since `00.

GD had been headquartered in Ashcroft’s home state of Missouri, but moved from suburban St. Louis to Falls Church, Va., in `91. Ashcroft has served as governor and senator of the “Show Me State.”

Edelman has hired Jim Giggins, a 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles TV news scene, as senior VP and head of its Southern California public affairs team. He will work closely with Edelman’s PA teams in Sacramento, New York and Washington.

Giggins was a correspondent for NBC and ABC, covering topics from the Vietnam War and natural disasters, to the rise of Nelson Mandela.

RATHER EXITS CBS.

Newsman Dan Rather, 74, says he will exit CBS at the request of management that wants to showcase younger reporters.

He had planned to stay at CBS for his entire career, but now will depart after 44 years when his contract is up in November.

Rather stepped down as anchor of “CBS Evening News” 15 months ago after the uproar over “Memogate.” He has been serving as a correspondent for “60 Minutes.”

Rather says he hopes to announce his next job soon.

HUFFPO HOOKS UP WITH JWT.

The Huffington Post website has sold all its front page ads to JWT for a single week, allowing the ad agency to showcase its creative video work before visitors to the website that received 1.2M unique viewers in May.

The partners are billing the deal as a “first-of-its-kind social advertising model for commercials powered by a blogging platform.”

The site features ads from Ford Motor, Levi’s, Partnership for a Drug Free America, JetBlue and HSBC. They are easily forwarded via e-mail and posted on a single page.

JWT and HuffPo selected the ads.

Bob Jeffrey, JWT CEO, said the partnership will “further blur the lines between traditional advertising and new media.”

The ads run from June 17 to June 24. A one-month ad on HuffPo costs from $120K and up.

David Cirilli at Ken Sunshine Consultants handles PR for HuffPo.

AMI PUTS FIVE MAGS ON THE BLOCK.

American Media is putting five of its 16 magazines on the auction block, and plans to focus its future on celebrity weeklies (National Enquirer, Star) and active lifestyle (Shape, Men’s Fitness) magazines, according to CEO David Pecker.

AMI wants to sell Muscle & Fitness, Muscle & Fitness Hers and Flex. Those titles have a combined eight million in circulation.

Country Weekly, the entertainment mag with a 3.3M readership, and Mira! (a title with news and gossip about Latino stars with 850K readers) are also on the block.

The group posted $84M in revenues for the year ended March 31. It had $29M in operating profit.

AMI has retained J.P. Morgan Securities and Bear, Stearns to handle the sale that could generate $300M for AMI.

MSNBC TAPS ABRAMS FOR GM POST.

Dan Abrams, host of “The Abrams Report” legal analysis show, is switching to the management side, taking the general manager slot at MSNBC.

He reports to Phil Griffin, NBC News senior VP, who will add MSNBC to his "Today Show" responsibilities.

The two replace Rick Kaplan, who was ousted from the No. 3 cable news operation earlier this month.
Abrams began hosting his own show in ’01. He joined MSNBC as a general assignment reporter in ’97.

NBC News president Steve Capus told the Associated Press he hired Abrams because he was being bombarded by his memos about how to improve the network. One eight-page memo sealed the deal, he said.

NG REJOINS NYDN.

David Ng has returned to the New York Daily News as executive editor. He had been at the Star-Ledger in Newark, where he held the assistant managing editor title.

Ng started his journalism career at the New York Post before moving to the News in ’93. He left the News as deputy managing editor in ’00.

Ng takes over for Bob Sapio, who has been promoted to senior executive editor at the News.

TIME WARNER STILL ON HUNT.

Time Warner, which carries $20B in long-term debt on its balance sheet and is in the midst of a $20B stock buyback program, still has a “healthy appetite for acquisitions,” said finance chief Wayne Pace at a Merrill Lynch conference in early June.

Pace said CEO Dick Parsons has instructed division heads to keep at eye out for deals that complement their asset base.

He said Spanish language TV station Univision, which is on block with an auction tag in the $12B range, is too big for TW to swallow.

Pace shot down rumors that TW’s AOL unit is ready to unload its European unit as “premature.”

American Journalism Review has a “Return of the Sob Sisters” feature in its June/July number. Newspapers, according to AJR, have “fallen in love with long narratives about fatal illnesses and disfiguring ailments, particularly when they involve children.”

Frank Rich, New York Times op-ed writer, told AJR that tales of sorrow and woe are motivated by the “desire of print to get readers any way they can, and one way to do it is to tell stories the way TV does.”

Andrea Taylor, founding director of the media fund at the Ford Foundation, has joined Microsoft as director of U.S. community affairs. At the FF, she created a $50M portfolio of media investments, supporting projects like “Sesame Street” in China and South Africa.

Jeffrey Dvorkin, the first ombudsman for a major U.S. broadcast news organization in his role with NPR, has been named executive director of the Committee of Concerned Journalists and the Goldenson Chair of Community Broadcasting at the Missouri School of Journalism. He will join the School’s Washington, D.C., offices in the National Press Building.

