U OF L WANTS TO ‘RE-BRAND.’

The University of Louisville is looking for help to create and guide a new brand strategy to help raise its national profile under continued mandate from the state of Kentucky.

The state has issued an RFP for an agency to develop strategy and themes and to implement the effort in conjunction with the university’s office of communications and marketing.

The Kentucky legislature codified the school’s mission in 1997 requiring that by 2020 it must be nationally recognized as a premier metropolitan research university. U of L, as it’s informally called, rolled out a 10-year business plan in 1998 and its first marketing effort a year later with the theme “Dare to be great,” which is still used.

It set a series of high-profile goals to bring attention to the university, including well-publicized medical breakthroughs in 2001 like a fully implantable artificial heart operation and the first successful hand transplant.

U of L hopes to begin rolling out a new campaign by July. Proposals are due Jan. 25.

Laurel Harper ([email protected]) is taking questions through Jan. 19.

OSTER STARS AT MPAA.

Seth Oster has joined the Motion Picture Assn. of America as executive VP-communications. He reports to CEO Dan Glickman.

Previously, Oster had the top PR spot at the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles. In that slot, he worked closely with MPAA president Robert Pisano, who was the SAG’s chief.

Oster’s resume includes communications duties for California Senator Diane Feinstein, American Film Institute, Hill & Knowlton and Napster. He joins MPAA from Entertainment Strategies Group.

Glickman, in a statement, called Oster a “critical lieutenant in our worldwide efforts to spur growth of our industry in the new digital environment.”

Fender Musical Instruments, the maker of the legendary Stratocaster rock guitar, has hired Marshall Consultants to search for its first director of corporate communications.

Scottsdale, Ariz.-based FMI wants an executive to manage co-branding efforts with brands like Harley Davidson and Hard Rock Café, as well as traditional media outreach and marketing efforts.

Resumes can be sent to MarshallCareers@Marshall Consultants.com.

DOWIE’S SENTENCING POSTPONED.

U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess has postponed to Jan. 30 the sentencing of Doug Dowie, the former Fleishman-Hillard Los Angeles head who was convicted of bilking that city.

The delay is to hear arguments from Dowie’s legal team that prosecutors miscalculated the number of months that the ex-Marine should serve in federal prison, according to the Los Angeles Times. Dowie’s lawyer says his client should get probation. Prosecutors want jail time.

The LAT noted that Feess made “comments favorable to both sides in the fraud case.”

F-H, which was never charged with a crime, paid $6M to Los Angeles to cover the fraudulent billing. The Omnicom unit also paid $1M to defend Dowie before dropping his defense.

Dowie’s legal tab is in the $3M range.

Sard Verbinnen & Co. has completed the first stage of its $20M buyout from the U.K. conglomerate Huntsworth plc with the repurchase of 51 percent of the financial communications firm.

George Sard and Paul Verbinnen expect to buy back the remaining 49 percent by the end of 2009.

Huntsworth acquired SV&C, previously called Citigate Sard Verbinnen, with the 2005 purchase of Incepta.

London-based Huntsworth agreed to the sale as it feared the departure of Sard and Verbinnen as their contracts expired.

It also requires operating units to have more than 65 percent of its business on retainer, a model that SV&C doesn’t follow.

LEHMAN UPGRADES IPG.

Lehman Brothers analyst Craig Huber upgraded his rating on Interpublic on Jan. 10 to “overweight” from “neutral.” His confidence level in IPG’s turnaround has “increased significantly,” and Huber supports the revamp steps taken by CEO Michael Roth.

The analyst also cited IPG’s recent winning streak as evidenced by new business from Hewlett-Packard, AOL, Pfizer and Supervalu.

Huber has boosted his target price for IPG shares to $15. The shares are trading at $13.37, a 52-week high. Huber’s target price had been $8.

The Lehman staffer has an overweight rating on Omnicom, but feels there is more of an upside potential in IPG since its shares are trading at a much lower price than OMC, which also hit a $104.38 year-high.

CK PUSHES PREVENTIVE MEDICINE.

CooperKatz & Co. is handling the launch of U.S. Preventive Medicine, which debuted last week via a full-page “open letter to the American public” ad in the Wall Street Journal.

In that missive, USPM founder Christopher Fey notes that “America needs a fresh approach to healthcare.”

The country spends $2.2T on healthcare each year, but only four percent is dedicated to preventive medicine. That, to Fey, is why the U.S. is experiencing alarming levels of obesity, and serious illnesses like heart disease and cancer.
Fey’s group wants to put in place “programs, protocols and procedures that detect and treat health risks early, preventing them from becoming life-threatening diseases.”

