2011 Stars of PR Hall of Fame Magazine

2011 BULLDOG STARS OF PR AWARDS

HALL FAMEOFBEST OF THE BEST

COMMUNICATIONS PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEARKen MakovskyCEO, Makovsky + Company2011 Gold Award winner: Agency Professional of the Year and PR Blogger of the YearMakovsky + Company also won Gold as Best Midsize Agency of the Year($10 million - $20 million)

COMMUNICATIONS AGENCY OF THE YEARWaggener Edstrom Worldwide2011 Gold Award winner: Technology Agency of the Year, Large Agency of the Year and Digital Agency of the Year

Above, clockwise: Waggener Edstrom’s Portland office staff, Founder & CEO, Melissa Waggener Zorkin and Founder &President, Microsoft Account Worldwide, Pam Edstrom

NOVEMBER, 2011

READ ABOUT ALL 54 WINNERS INSIDE!

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2011 Bulldog Reporter Stars of PR Awards

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We thank this year’s team of Bulldog Awards journalist judges for their hard work, discriminating taste and commitment to promoting

excellence in media relations and publicity.

FINAL JUDGES

Evan Cooper, Senior Managing Editor/Online Editorial Director, InvestmentNews

Chris Elliot, Travel Scribe, The New York Times

Tom Hallman, Pulitzer Prize Winning Reporter, The Oregonian

Maria Stainer, Assistant Managing Editor, The Washington Times

Meghan Collins-Sullivan, Home Page Editor, The Washington Post online

PRELIMINARY JUDGES

Richard Carufel, Senior Editor, Bulldog Reporter’s Daily ‘Dog

Meghan Collins-Sullivan, Home Page Editor, The Washinton Post online

Kristin Bender, Reporter, Oakland Tribune

Paul Rosynsky, Reporter, Oakland Tribune

124 Linden Street, Oakland, CA 94607www.bulldogreporter.com1-800-959-1059

For more information about the Bulldog Reporter Stars of PR Awards, including entry deadlines, fees and submission requirements, please go to www.bulldogreporter.com.

© Copyright 2011, Infocom Group–publisher of the Daily ‘Dog, Inside Health Media, PR University, Media Pro and Media Pro Pitching Alerts.

Written by James Bucci

On the Cover: Grand Prize winner Communications Agency of the Year, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide and Grand Prize winner Communications Professional of the Year Ken Makovsky

2011 BULLDOG STARS OF PR AWARDS

HALL FAMEOFBEST OF THE BEST

COMMUNICATIONS PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEARKen MakovskyCEO, Makovsky + Company2011 Gold Award winner: Agency Professional of the Year and PR Blogger of the YearMakovsky + Company also won Gold as Best Midsize Agency of the Year($10 million - $20 million)

COMMUNICATIONS AGENCY OF THE YEARWaggener Edstrom Worldwide2011 Gold Award winner: Technology Agency of the Year, Large Agency of the Year and Digital Agency of the Year

Above, clockwise: Waggener Edstrom’s Portland office staff, Founder & CEO, Melissa Waggener Zorkin and Founder &President, Microsoft Account Worldwide, Pam Edstrom

NOVEMBER, 2011

READ ABOUT ALL 54 WINNERS INSIDE!

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HALL OF FAMESummary of Winning Campaigns from the 2011 Bulldog Stars of PR Awards for

Outstanding Achievment by Communications Agencies and Professionals

Winners of the 2011 Bulldog Stars of PR Awards for Outstanding Achievement by Communications Agencies

and Professionals enter a pantheon of exemplary communications practitioners, and their campaigns

summarized in this edition of The Bulldog Awards Stars of PR Hall of Fame magazine.

Winners were chosen exclusively by working journalists from hundreds of entries representing the very best

strategic and tactical prowess that PR/corporate communications has to offer. Campaigns were judged by a

team of working journalists, who assessed them on the basis of their ability to achieve extraordinary visibility

and influence opinion, as well as on their creativity, command of media and technology, and tenacity.

We now present to you,The 2011 Bulldog Reporter Stars of PR Winners


Agency Professional of the YearGoldAWARDED TOMakovsky + CompanyFORKenneth D. Makovsky Agency Professional of the Year

Ken Makovsky founded Makovsky + Company in mid-1979, borrowing money from family members to pay rent and purchase office equipment. He began with one client, billing $1,500 per month. By the end of the first year, annual billings were $100,000. At a time when generalists ruled the roost, Makovsky was among the first PR executives in America to recognize and act on the vision that specialized thinking would become increasingly important as busines grew more complex, and that focus would be the key to grasping and solving clients’ business challenges.

He initially focused on computer technology, then specializing in financial services and investor relations. Over the years, he added practices in new media and branding, professional services and health.

Makovsky + Company had a strong year in 2010, receiving a Silver Bulldog Reporter Award for “Midsize Agency of the Year,” while Makovsky received “PR Executive of the Year” honors from the American Business Awards. In addition, the firm picked up nearly 50 new clients, among them Merck, Credit Suisse, Itron and Cephalon.

The agency also posted revenues of $11,300,000 in 2010, leapfrogging to become the sixth largest agency in New York by the end of the year as measured by O’Dwyer’s Public Relations News. These results capped years of steady, managed growth—more than 133 percent since 2003.