Dvorkin joined NPR in 1997 as VP for news, overseeing the company’s global journalism division, and was appointed to the new position of ombudsman in 2000. Previously Dvorkin was the managing editor and chief journalist of CBC Radio in Toronto, Canada.

(Media news continued on next page)

HOLLYWOOD BOOKERS SEEK PITCHES.

“If you want to do a story about grapefruit, we don’t do it. If you want to do a story about Julie Roberts eating grapefruit, I'll make a miniseries out of it,” Steve Sunshine, senior producer of “Extra,” told an Entertainment Publicists Professional Society and International Cinematographers Guild workshop in Hollywood in May.

Sunshine talked about how the celebrity-driven program demands exclusives and honesty from PR people. “We don’t expect to be blindsided and find out that somebody else has it or has virtually the same thing, and that I forgot to ask you a question or two that might have prevented the situation. It's a two-way street,” he said.

Along with his wife Madeline – a children's author and a writer for Sesame Street – Sunshine wrote and produced the ABC hit series “Webster” for Paramount Studios and produced the “Julie Andrews Show.” He has also written feature films like “The Son of the Pink Panther” with Italian star Roberto Benigni, which he wrote with Blake Edwards. He prefers email: [email protected].

“I want email pitches and please know the show,” said Susan Gold, senior producer of the AMC original series “Sunday Morning Shootout.” “Also, know your talent availability. Often times I will get pitched and the publicist doesn't know our tape recording date and they'll push and push, and then the talent won't even be around for the next six months,” said Gold.

The Shootout is an industry talk show hosted by Variety editor-in-chief, Peter Bart, and Mandalay Entertainment’s, Peter Guber. It features conversations with Hollywood’s elite including Denzel Washington, Hilary Swank, Jude Law, Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Bruce Willis, Ashton Kutcher, Adrien Brody and Morgan Freeman.

Gold is a veteran of top talent agency, ICM in New York. She formed Celebrity Talent and convinced Andy Warhol to do an ad for Pontiac, persuaded Donna Rice – on the heels of the Gary Hart fiasco – to endorse No Excuses Jeans, and coaxed Aretha Franklin to sing for Kinney Shoe Corp. She prefers email: [email protected].

Relationships are key in Tinsel Town

“Email is really the best way to pitch, followed by another one a few days later,” said Luke Sader, talent producer for Tavis Smiley's program on PBS. “I’m happy to talk to people, too, but it's always nice, I find, that if I’m familiar with the pitch or the email pitch rings a bell with me. I try to respond to as many pitches as I can.”

Connections, relationships and friends are the key to making it in Hollywood, according to Sader: “We know it becomes a smaller and smaller town the older you get.”

Sader started his career at CBS News in New York and then moved west to join “Entertainment Tonight,” where he worked in many capacities including researcher, segment producer, show writer, and field director.

He then went to CNN and became coordinating producer for “Showbiz Today.” Sader was a talent executive at “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” and “The Wayne Brady Show,” and has been with Smiley since his premiere in January, 2004. Sader also likes email pitches: [email protected].

Pam Hyatt is talent executive for “Soap Talk” on the SOAPNET cable network. The program is hosted by three-time Emmy nominated, Lisa Rinna and Ty Treadway. It has more than 50 million loyal viewers who tune in to see their favorite daytime stars including Susan Lucci and Deidre Hall.

“You can get hits before 50 million viewers,” said Hyatt, “Soap Talk tapes six shows in two days, and I get pitched a lot, and often pass them on to our segment producers. Many people think we book only soap stars and often forget about the stars from such shows as ‘Lost,’ ‘Greys Anatomy’ and others that have appeared on the show.”

Hyatt, president of PG Artists, also handles celebrity bookings for CMT (Country Music Television), Peter Tilden’s “Hollyville” on KZLA Radio and “The Dr. Phil Show.”

She booked President and Mrs. Bush for a special “Parenting” program with Dr. Phil as well as Bill Cosby, Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Kelsey Grammer, Marcia Cross and SpongeBob. Hyatt prefers email pitches: [email protected].

IPG TAKES STAKE IN FACEBOOK.

Interpublic is gaining an investment stake in Facebook, the social networking website for students, in return for spending up to $10M for clients on the site.

Howard Draft, the new CEO of Draft FCB Group, began the negotiations as a way for IPG agencies to keep in touch with young consumers.

Launched in ’04, Facebook attracted more than 14M visitors in May. It has 7.5M members, who post personal lifestyle data on the site that IPG will find useful.

Helen Thomas, the longtime White House correspondent for United Press International, tells USA Today that the press has gained some backbone in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

She has accused the media for acting more like lapdogs than watchdogs in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. After the disaster of Katrina, the White House press corps “saw with their own eyes the incompetence.”

Thomas says all Presidents “hate the press. ...And as time goes on, their position is, ‘Who the hell are you? How dare you ask that!’”

Thomas’ new book is called “Watchdogs of Democracy?” She is currently a syndicated columnist for Hearst.

