 |
Weber Shandwick says that while it has only made slight progress in boosting workplace diversity numbers over the past year, the agency has committed itself to “foundational progress” geared toward bringing those numbers up. Black employees holding positions at the executive vice president level or above nudged up from 2.5 percent in 2019 to 3.4 percent in 2020. For Hispanic or Latino employees, that number rose from 1.2 percent in 2019 to 2 percent last year. The number listed as white dropped from 88.9 percent to 85 percent. Among the strategies the firm says it will employ to bring those figures in line with the composition of the overall population are strengthening its diverse talent pipeline and changing its internal career development processes to counter the effects of racial bias. “We have made some meaningful moves that we believe will have a real impact on our organization and our journey toward diversity, inclusivity and anti-racism,” the company said in a release.
 |
Allen & Gerritsen launches “Protect Our Press,” an initiative enlisting agencies, brands, and publishers in the fight to help save local newspapers. The program asks participants to invest 20 percent of their programmatic advertising spend to direct or collective news buys and also urges the removal of news from exclusion lists. It also asks participants to evaluate direct deals with local newspapers as part of the RFP process and pushes for commitments to maintaining support for media buys already invested in local journalism. “It’s time to admit that the advertising industry has been culpable in the decline of local journalism,” says Will Phipps, senior vice president of media, A&G. “Agencies have been complicit by excluding ‘news’ from clients’ plans, fearing the unpredictable nature of the category." Interested parties can find out more on the Protect Our Press campaign site.
 |
ResourceOne Fundraising Group, a Moore company, has rebranded as Altus Marketing. The name change is intended to distinguish Altus Marketing’s fundraising and marketing solutions from the printing and production services of Moore’s ResourceOne unit. Altus Marketing provides integrated fundraising solutions to nonprofit, ministry and membership organizations. Altus Marketing’s new branding and marketing approach is effective immediately and will be implemented across company offices, digital presences, products and services. John Wilkinson formerly SVP, client strategy & success at One & All Agency, will join Altus as vice president of client services. “Embracing the Altus Marketing brand is fitting, as the company’s success shows they are developing marketing and fundraising solutions that elevate their clients’ growth through integrated, fully custom and locally relevant campaigns,” said Moore CEO Gretchen Littlefield.
Precision Strategies, an integrated strategy and marketing agency with offices in Washington and New York, acquires Firehouse Strategies, a DC-based public affairs firm... AVENIR GLOBAL acquires London-based Thinks Insight & Strategy... Good Company, which bills itself as a “cultural engineering firm,” is launched by DJ Hardy, a veteran of Johannesburg-based communications consultancy arxna and M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment and Casey Stickles, who has worked at 5WPR, Rubenstein and MWW.
PSC (Princeton Strategic Communications) acquires Nonprofit Partners... CG Life launches 24/364, a cultural brand platform intended to drive awareness, connection and action aimed at keeping rare disease at the forefront of the health and social conversation... Interluxe Group, which focuses on brand experiences and in-person activations; Quinn, a strategic communications agency; and media and digital agency North & Warren are uniting under the Interluxe Group banner.
KITH, which provides corporate reputation and crisis preparation services, is now owned by CEO Stephanie Craig, who has been with the firm since 2021... The Marketing Cloud, a part of Stagwell, introduces several expansions to Agent Cloud, the platform it launched in October 2025 to simplify access to its AI tools and marketing assistants.... Notified launches its AI Press Release Optimizer.
V2 Communications launches its AI Visibility Solution and Earned Media at Scale, two service offerings designed to help companies increase visibility and credibility in generative search... The Public Relations Global Network brings on Greenough Communications as its Boston member agency... DBC is relaunching The DBC Industry Calendar as a free site to help communicators more easily discover relevant events and awards in the cluttered event landscape driven by the growth of webinars and online events. 
PAN releases new original research showing that a significant share of B2B citations surfaced by ChatGPT are inaccurate, misattributed or entirely fabricated, introducing a new credibility risk for brands... REQ, which has offices in DC and San Diego, opens in Phoenix... Notified introduces Market Intelligence, an addition to its all-in-one IR Hub, which gives IR teams a more streamlined way to prepare for earnings calls.