Makovsky’s strategic balancing of the firm’s practice mix remains the hallmark of the agency’s continued success. The firm’s growth is due to diversity in selected vertical areas: Financial and Professional Services,

Investor Relations, Technology, Health and Branding and Interactive. In addition, Makovsky’s risk-balancing approach extends to his client roster—the firm’s 10 largest clients accounting for only half of the firm’s revenue. Makovsky also populates his staff with individuals with backgrounds in journalism, the capital markets, advertising, public policy as well as former attorneys.

Offering a resume with a long list of honors, Makovsky most recently received the John W. Hill Award—the PRSA-NY’s highest leadership accolade and selection for the PR News Hall of Fame. Makovsky + Company has been annually recognized, since 2004, as a “Best Agency to Work For.” Makovsky is also actively engaged in a broad canvass of public service and educational activities. For this work, he received the Stanley Isaacs Human Relations Award as “Person of the Year” by the American Jewish Committe, an international human rights organization.

Agency Professional of the YearSilverAWARDED TOJohn DeveneyDeveney CommunicationFORThe Communication Industry’s Superman

President and founder of Deveney Communication, John Deveney rescues brands, organizations and government offices during moments of crisis.

With more than 20 years of public relations experience, Deveney established his firm in the heart of New Orleans in 1996. Now in its 15th year, Deveney Communication specializes in strategic planning, crisis management, media training, community relations, Internet marketing and media relations for a host of nonprofit, healthcare and hospitality organizations.

Deveney gained international recognition for his crisis

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work as the first responders managing on-the-ground media relations after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, despite the grim conditions of the evacuated city. Deveney and his team orchestrated a proactive response to the influx of media that converged on the city by establishing the New Orleans Tourism Communication and Media Center, which became a safe haven for the journalists covering the devastation.

During the weeks that followed, the Deveney Communication team managed $406 million in media coverage. The media management earned Deveney his 12th International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) International Gold Quill—a feat only a handful of leaders in strategic communication have achieved.

Deveney also rescued and reshaped the public perception of the Pelican State after the BP oil spill, garnering more than $111 million in publicity and reaching more than 240 million potential Louisiana visitors, helping to preserve Louisiana’s $9.4 billion tourism industry despite all the powerful negative imagery in the media.

Deveney has authored and contributed to more than a dozen articles and chapters in trade, business, and other publications, sharing his experience and knowledge with colleagues, students and business leaders. His work has appeared in outlets, such as PRSA’s Tactics, IABC’s Communicaton World, and the Inside the Minds Book Series: Public Relations as a Branding Tool. A highly-sought after presenter within the public relations community, Deveney has spoken at more than 70 international coferences, organizations, universities and companies throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom and India.

Recently, he’s given his presentation “Changing the Tide of Tourism” at several speaking engagements to personally communicate the effects of the BP oil spill, and the future of the Gulf South and Louisiana.

New Orleans’ magazine Gambit Weekly named Deveney to “40 Under 40,” its select list of the region’s “finest and most accomplished citizens.” New Orleans CityBusiness included Deveney in its “Power Generation,” an independently selected class of the area’s “finest assets and brightest of the rising starts” based on professional and community leadership.

Under his leadership, Deveney Communication was recognized by the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce as Small Business of the Year in 2002. The Louisiana Department of Economic Development and the U.S. Small Business Administration also honored the firm locally and regionally as Small Business of the Year. Deveney Communication has been named among the region’s top 10 “Best Places To Work” by New Orleans CityBusiness from 2005 to 2009.

Agency Professional of the YearBronzeAWARDED TOMarian SalzmanEuro RSCG Worldwide PR

Named one of the world’s top five trend-spotters and currently PRWeek’s PR Professional of the Year, Euro RSCG Worldwide CEO Marian Salzman is credited with popularizing pop culture buzzwords from “singleton” to “metrosexual.”

In 2010, her first full year at the agency’s helm, Euro RSCG PR represented one of the most awarded agencies of its size with more than 30 honors. Included in the count was the 2011 Bronze SABRE award for Speech or Bylined Article that Salzman won for her four-part series on the brain that she wrote for The Huffington Post. Her successful year in 2010 included finalist selections for PR Agency Team Leader for the PR News PR People Awards and Lifetime Achievement and Service Executive of the Year for the Stevie Awards for Women in Business.


Boutique Agency of the Year (Specialty Practice)GoldAWARDED TOHellerman Baretz CommunicationsFORHBC: Counselors to the Counselors

Launched in 2002, Hellerman Baretz Communications is the vision of John Hellerman and Spencer Baretz, two individuals passionate about the law and media who had an idea for a boutique agency that would perform the highest-quality public relations work for the nation’s elite lawyers and firms.

In 2010, the agency had its best year yet, enlisting 11 full-time employees during the year and recognized as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the nation for the third straight year. In addition, from a groundbreaking social media campaign to an award-winning campaign on financial fraud, the agency took on projects that were more ambitious and had greater success than ever in 2010. The company is now recognized as the leading boutique PR firm in the legal industry.

Hellerman Baretz has attracted a number of blue-chip accounts that have remained with the agency on a long-term basis. The client roster includes a diverse group of some of the nation’s most highly respected law firms. These include Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, the law firm that handled both GM and Lehman Brothers bankruptcies, Mayer Brown LLP, the law firm that has argued more cases before the United States Supreme Court than any other firm, and Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, the law firm of America’s Mayor and former candidate for the U.S. Presidency, Rudy Giuliani.