New York Home & Lifestyles, LLC, a unit of Hour Media, has acquired some assets of Absolute magazine.

The new entity will operate as Absolute Publishing and publish Absolute as a bimonthly focused on affluent New York readers, starting with the October/November issue. Jason Kontos is editorial director.

Both 2005 PRSA president Judith Phair and 2006 president Cheryl Procter-Rogers repeatedly said they will make no governance reforms until they first hear from members themselves.

Now there is a members’ proposal (page one) to remove power from the board and place it in the hands of the Assembly. Certain members are fed up with the dictatorial, secretive ways of the board.

Thanks to a board directive that all bylaw changes be put to it by June 15, there is now five months for the dissidents to make their case against the board.

Flaws too numerous to ignore have turned up in the leadership of Procter-Rogers.

For her part, she did not have the seasoning that would have helped by serving first as secretary and treasurer, the normal path to the top.

Educator Marie Russell was treasurer in 2004 and was to be president-elect in 2005. But Russell was too obviously the choice of the PRSA staff which gave her top billing on nine committees in the 2003 members’ directory with the new title of “senior counsel.” It looked like she was the most active member ever. This ploy helped her to return to the board as treasurer in 2004 (in spite of a bylaw saying directors are not to succeed themselves). But the 2004 nominating committee, headed by 2002 president Joann Killeen, picked Procter-Rogers as president-elect.

Procter-Rogers, asked on June 13 about the resignation of director Ron Owens, hung up on us. She had not communicated with us in any way since March 20. We do not feel too bad about this since she also hung up on the PRSA leadership twice (during two conference calls May 5). At the end of 45-minute presentations by her and other leaders, she asked for questions, waited about two seconds, and hung up. These are the only two leader calls we ever listened to that had no member questions. Members didn’t have time to collect their thoughts.

A reporter we hired to cover a speech she made to PRSA/S.E.Wisconsin April 19 was ordered by her not to tape the call although her speeches had been taped at two previous chapter visits. Her next appearance is not scheduled until September.
These and other actions are not presidential. Her management style has been a factor in the departure of two directors, an unprecedented revolt.

The “single spokesperson” policy of the PRSA board is proving ruinous. Instead of training to deal with the press in the years before becoming president, treasurers and presidents-elect train in silence. They develop no skills in dealing with reporters or the issues facing PRSA such as its false financial reporting, lack of democracy, and failure to champion PR as an advocate of corporate openness.

Procter-Rogers was silent during her year as president-elect and Rhoda Weiss is the same. Jeff Julin, treasurer who is in line to be president-elect, has set new records for silence. None of these three retiring and shy people deserve to be president.

We hear that Weiss spends half or more of her time in Hawaii with a client; teaches PR at UCLA, and is working on a PR doctorate. How can she also be president of PRSA, critics ask? We would ask Weiss these questions but she doesn’t respond.

It could be that Procter-Rogers is angry at us because we have pointed out the contradiction involved in her working for HBO and saying that PR pros are supposed to be “champions of ethics” and “must have the moral courage to insist that our employers or clients simply do the right thing” (March 15 speech to PRSA/West Virginia). But HBO, with 28 million subscribers, is probably the world’s largest distributor of pornography. “Honolulu Hookers,” one of its recent shows, covers prostitutes as they make explicit deals with customers and broadcasts the sounds as these deals are carried out in parked cars. Churches and women’s groups condemn porno as unethical and debasing to women. Typical of HBO’s attitude toward women is a full page ad in the June 16 New York Times. It says a good gift for Father’s Day is a set of HBO series on DVD. “They’re full of bullets, babes and brawls. Good, old-fashioned stuff.”

The real work that needs to be done in PR is rescuing it from the clutches of sales and marketing and restoring its educational role. Two news items illustrate this.

Women Executives in PR (New York) has become part of Advertising Women of New York (page 6). AWNY president Arlene Manos said: “The definition of advertising today includes a wide range of channels by which messages reach a consumer. The purpose of the delivered message is to enhance interest, and hopefully to lead to a sale, or change in perception. Within that full range of disciplines, PR plays a vital role.” PR is seen as a subset of advertising.

New York PR veteran Richard Weiner (who ignited the Cabbage Patch Doll craze in 1982) has written a book (“The Skinny about Best Boys, Dollies, Green Rooms, Leads and other Media Lingo”) that provides definitions of 2,000 terms but confesses there is “no commonly accepted definition of PR.” He gives his own: PR is “the activities intended to analyze, adjust to, influence, or direct the opinions of people, in the interest of an individual, group or other source.”

PR has wandered far from its original definition in 1903 by Ivy Lee. His credo was that “The Public Be Informed.” Further details on “any subject,” he said, “will be supplied promptly and any editor will be assisted most cheerfully in verifying any statement of fact.” “Accuracy” was the supreme value with Lee, not getting someone to believe something or act in a certain way. With such organizations as PRSA and the five ad conglomerates, we find ducking and dodging press questions to be the order of the day.

--Jack O'Dwyer