He says USPM’s goal is to partner with doctors, hospitals and the private sector to forge the “U.S. Prevention Network, an entity that will “organize and advance a culture of prevention throughout America.”

Dallas-based USPM is a privately owned company that aims to license its USPN program to health providers on an exclusive geographical territory basis.
The St. Luke’s Center for Preventive Medicine, part of the $1.8B Iowa Health System, has been operating as a “beta site” for 18 months.

CK’s Susan Pralgever, Rachael Adler and Nick Sowards are handling the USPM account.

BARNES ZIPS TO ZENO.

Sue Barnes, who has worked for Waggener Edstrom for the past 17 years, is now deputy managing director of Zeno Group’s San Francisco office. She worked on WE’s Microsoft and Advanced Micro Devices business.

Barnes’ career includes a roster of consumer technology, financial and enterprise accounts both here and in the U.K. At Zeno, she will concentrate on its key Oracle Applications account.

John Berard, Zeno’s SF/managing director and technology head, believes the firm is well-poised for growth in `07.

He says Zeno has a “black belt in enterprise technology” and is eager to strengthen its position in the consumer technology and Web 2.0 sectors.
Zeno is a unit of Daniel J. Edelman Inc.

CARMEN REPS NIGERIA’S OIL HEARTLAND.

The Carmen Group is repping the Nigerian state of Bayelsa, which is the energy heartland of America’s No. 5 oil supplier.

That state is under siege by rebels (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) who want local control over the petroleum.

A series of kidnappings and terror attacks has shut down about 20 percent of Nigeria’s export capacity. The February Vanity Fair has an article “Blood Oil” that chronicles the chaos in Nigeria. It says the total shutdown of Nigeria’s energy production would trigger a recession in the U.S.

David Carmen leads his firm’s work for Bayelsa.

LANDERS ESTABLISHES ‘GIRLPOWER.’

Linda Landers, a 15-year veteran of Paine PR and managing partner of the firm, has left to set up her own boutique shop, “Girlpower,” focused on marketing to women.

Landers, who remains a shareholder in Paine and called the decision to step down “very difficult,” said her goal with the new firm is to break down a female demographic – 108 million adult women in the U.S. – that is typically targeted as a whole.

“Women are the world’s most powerful consumers right now, and so many people and marketers out there just aren’t getting it,” she said in an interview. “They’re either doing the old ‘painting it pink’ and calling it women’s marketing or still perceiving women as a niche market, when in fact women are making 85 percent of the purchasing decisions.”

Landers doesn’t think marketers understand generational differences between women or their roles as the “chief procurement officers” of households. She cited statistics that indicate women make the majority of purchasing decisions on cars, bank services, and consumer electronics, segments not traditionally associated with female consumers.

Girlpower has opened its doors with two clients that Landers said she could not yet announce – a global ad agency and a women’s adventure travel group. The Newport Beach, Calif.-based firm handles PR and marketing communications efforts, including media relations, website audits, events and product launches.
Info: www.girlpowermarketing.com.

5W MAKES SPLASH AT SUNDANCE.

5W PR is teaming with New York City hotspot, PM Lounge NYC, to rope in celebrities attending the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, later this month.

CEO Ronn Torossian says the plan is to align its clients with the buzz from the trendsetters at the festival.

His firm is putting together the “Sundance Escape 2007” program that will be hosted at a private residence by 5W clients, Evian Natural Spring Water, Budweiser Select, Doylesroom.com and poker player Doyle Brunson.

A “Welcome to Sundance” dinner is to be hosted by actor Nick Canon, and the “hairstylist to the stars” Sheila Stotts will oversee a “gifting and services lounge.” There will be an array of private parties, events and poker tournaments. Torossian says non-client PM Lounge will help “secure celebrities.” The New York Times has called the Meat District nightclub the place with the “most brutal beautiful person policy.”

GERBINO CRUISES TO SEABOURN.

Gary Gerbino, VP for M. Silver Associates who represented the cruise line industry’s top trade group, has resigned to join Seabourn Cruise Line as VP/marketing.

Gerbino joined MSA in 2001 to oversee the launch of Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2.

He also directed external communications for the Cruise Lines International Assn. while at MSA.

TIME WEB PULLS STORY ACCUSING OMEGA.

Time magazine and the Time website accused Omega World Travel, one of the five biggest travel firms in the U.S. with 1,200+ employees and 200 offices, of being a “spammer” in spite of two court decisions rejecting this accusation.

The “new” Time magazine, dated Jan. 15 but which was published on Friday, Jan. 5, carried a full page on the story headlined, “A Spammer’s Revenge.” The subhead said, “Don’t call a junk mailer that, or you could get sued. His (junk mailer’s) right to free speech trumps your right to privacy.”