In 2010, the agency retained all its longstanding clients, as well as specialized firms such as Ford & Harrison, a North Carolina-based firm that excels in the labor and employment area. The blog Hellerman Baretz conceived for Ford & Harrison, called “That’s What She Said,” was again named one of the top legal blogs

Salzman represented Wyclef Jean’s closest media and branding advisor during his run for the presidency of Haiti, while also bringing in new business during the year, such as Chiquita, the Clio Awards, Durex, Mary J. Blige’s philanthropic organization FFAWN, Ford Motor Company’s Warriors in Pink and GlaxoSmithKline’s respiratory portfolio (ADVAIR).

Prior to returning to Euro, Salzman was CMO at Porter Novelli, CMO at JWT Worldwide and CSO at Euro RSCG Worldwide. Her most famous consumer campaigns include the launch of the metrosexual to create a marketplace for SAB Miller’s Peroni, Pepsi’s “It’s Like This” and “It’s America Online.” She co-founded Cyberdialogue in 1992—the world’s first online market research company. She headed up the creation of Porter’s pop-up agency Jack + Bill, which in one year won top awards from PRWeek, SABRE and Bulldog Reporter.

Salzman also contributes regular trends columns to Forbes.com and CNBC.com, and has written for Adweek, PRWeek, PR News and Marketing Week (UK). She currently blogs at The Huffington Post, euroscgpr.com, eurorscgsocial.com and the Adweek-AOL collaboration “Fuel the Future.”

She is the author or co-author of 15 books on topics ranging from current affairs to the youth market to the commercial workplace. Most recent are Next Now: Trends for the Future and The Future of Men: The Rise of the Ubersexual and What He Means for Marketing Today. Her next book, Headstrong—set for publication in 2012—is about the brain and creativity and based on an award-winning series she penned for The Huffington Post.

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in the country by the ABA Law Journal in 2010. Using NBC’s “The Office” as a playful framework to discuss legal issues in the workplace, it attracts 20,000 hits per week.

Successes on behalf of its long-term clients have led to new and more challenging assignments, such as the task of nominating a confidential client to Fortune magazine’s “40 Under 40” list.

In 2010, the firm secured more honors that it ever had and was named one of the top PR boutiques in the nation by both PR Week and The Holmes Report. Inc.’s 2010 survey ranked Hellerman Baretz Communications as the 1,773rd fastest-growing company overall and the 174th fastest-growing advertising and marketing firm in the nation. Over the last three years, Hellerman Baretz has grown at a rate of 155%.

Boutique Agency of the Year (Specialty Practice)SilverAWARDED TOStrauss Radio Strategies

Since its inception in 1995, Strauss Radio Strategies, Inc. has made a specialty of connecting a wide variety of clients with the public through using the radio. Now in its 16th successful year of business, Strauss Radio Strategies has evolved and is widely recognized as the nation’s leading communications, public relations, consulting and strategy firm specializing in radio.

Over the years, the company has expanded to a diverse staff of 13 people working out of the firm’s headquarters in the National Press Building in Washington, D.C. as well as in satellite offices in New York and Los Angeles.

During its sixteen years of existence, Strauss Radio Strategies successfully served a diverse group of hundreds of clients from around the country. Strauss Radio Strategies works with all levels of the radio

medium, from small local radio stations to the largest national and international radio networks and syndicated programs.

Strauss Radio Strategies regularly works with specialty formats such as sports and business, and boasts a record of accomplishment with outreach to African-American and Spanish-language radio formats. A sampling of some of the more prominent African-American syndicated shows that Strauss Radio Strategies regularly works with includes, “The Tom Joyner Show,” “Steve Harvey Show,” “Russ Parr Show,” “Joe Madison Show” and “Bev Smith Show.”

Radio is the company’s only business. Much of the company’s staff is drawn from within the industry. Company founder and president Richard Strauss had a career in radio before being named the first-ever White House Radio Director under President Bill Clinton. In addition, managing director John Irving worked for more than 40 years as a radio reporter, news director, talk show host, and top executive for a national radio network.

The company boasts three bi-lingual Spanish speakers, a strategic hiring decision made by management to help service the growing Spanish-language needs of clients. The company also maintains a robust and active internship program, offering college students the unique opportunity to learn in an open “hands-on” environment the skills to help them grow professionally and allow them to become more successful in future internships and job opportunities.

Despite the challenges of a still weak and shaky economy, Strauss Radio Strategies continued to grow during 2010, winning business from new clients, expanding business relationships with existing clients and carried out 159 separate radio outreach projects on behalf of 40 different clients. The company also expanded in size, establishing a West Coast presence by opening a new office in Los Angeles to serve a growing client base across the country. Client wins and


retention allowed Strauss Radio Strategies to secure $1.4 million in 2010 company revenues, representing a 15% increase in company profitability from 2009.

Boutique Agency of the Year (Specialty Practice)BronzeAWARDED TOFUSE

An action sports and youth marketing agency, Fuse specializes in helping clients connect with teens and young adults through sports, music, fashion, gaming and other interests. Current Fuse clients include Gatorade, Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), Madison Square Garden, Mountain Dew, Delorean, MATADOR by Jack Link’s, Mastercraft and General Mills.

In 2011, Fuse received honors as one of the Best Places to Work in Vermont and was named to the PR Week Agency Ranking list. In 2009 and 2010, Fuse was named to Inc. Magazine’s “Inc. 5000” list, Promo Magazine’s Top Agency List and Sports Business Journal’s Top 20 Agency List. In 2010, agency income increased by 7% over 2009, continuing a trend of near double-digit growth during each of the last five years.

