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APCO Worldwide has signed on to provide The George Floyd Memorial Foundation with critical services to help the foundation create programs advancing equity and justice. The foundation will focus on long-term results and engage officials at the state and federal levels, APCO founder and executive chairman Margery Kraus said. The George Floyd Memorial Foundation is committed to amplifying George Floyd's story through organized community outreach, targeted educational programs and intentional reform initiatives—leading up to and beyond the one-year remembrance of his death on May 25. “We’re thrilled to partner with APCO on our work to activate invested communities, address the root causes of inequity and combat the institutional violence affecting Black Americans,” said the foundation’s executive director, Jacari Harris.
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Clarity forms a pro bono partnership with minority-founded startup Malomo, a shipment tracking platform created to help e-commerce merchants build stronger customer relationships. The partnership was put together through the Diversity Marketing Consortium, a group of 20 agencies and consultants that includes Peppercomm, SourceCode Commnications, Racepoint Global and Praytell. DMC was founded in 2020 to provide $3 million in pro bono marketing and legal services to female and minority-led startups “We are thrilled to work with a pro bono partner that has the vision and the ability to innovate, particularly in the turn of COVID-19, as online activity soared and e-commerce became increasingly essential,” said Clarity Los Angeles managing director Monica Feig.
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The Travel Lifestyle Network, which consists of 19 agencies representing over 30 countries on six continents, has added three new agency partners. The newly inducted agencies are Argentina’s Sinergia Marketing Turistico; Big Ambitions from Cape Town, South Africa; and Israeli agency Terra Nova. “Even during these incredibly complex times, our network continues to grow,” said TLN chairwoman Virginie Le Norgant, associate director at Paris-based Group Expression. “The addition of these new members further strengthens our impact across the globe, allowing our current members to better serve existing and future clients.”
RVD Communications, a New York-based PR, influencer marketing and brand building agency, is acquired by Band of Insiders... An NCSolutions consumer sentiment survey finds that 55 percent of respondents would be more likely to try a product if it’s marketed as being aligned with a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle... IPG Mediabrands launches its Climate Action Accelerator Program.
If your firm took part in O’Dwyer’s 2024 Rankings, there’s still time for it to appear in the profile section of our big May Rankings Issue.
Crowe PR is forming a strategic alliance with brand consultancy Movetic... SKDK founding partner Bill Knapp is inducted into the Association of Political Consultants Hall of Fame... SixSpeed, an independent creative marketing agency, acquires KC Truth, a media and creative shop.
DiGennaro Communications forms a partnership with marketing industry veteran Jon Bond, who co-launched Kirshenbaum & Bond in 1987... Spread PR rebrands as Spread Communications... The Florida Public Relations Association recasts Annual Conference as the PR & Comms Summit... InChrist Communications, which serves faith-based groups, slates 'Edgy PR & The Power of New Media' panel discussion.
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Apr. 14, 2021, by Joe Honick
Having stood as a young man among the massive crowd in DC to hear Martin Luther King's powerful Dream Speech, I have been involved in Civil Rights ever since. The APCO and other kinds of efforts are exemplary if late in the game. Also, late in the game is any suggestion that the damages to small businesses, like my father's the night Dr King's assassination, would find their own justice. My father's place was burned to the ground by rioters. The building no longer exists.
An able and articulate Floyd Family attorney asked by Wolf Blitzer about the effect of angry crowd damage to businesses, responded sincerely that they have insurance to cover the problems. One of Dr. King's most powerful warnings to the audience that fateful day was not to do in anger to others what had made that day necessary. The attorney, while obviously sincere, was wrong, and Blitzer let it go.
Good people in communities and professionals in public relations have a duty to see that justice is also claimed for these mostly small business operations who were and remain innocent bystanders and often employers of those understandably upset but causing the loss of family livelihoods.