Author of the story is Reynolds Holding, a lawyer who covers legal topics for Time.

Following a protest by Omega, founded in 1972, the link to the story was pulled on Jan. 9 from the business/tech part of time.com and from the archive of columns by Holding.

A Time spokeswoman confirmed this, saying the story is “under review.” It can still be accessed via Google or if the original URL is known.

Omega said that it sent several travel promotional e-mails in late 2004 to Mark Mumma of Oklahoma City after a request to send the “e-deals” to Mumma’s e-mail address was received by OWT.

Mumma Says He Didn’t Send Request

Mumma said the request was not sent by him but by someone else. He said he is on a campaign to help rid e-mail of unwanted spam. He runs MummaGraphics and operates SueaSpammer.com and OptOutByDomain.com.

Mumma, according to court papers, telephoned Omega after receiving the first e-mail and told it not to send him any more. But more were sent before his address could be erased from the system.

According to court records, Mumma refused during the phone call to provide Omega with his e-mail address and also refused to click the “remove” link in the Omega e-mails. He says he was afraid this would result in more e-mails. Instead, he directed Omega to OptOut1.com where hundreds of entities are listed that don’t want unsolicited e-mails.

Mumma charges that the address on the OWT e-mail was misleading because it did not identify OWT. OWT says Cruise.com and Omega were identified in the body of the e-mail and an opt-out option was provided, thus satisfying federal law.

After receiving the additional e-mails, Mumma threatened by letter to sue Omega for $150,000 under Oklahoma law but offered to settle for $6,250.

Omega refused and, according to court records, Mumma started making public criticisms of Omega's principals and its subsidiary, Cruise.com.

Two Courts Backed Omega

Omega sued Mumma on charges of defamation. A Federal Court in Virginia said Omega’s e-mails were not false or misleading and did not constitute spam. The court dismissed Mumma’s countersuit charging violations of state and federal anti-spam laws.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond seconded this opinion in November, 2006.

Judge James Wilkinson said the 2003 federal CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) “addresses ‘spam’ as a serious and pervasive problem, but it does not impose liability at the mere drop of a hat.”

OWT continues to pursue its defamation claims.

The Time article by Holding says at one point: “Truth be told, companies like Omega aren’t the real problem. Sure, Cruise.com sent Mumma unsolicited e-mails with a funky return address. And it sent 11 of them. But Mumma might have stopped future messages by clicking on a highlighted link, something he refused to do because, he says, ‘that just gets you on more spam lists.’ Maybe so. It’s clear, though, that unlike some Nigerian scam artist bent on fooling e-mail filters, the company [Omega] didn’t try to hide its identity.”

Time ME Stengel Highlighted Story

Richard Stengel, managing editor of the “new” Time, referred to the Holding story in his letter to readers at the beginning of the magazine: “This week he (Holding) looks at the perils of taking on spammers and what it means for the tension between freedom of speech and a right to privacy.”

Omega is a major advertiser on the O’Dwyer website. Its clients include hundreds of corporations and organizations and federal, state and city government departments. Its computers search for the best prices for all forms of travel, integrating travel purchases nationwide and worldwide to obtain quantity discounts.

E.W. SCRIPPS CONSIDERS PAPERS SPIN-OFF.

E.W. Scripps is considering whether to spin-off its newspaper unit to concentrate on its broadcast, cable and online properties, according to Joe NeCastro, CFO of the Cincinnati-based company. He told an investor conference that management has been looking at separation plans during the last six months. NeCastro said another option is to sell some papers.

Scripps publishes papers in 18 markets. The group is led by Rocky Mountain News (Denver), Commercial Appeal (Memphis), Naples (Fla.) Daily News, Knoxville News-Sentinel and Ventura County (Calif.) Star. The papers generate nearly 30 percent of the company's revenue.

Scripps owns the Food Network, HGTV and DIYNetwork cable properties and the Shopzilla comparison shopping website. It has TV stations in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Baltimore, Phoenix, Kansas City, Tampa and Lawrence (Kan.).

Briefs ________________________________

Telemundo has promoted Susan Solano to senior VP-consumer marketing in charge of online and off-air strategies.

Victor Javier Solono, a four-time winner of the Simon Bolivar National Journalism Award in his native Colombia, has been tapped as weekend anchor at Noticias Univision 41 in New York.

He had been doing anchor duties on a temporary basis since last summer. Solono earned his reporter credentials by covering narco-terrorism and drug cartels in Colombia.