Fuse’s office structure reflects its action sports and youth culture niche. Staff members value the agency’s rich health benefits, laid-back, creative and dog-friendly workplace, as well as benefits like half-day summer Fridays, fitness reimbursements, onsite recreation space featuring a skateboard ramp and basketball court, a season pass to Stowe Mountain Resort and “snow policy,” which allows employees to get first tracks after a big snowfall. Each year, Fuse recognizes and celebrates employees with five years at the agency. The recognition includes stories of the employees’ greatest successes as well as funny anecdotes and client accolades. Award recipients receive a special gift specifically selected to match their interests.

An agency highlight for 2010 was its work with

Gatorade to deepen a connection with the action sports consumer. Gatorade’s overall action sports campaign for 2010 held the name “Go All Day,” which resonated with the target 13-17 year-old BMX, surfing, skateboarding and snowboarding enthusiasts, as it allows participants to ride and skate all day.

To communicate that Gatorade helps fuel action sports participants to “go all day,” it was essential to generate deep, targeted media coverage. In order to garner such coverage, the media needed to engage with the “All Day” messaging. To accomplish this, Fuse created “Gatorade Go All Day Sessions,” a series of three media trips that provided editors and Gatorade athletes with unique experiences together in remote locations, such as Tokyo, British Columbia and the Cayman Islands.

Media and the athletes were accompanies by a sports scientist from the Gatorade Sports Science Institute on each of the trips, and did daily sports testing that provided media with data not only relevant to a professional athlete, but to themselves—the avid, advanced, amateur participant.

On each of the trips, media and the athletes did daily testing that involved urine analysis, cognitive and physical assessments and data tracking from a heart rate monitor and GPS watch that measured distance traveled, speed and more.

The messaging by Gatorade about efficacy and hydration became real through tangible, quantifiable data, which provided media with dynamic content to cover, that satisfied Gatorade’s objective. Media and athletes learned hands-on about the effects that riding all day in the backcountry, skating all day in over 100-degree heat or navigating one’s way through Tokyo on a BMX bike, can have on the body.

All of the media trips resulted in highly targeted, deep quality coverage in top lifestyle and endemic publications timed to hit with the release of the “Go All Day” action sports advertising campaigns. The return

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on investment of the “Go All Day Sessions” was five times the cost of the program investment, making it a huge success.

Corporate Communications Professional of the YearGoldAWARDED TOJohn Forrest Ales, Director- Global Brand Public RelationsWITHHilton Hotels & Resorts

As director of global brand public relations for Hilton Hotels & Resorts, John Forrest Ales oversees the reputation of the brand and its more than 540 properties in 76 countries. He also executes media and community relations, supports brand marketing objectives and creates resources for hotels to excel in local markets.

His reboot of the brand’s relationship with the press resulted in a 38 percent increase in circulation values for Hilton just six months after his appointment. Vocus data showed this new approach helped Hilton reach a circulation of 5.8 billion people in 2010.

The global launch of eforea: spa at Hilton, the brand’s first branded spa concept, received more than 14 million impressions under Ales’ leadership and is now one of the world’s fastest growing spas — all without a dollar spent on advertising or other marketing.

Ales is also responsible for launching new PR tools and strategies. He created the Hilton Global Media Center (HGMC), a dynamic platform for telling the Hilton story. An online tool for new and traditional media, the award-winning site is designed to act global, but “speak local,” while extending “PR hospitality.” It houses Blog@Hilton, a blogger-engagement campaign Ales initiated.

Ales introduced Hilton to social meda through a strategy

of engaging influencers, conversing with properties, listening to consumers and broadcasting compelling content. Today, #HiltonOnline, the official Twitter handle, ranks as the eighth most valuable hospitality handle on Twitter, while Hilton is the most-liked global hotelier on Facebook.

A regular participant in various PR roundtable and best practice sharing, Ales was a featured panalist for a discussion of ways travel bloggers can connect with big brands during BlogWorld 2010. In Q1 2011, he mentored an advanced PR class at American University during a semester-long project involving Hilton Resorts, giving students real-life experience and an intimate look at consumer PR.

Corporate Communications Professional of the YearSilverAWARDED TOMonica Teague, Whirlpool CorporationFORCorporate Communications Professional of the Year: Monica Teague

The senior manager for PR & Brand Experience, Monica Teague leads strategy and execution for Whirlpool Corporation’s brand portfolio, which includes Whirlpool, Maytag, Amana and Gladiator GarageWorks, as well as water filtration and Affresh products. Teague also serves as the face of the mass brands with the media and acts as the communications liaison for the entire portfolio of brands, which also includes KitchenAid and Jenn-Air.

Teague’s ability to lead strategic PR and experiential initiatives that drive both brand and corporate awareness has led to a consistent stream of positive coverage during years when most major brands saw their national marketing budgets slashed. Today, Whirlpool Corporation’s portfolio of brands leads the industry in traditional (47%) and social media (49%) share of voice.


Tapped for her current role after two years as manager of corporate media relations at Whirlpool and 17 years producing television, including work for “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” Teague helps influence overall brand positioning and go-to market strategies as part of a team of marketing professionals across the Whirlpool mass brand portfolio.

Since moving into her current role, Teague has led many succcessful product and brand experience initiatives, including developing Whirlpool Corporation’s crisis communications protocol, which has been used to manage and mitigate negative media coverage during recalls. For example, during a May 2011 recall, more than 700 articles with an estimated reach of more than 300 million were generated on the first day following the announcement. The majority of those stories were neutral and focused on factual information, including options for repair or replacement and stressing the fact that the recall was voluntary.

Teague also created and implemented a process to identify products and stories that drive national media coverage. She developed the launch strategy for the new Whirlpool Vantage laundry pair, which offers the industry’s only USB port for future upgrades. The launch strategy yielded more than 400 media placements, reaching a combined audience of more than 150 million as of December 2010, with highlights including coverage in The Wall Street Journal, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Elle Decor, Good Housekeeping, Consumer Reports and PR Week. Her quality-over-quantity approach regarding media placements led to more than five feature placements in The Wall Street Journal’s “Personal Journal,” as well as coverage outside traditional publications expected for major appliance brands, including Elle Decor and Popular Science.

Crisis Management Professional of the YearGoldAWARDED TOJohn DeveneyDeveney CommunicationFORCrisis is John Deveney’s Middle Name

John Deveney, president of Deveney Communication, specializes in crisis communication—the cornerstone he founded his company on 15 years ago.

Deveney is responsible for developing several respected processes in crisis planning. His COMPASS (Communication, Planning, Analysis + Strategy = Solutions) System maximizes the strategic analysis and planning effort to provide each crisis situation with a customized foundation for success.

Another of Deveney’s developed crisis response tools is the TARPD (team identify/train, assess short/long-term ramifications, respond quickly and honestly, provide guidence to constituents, direct media requestions) System, a completely customized and immersize response to any crisis situation.

Deveney’s primary policy for directing communications during a crisis is the Kx4 method: Quick, Credible, Context and Consistent. In an effort to handle crisis situations head on, the four “K’s” were identified as the best elements for a response in the event of a crisis. They have become the four pillars on which Deveney Communication’s crisis strategy stands.

Every Deveney crisis plan is a unique response, tailored to the direct needs of the client as well as the specific factors in each unique scenario. Perhaps the most exceptional crisis work Deveney and his team have accomplished this year revolves around the BP oil spill.

An Oxford Economics study projected the spill could cost the Gulf Coast $22.7 billion in tourism revenue over the next three years. The study suggested an

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aggressive, comprehensive communications response could reduce the economic impact by $7.5 billion.

The Louisiana Office of Tourism (LOT) commissioned Deveney Communication to manage the crisis for the state.

Deveney’s strategy placed letters to the editor to The New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today. The extensive media work garnered more than $111 million in publicity value and reached more than 240 million viewers, securing coverage in all target outlets, including The New York Times, NPR, AOL News, ABC News, CBS Sports, BBC and CNN.

Deveney crafted a comprehensive presentation called “Changing Tide of Tourism” that outlined not only his wealth of knowledge concerning crisis communication and best practices, but also evaluated BP’s communication efforts and the impact on Louisiana’s tourism industry. Delivering this presentation at several speaking engagements offered Deveney the opportunity to personally communicate the effects of the oil spill and the future of the Gulf South and Louisiana.

The comprehensive response efforts mitigated the economic impact in Louisiana and corrected misperceptions nationwide. According to the latest research released in April 2011, perceptions regarding the length of time Louisiana will be affected by the oil spill have shortened significantly. Louisiana tourism numbers are on the rise and are projected to surpass pre-Katrina numbers in both number of visitors and visitor spending by 2013.

The Louisiana Office of Tourism nominated Deveney and his team for the prestigious Louey Award, which the Louisiana Travel Promotion Association (LTPA) gives exclusively to tourism businesses, events and professionals whose efforts advanced the state’s tourism industry.

Crisis Management Professional of the YearSilverAWARDED TOCarreen WintersMWW Group

In her 20-year tenure with MWW Group, Carreen Winters has worked in every major practice area, specializing in corporate communications for the last 15 years. This diverse experience helped formulate the agency’s Total Stakeholder Approach to communications and enabled her to lead integrated programs for clients, including Oxford Health Plans, Contenental Airlines and Bally Total Fitness.

Winters is adept at formulating communications strategies for completx, multi-stakeholder situations. Her multi-channel and multi-discipline approach to crisis management merges her strengths in brand and reputation management, internal communications and public affairs to customize programs that address the needs of all stakeholders.

One of the first crisis communcations practitioners to use dark websites, blog strategies and technology-based plan maintenance in managing crises, Winters has also created other innovative training techniques, such as real-world simulation exercises and ambush media training, to ensure that her clients have a clear chain of command and a shared vision for their response and that they succeed.

Her “Return on Reputation” blog covers developments in corporate communications and reputation. The discussion ranges from corporate issues to politics to pop culture and lifestyle.

Winters currently works in an “on call” capacity with JetBlue Airlines to refine and enhance its preparedness and crisis communications plans in the event of an emergency and help the airline evolve its crisis response strategy to account for social and digital media engagement. She serves as a key member of the


Go Team—the team deployed to the site of an accident to support on-the-ground efforts.

Named in NJ Biz’s “40 Under Forty” for her expertise in restructing communications, Winters is a frequent speaker and commentator on crisis communications, employee engagement and reputation management.

Winters’ judgement and innovative thinking represent the core of MWW Group’s crisis communications practice. Often, Winters makes the decision to wait a situation out rather than over-communicate, while at the same time gathering resources and a rapid response action plan in the event that a situation escalates.

Digital Agency of the YearGoldAWARDED TOWaggener Edstrom Worldwide

Since its founding in 1983, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (WE) has been on the front lines of communicating innovation. The agency recognized the opportunity around digital influence, successfully monitoring, measuring and quantifying the value of influence for their clients for years — and winning awards and recognition for the efforts along the way.

From in-house creative, ideation and experience design services to cutting-edge programs, Waggener Edstrom invests in ideas, instruments and expertise that solve clients’ problems.