(Media news continued on next page)

BBC’S SHIELDS TO HUFFPOST.

Elinor Shields, who was senior journalist at the BBC’s world desk in London, is now managing editor at TheHuffingtonPost.com.

She is responsible for day-to-day editorial operations including original reporting at the political and cultural website.

At the BBC, Shields covered news stories from Washington and Middle East.
Prior to the Beeb, Shields was a reporter in London for the European edition of Time. She is based in New York.

HuffPo says unique visitors to the site since September have grown 24 percent from 2.6M to 3.2M.

DOW JONES REVAMPS ENTERPRISE GROUP.

Dow Jones & Co. has restructured its Enterprise Media Group to consolidate its three business units into a streamlined organization.

The new Dow Jones Content Technology Solutions entity is an outgrowth of the merger of Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Licensing Services and Factiva.

Rich Zannino, CEO of DJ&C, said in a statement that the reorganization allows the company to "deliver even more comprehensive and innovative solutions to customers in both new and existing markets, globally."

Clare Hart, DJ&C executive VP and head of its EMG operation, will lead the new unit as its president.

DJ&C will announce the financial impact of the move later this month. Nearly 100 jobs are being cut.

Hill & Knowlton is handling the reorg.

BBC AMERICA FRESHENS UP.

BBC America general manager Kathryn Mitchell unveils a new logo, marketing push and redesigned website on Jan. 17.

On-air IDs will feature the revamped logo in various American landscapes such as on a black London cab turning the wrong way on a busy New York street to be confronted by a wall of yellow cabs.

Another spot has a "biker chick" – with the BBC logo on the back of her leather jacket – leaving a roadhouse and walking by a Harley to ride a Vespa. The idea is to show that BBC America is a "little Brit different."

mOcean created the new look for the BBC, which has been in the U.S. market for nine years.

FORTUNE’S SAFIAN TO FAST COMPANY.

Bob Safian, executive editor at Fortune, has moved to Fast Company as editor and managing director.

Mark Vamos, who became FC editor in September, takes the editor-at-large post at parent company, Mansueto Ventures.

Before joining Fortune in `97, Safian was executive editor at Time and headed Money as managing editor.

He began his journalism career at The American Lawyer.

Vamos is a veteran of Business Week, Newsday and SmartMoney.com.
Both Safian and Vamos report to MV CEO John Koten.

NEW WEBSITE CRITIQUES JOURNALISM.

A new website, www.newstrust.net, gives consumers the power to rate and review the news.

The non-profit site allows members to submit links to news articles from mainstream and independent news sources, where they are then rated on a series of criteria by both members and a core team of staff editors. Judging criteria includes fairness and objectivity, factual evidence, context, balance, diversity of sources and the overall newsworthiness of a story. Ratings are compiled to give each article an overall "grade." Anyone who becomes a member of the site can submit a news story for review. There is no fee to join the service.

A beta version of the site debuted on Nov. 28. A larger, full-service version with personalized news feeds and additional services is expected to go live by mid-year.

NewsTrust was founded by Fabrice Florin, a former television journalist and executive producer for Apple Computer. At Apple, Florin produced a series of successful CD-ROM titles. He is also the former vice president of online entertainment for Macromedia, where he launched the popular website shockwave.com.

NewsTrust is based in Mill Valley, Calif.

Florin said the site fills a void that is lacking in today's news.

A consolidation of mainstream media, combined with an overabundance of information and the rise of alternative news sources such as blogs, has created an atmosphere of cynicism and mistrust in much of the public.

Florin said NewsTrust allows readers to trust the news they're reading - hence the name. He said the site gives consumers a chance to "weed out the bad and to celebrate the good."

"On one hand, there are large, consolidated media companies cutting back on their newsrooms and favoring content that is popular because it's better business.

“On the other hand, you have emerging journalists who mean well but don't necessarily have the discipline or the training to spot the news. We saw that the opportunity here is stronger than the challenge. Consumers are inundated with so much information. By pooling our resources we can make them discriminating readers," Florin said.

Unlike other sites that focus on news analysis, Florin said new stories are judged by their journalistic quality, not just their popularity.

The site also rates its members, which in turn determines their ranking power when rating stories.

Opinion pieces are also rated on the website.

So far, Florin said the site's audience has remained broad. Consumers who want to be savvy to events in the media seem to comprise NewsTrust's core membership, so the site's appeal doesn't seem to be limited solely to journalists, publicists or media analysts.

"They all share an interest in the news and, right now, and there's just too much news that's questionable," Florin said. "Here we give you a chance to find good journalism."