This past year, the agency expanded its product arsenal with the release of new tools to help clients coordinate, navigate and measure their social media efforts. New tools included WE twendz pro, created to provide proprietary influence ranking and insightful analytics to help brands engage with people who matter most. The Twitter monitoring platform locates a

brand’s influencers, gauges tweet emotion, analyzes trends, tracks conversations and measures campaign outcomes.

News Stream is a methdology that helps companies develop, publish and distribute content and messaging. Because it is digital, News Stream content is scalable and measurable. By synthesizing content managment, News Stream helps brands tell a broader story about their organizations.

Ripple Effect shows which top influencers have the biggest, most positive and longest-lasting impact on a specific campaign. Building off its Integrated Influence approach, the tool shows how key influencers amplify their messages through digital media channels.

Waggener Edstrom also built its first application, Hot Spots, to showcase how the firm can make digital influence a marketable, meaningful and enlightening experience. The results of launching Hot Spots were more than 4,000 downloads, a significant spike in its own website traffic and more than $3,000 raised for charity—all while engaging in actionable conversations about digital work.

The firm continues to deliver for their clients—which include Microsoft, Shire, T-Mobile, Environmental Defense Fund, Columbia Sportswear and Pirelli—driving strategy and results in digital marketing, website design and development, strategy and execution to engage social media audiences, and monitoring and measurement.

This past March, WE joined the annual South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas as a first-time attendee and event host. The festival attracts the brightest minds in emerging technology, and everyone attends to find out about the very latest in new ideas.

To break through the competition, Waggener Edstrom implemented a phased outreach plan to connect with multiple audiences. At the core of the outreach was Hot

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Spots: The Heat Map of Main Events.

With hundreds of parties happening in Austin each night, attendees were challenged with how to best spend their time. Every night, attendees went through the push-and-pull of where to go. To help with this exhausting barrage of conundrums, the firm put analytics behind the party hopping.

Using Foursquare data, WE designed, developed and launched the Hot Spots app, which enabled attendees to see a real-time heat map of the festival’s most-attended events as soon as they arrived in Austin. With the guesswork gone, attendees could beeline to what was legitimately the town’s hottest party. With more than 4,000 downloads by the night of WE’s own hot event, one in five people at the festival had downloaded and used the app.

In 2010, the firm also won 60 new clients, including Toshiba America Info Systems, Kingston Technology, and Brookfield Properties.

Digital Agency of the YearSilverAWARDED TOMWW Group

MWW Group won Midsize Agency of the Year honors in 2011 by the Holmes Report and 2010 Digital Firm and Team of the Year by PRNews. A host of new 2010 clients includes Heathway’s, Altec Lansing LLC, Travel Zoo, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Services, MovieTickets.com, Marcum LLP, Market America, United States Bowling Congress, Next Day Blinds, Copart, Inc., MDE Group, Inc., Psomas FMG, i3 Group, LTD, alliantgroup, L.P., Healthcare Insight, Pathstone Family Office and Young Audiences.

The firm also expanded its relationship with the 1800Flowers company to become agency of record for three of its subsidiaries. Other new clients include The

Popcorn Factory, Cheryl’s, and Fannie May Chocolatier.

Dialogue Digital is the company’s award winning, wholly owned digital marketing and social media group and visual branding practice. MWW Group was among the first public relations agencies to establish a formal digital media practice. In 2009-2010, Dialogue Digital created and launched three digital initiatives: MWW Pulse, a panel of online thought leaders elevating the online conversation and shedding relevant industry insights; D.Advocacy, the industry’s first social media platform for public affairs and government relations; and M.Insight, the first mobile application for PR, marketing and advertising professionals.

In 2011, MWW Group announced that Jared Hendler would join the firm as executive vice president, global director of digital and creative services. Hendler brings more than twenty years of creative management experience to MWW Group, including senior posts at Edelman and Katalyst, as well as management experience as the founder of two new media start-ups. Hendler frequently serves as a speaker at top industry conferences such as Adtech, Digital Hollywood, Adage, Digital 2.0, and was a SAIC Government Digital Media Conference Advisor. The firm also added seven key digital hires in recent months, demonstrating a continued investment in its rapidly growing Dialogue Digital practice.

MWW Group’s Dialogue Digital practice had a wealth of top campaigns in 2010, including partnering with Volkswagen to launch the 2010 GTI, executing campaigns for Sara Lee, Nikon and the 2010 Celebrity Bowling Hall of Fame.


Digital Communications Professional of the YearGoldAWARDED TOVijay ChatthaVSCpr

The CEO of VSCpr, Vijay Chattha at the age of 25 founded the agency, which focuses on mobile, gaming, social entertainment, retail and advertising technology. Chattha turned his one-man shop into an agency with a global presence, including offices in San Francisco, New York, London and Mumbai.

VSCpr helps small companies to become big, and big companies to act small, helping technology startups from inception to exit. The majority of VSCpr clients have minimal brand awareness prior to engagement and spend next to nothing on traditional advertising.

A leading PR voice in the mobile, social games and location-based technology world, Chattha has helped to shape the narrative of these markets, including the first mobile marketing M&A of ipsh! By Omnicom in 2005 to the acquisition of Greystripe for $70 million by ValueClick.

Chattha has led PR programs for over 50 startups, leading to a combined $4.7 billion USD exits to the likes of Google, eBay, Omnicom, Nokia, ValueClick and GREE Inc. In 2008, Chattha founded the first PR agency for apps called AppLaunchPR, focused on driving discovery of smartphone apps and within six months, established what has become a multi-million dollar business. In addition, he has led VSCpr with consistent revenue growth of 20% annually since its founding in 2002. The agency even grew revenue during the 2008 economic downturn.