Our editorial last week described New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell’s claim that enough facts to topple Enron’s executives for false financial reporting were there for years for anyone who chose to look for them.

Gladwell had plenty of facts to support his opinion and we were looking kindly on ex-CEO Jeff Skilling who was sentenced to 24 years in jail.

However, the Gladwell hypothesis enraged New York Times columnist Joe Nocera.

Far from being “a debacle that was hidden in plain sight,” and that Enron investors were to be faulted for lack of due diligence, Nocera argues that plenty of material information was hidden from Wall Street and individual investors.

Skilling and others hid things “that would have exposed the fraud,” says Nocera. “That is, they lied to the investing public about the true condition of the company (and) that is against the law.” Among many examples, Skilling and others hid the true nature of the broadband business, which supposedly generated “tens of millions in reported revenue even though it never generated much actual cash,” writes Nocera. Skilling omitted remarks about its troubles that were in a conference call script, Nocera charges.

Also, he says, many of the 3,000 Special Purpose Entities were “structured illegally” and were “never disclosed publicly.”

Concludes Nocera: “The point is not the sheer volume of disclosure; it’s whether disclosure illuminates or obfuscates. Enron usually did the latter.” Another claim of Nocera is that “Enron intimidated the big Wall Street investment banks to ensure that analysts had a buy rating on the stock.”

A cartoon in the Jan. 15 New Yorker shows executives looking at a sales chart with a downward curve when someone from the “PR Dept.” walks in with a substitute chart showing sales on the rise.

PR professors, PR pros and this writer have been criticizing college students and recent college grads for not reading the daily newspaper.

But Michael Wolff, writing in the February Vanity Fair, says that hardly anyone under 50 reads papers anymore and that is the reason major papers and chains are having financial problems. He notes the market value of the New York Times has plummeted to $3.3 billion and that big shareholders of Knight Ridder forced its sale last year. On the block now, at the behest of large shareholders, is the Tribune Co. (Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Hartford Courant, Baltimore Sun, TV stations.)

Newspapers were once run by “great sons of bitches, monsters, Citizen Kane himself” but they are now run by “nameless, faceless, professionally gray people,” says Wolff. Reporters themselves, “once clever and disreputable, became something like public-service employees, seeing themselves with the beleaguered virtue of schoolteachers,” he adds. This combination helped turn newspapers “into a medium for old people.”

We agree with a lot of what Wolff is saying, based on what we see in local and/or chain-owned dailies in towns we visit or live in. AP stories may comprise 90% of the news hole and the papers seem more like part of the local establishment than judges of it. Media are not going to succeed if they lose their nerve. A prime example of a successful nervy medium is Vanity Fair itself, which tackles difficult subjects in great detail and which bulges with ads.

Most monthly mags seem to be doing well. Perhaps the greater perspective gained from a month of fact-gathering and analysis makes them a better read. Day-to-day news and analysis are being done by the web and blogs (the new “penny press” of citizens).

Time has now switched to Friday publication for the first time in more than 50 years, as new managing editor Richard Stengel pointed out in a commentary titled “A Changing Time.” He said the mag will provide not only information but “knowledge and meaning.”

So we were shocked when one of the stories in the mag, which Stengel pointed to as an example of the new approach, slammed Omega World Travel as a “spammer” when two courts have ruled that OWT did not meet the legal test of spamming (see page 3 of this NL).

Not only is Omega slammed as a “spammer” and “junk mailer” in the headline and body copy but as a “vengeful” spammer that assaults in court the innocent recipient of Omega e-mails when that recipient tried to stop Omega’s unwanted e-mails.

Facing a stout defense by Omega, a 35-year-old company known as a leader in promoting diversity and practicing it, and a leader in supporting women-owned businesses, Time took the link for this story off the business/tech part of its website and removed the story link from the legal columnist who wrote it, Reynolds Holding. Time says it is “reviewing” this story and we hope it does because it would not serve as a good example of the “new” Time. Omega is a major advertiser on the O’Dwyer website but had we never heard of it we would have provided the same coverage.

A column by George Will in the Jan. 15 Newsweek noted that General Douglas MacArthur once said that in war, all disasters can be explained by two words: “too late.” We agree and we hope the PR field will take those words to heart.

While there are endless courses and seminars on crises, none address the problem of PR availability 24/7. That’s the hours media work. But PR is mostly a Mon.-Fri., 9-5 calling. Most releases have the skimpiest of contact points and all the PR groups that we know of block media from using their databases of members. It’s hard to find press contacts on the average corporate website. When a crisis strikes, reporters want to call all companies in an industry. PRSA in 2002 gave out 150 of its members’ directories to help the press.

--Jack O'Dwyer