He has made his industry contributions within the fields of his clients, including speaking on industry trends at CTIA, SXSW, DiscoveryBeat and The Entrepreneurs Organization, and as the first PR executive invited to the “Davos Meets Burning Man” event Summit Series.

He may not be attending many PR industry events, but Chattha is often the only PR voice at many mobile, gaming, advertising and retail thought leadership events, which is the core to his networking strategy. His insights are featured in the The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Venturebeat, and a variety of industry publications.

At 34, Chattha runs a multi-location, multi-million dollar practice, celebrating its nine-year anniversary in 2011. He is one of the few examples of a minority CEO running a mainstream PR practice. While many minority PR CEOs run multicultural agencies, few of these minorities run PR agencies that target the mainstream consumer and mainstream influencer. He also fosters a diverse environment within VSCpr that includes South Asian American, Asian American and Latino American PR professionals.

Chattha is the only Indian American CEO and founder to lead a standalone PR agency in the U.S. with annual revenue over seven figures.

Digital Communications Professional of the YearSilverAWARDED TOJason SteinbergMSL Group

A senior vice president, Jason Steinberg directs digital strategy for MSL Group’s midwest region in Chicago. He has 13 years of experience in social media, digital paid media, search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO) and emerging technologies. Steinberg currently manages digital strategy for industry-leading clients such as General Motors, Owens Corning, Easton-Bell Sports (Riddell) and Masco Corporation (Delta Faucet Company and Verve Living Systems).

Prior to joining MSL Chicago in April 2010, Steinberg served as a digital media director at Spark

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Communications, leading notable digital accounts for T.G.I. Friday’s, E*TRADE, Suzuki and Purina. He took home the 2010 Webby People’s Voice Award for his T.G.I. Friday’s “Call Woody” campaign.

Since joining MSL Chicago, Steinberg has focused on developing innovative digital strategies and introducing clients and employees to new online technologies. His efforts have helped the office drive 22 percent growth, while almost every new client incorporates digital work into its larger PR planning.

In addition to his client work and new business developement project, he has placed a priority on training colleagues in the office on the latest digital trends. Steinberg is also active in the Chicago social media community, speaking at events for the local Social Media Club chapter and university events.

Prior to landing at MSL Group’s Chicago office, Steinberg served a variety of roles in the digital sector, including a position at Warner Bros., overseeing the conception, implementation and management of digital marketing for Warner Bros. Theatrical, Warner Bros. Independent and DC Comics. At Warner Bros., he launched some of the most well-known sites in film, earning distinctions such as an Interactive Media Award, Adobe Site of the Day, WebAward and an Webby Official Honoree award for “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” “Happy Feet” and “The Science of Sleep.”

Global Agency of the Year (Multinational Practice)GoldAWARDED TOWeber ShandwickFORWeber Shandwick - Advocacy Starts Here

In 2010, Weber Shandwick focused on what really matters—clients, service excellence, innovation, its employees and great work. New business and expanding work with existing clients drove year-over-year growth of nearly 10 percent. The agency experienced particularly strong growth in consumer marketing, technology and healthcare practices. Digital and social media projects fueled growth across virtually all practices and regions, while also achieving significant growth in their San Francisco/Sunnyvale and Dallas offices.

Weber Shandwick won PR News’ “Digital Firm of the Year,” and Mashable.com named the agency one of the “Top 4 Employers for Social Media Professionals.” In addition, in 2010, The Holmes Report named Weber Shandwick “Global Agency of the Year” for the second year in a row, while Advertising Age named the firm “Agency of the Decade.”

The firm continued to work for approximately 58% of the Fortune 50 companies. Out of their top 100 clients worldwide, client retention rate amounted to 90%.

Weber Shandwick works with many long-term, blue-chip clients on some of the most inventive and iconic social campaigns, including devising programs for PepsiCo in 2009, the U.S. Army in 2006, GM in 1999 and American Airlines in 1986.

New clients during the year include parternships with L.L. Bean, RAL, Beech Nut, EDF, GSMA, Excedrin, IEEE, Suntech, Fido Pharm, Motorola, USAID and HotFrog. The firm also grew existing accounts to span new domestic and international markets and sectors, as well as new assignments, including Amazon, Genetech,


Nespresso, Lily, GM, ExxonMobil, Juniper Networks, Bank of America, Verizon, PepsiCo, Electrolux, Celgene, HP, United States Federal Reserve, Siemens, Microsoft, Bausch & Lomb, MasterCard and Unilever.

Global Agency of the Year (Multinational Practice)SilverAWARDED TOOgilvy Public Relations WorldwideFOROgilvy PR Celebrates 30 Years of Growth, Service and Success

Ogilvy PR is a global, integrated communications firm, specializing in social marketing, public affairs, healthcare, consumer marketing, corporate, technology and digital influence. Additional capabilities include: Ogilvy Health, which handles health policy; Ogilvy Earth, which covers sustainabiliy, government relations, biotechnology, cause marketing, issues and crisis management, investor relations, internal communications, branding and research; and Ogilvy Noor, the first Muslim marketing program.

The firm offers 85 offices in 50 countries, including newcomer Melbourne, which span all regions and practices. In Asia Pacific, Ogilvy PR has been the largest, most award-winning network for 15 years. Over the past year, Ogilvy worked for 17 of the top 20 Asian brands and retained 100% of its top 50 clients.

Most of Ogilvy PR’s major clients have been with the agency long-term, spanning five to 30 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Society of American Florists have been Ogilvy clients since the 1980s. Work with the American Chemistry Council, the American Forrest and Paper Association, Merck, National Institutes of Health, Novartis and Pfizer dates back to the 1990s. Clients Ogilvy PR has worked with since the 2000s include UPS, Intel, LG and Microsoft.

Last year, 100% of Ogilvy PR’s top 20 clients in size stayed with the agency. More than 75% of the 500 clients polled in its 2010 annual client survey said the Ogilvy PR experience was superior to other agencies and would recommend Ogilvy PR to others.

Serving more than half the Fortune 500 top 50, with more multi-office wins than ever, Ogilvy PR is the most global of the international PR firms. Clients such as Ford, LG, DuPont, Intel, Nestle, Pfizer, Bayer and other span three or more regions. Ogilvy PR’s multi-office client base grew by more than 15%.

Notable achievements in 2010 included “Powerful Storytelling,” a day-long workshop for clients and Ogilvy employees created by CEO Christopher Graves. Recognizing the potential of the Muslim consumer sector, worth $2.1 trillion and growing at $500 billion annually, Ogilvy launched Ogilvy Noor, the world’s first Islamic branding practice. Ogilvy also launched Ogilvy China, understanding the growing need for communications services by China-based companies and public sector institutions as they move into international markets, and for companies seeking to expand into China. Responding to increasing client demands for public affairs and government relations strategies, they created The Ogilvy Exchange.

In 2010, Ogilvy earned numerous awards across its global network including six Cannes PR Lions Awards, 14 Campaign Asia PR Awards, seven TIVA Peer Awards, three PRWeek Awards, eight APRA Czech PR Awards, three IABC Crystal Awards and many more. In 2011, Ogilvy has already earned awards for Greater China Consultancy of the Year by The Holmes Report, Digital Consultancy of the Year (Asia Pacific) by The Holmes Report, two Gold SABRE Awards for Ford Explorer and Virgin America, Silver New Media Award for Deutsche Bahn and International Gold Quill Award for the Organ and Tissue Authority.

Ogilvy PR earned a PR News “Best Companies to Work For” award in 2010 and boasts an above-average 89% retention rate.

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Healthcare Agency of the YearGoldAWARDED TODonna T. PepeFORCommunications Strategies, Inc.

Since 1993, Communications Strategies, Inc. has created meaningful change that sparks market shifts, drives market share, raises awareness, changes consumer mindsets and influences the influencers. The firm works in many categories, including oncology, respiratory, allergy, asthma, cardiovascular, dermatology and cosmeceuticals, infectious diseases, CNS disorders, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, women’s reproductive health products from contraceptives to anti-fungals, HT, Osteoporosis and IVF. The agency’s mission is to help clients identify and take advantage of opportunities for success and help turn brands into household names.

As the head of CSI, Donna T. Pepe brings together healthcare professionals, advocates, media, influential bloggers and others—all in support of women’s health. She is an entrepreneur and business leader committed to making a difference for women and changing assumptions about how marketers view women.

Recently, on behalf of client Teva Women’s Health, Inc., CSI spearheaded advocacy support and communications around the FDA approval of Plan B, the first emergency contraception pill approved in the United States, as well as the groundbreaking ruling to allow women 17 and older to purchase Plan B without a prescription.

The firm’s clients, both large and small, are attracted to CSI primarily because of its vast experience in the healthcare arena, success in the social media arena and Pepe’s unique passion and understanding of women’s health and its evolvement in the past thirty years. CSI’s mix of clients includes Teva Women’s Health (formerly Duramed/Barr), with whom they’ve

worked with for over seven years on groundbreaking and sometimes controversial products, such as Seasonique, Plan B One-Step and ParaGard. ForTeva Corporate, they provided strategic counseling related to a host of issues and crisis management, and conducted a steady stream of pharmacy and medical advisory boards, including the long-standing Women’s Health Education Counsel, an annual gathering of thought leaders in women’s health.

CSI’s work in women’s health resulted in the introduction of revolutionary new products for women to the marketplace and greater public awareness of women’s reproductive health and well-being.

In 2010, the firm received a number of significant accomplishments and awarded several honors including MM&M Gold Award for “Best Use of Public Relations” and PRSA New Jersey Chapter Pyramid Awards. This year, the company ranked as the 12th largest independent healthcare PR agency in the United States and the first in New Jersey byO’Dwyer’s PR Daily. Additionally, Pepe received the Garden State’s “Woman of the Year” honors in Media and Communications.

Healthcare Agency of the YearSilverAWARDED TORevive

Revive specializes in health services and living, developing a strong reputation for its work in crisis communications, mergers and acquisitions, contracting pay disputes, union issues, and reputation management issues. The firm’s clients include major hospitals and healthcare systems, academic medical centers, physician organizations, healthcare industry associations, healthcare information technology and health & wellness companies.

Founded in 2009 by Brandon Edwards and Joanne


Thornton, Revive has 17 professionals on staff with offices in Santa Barbara, California and Nashville, Tennessee. The firm has quickly grown to become one of the 15 largest healthcare PR firms in the country, as ranked by O’Dwyer’s.

The Revive growth strategy begins with a bigger presence in the healthcare provider segment, handling a broad range of issues for the current client base and creating “Agency-of-Record” relationships. Revive will then expand its footprint into other segments of Health Services, first through issues management work and then more broadly in marketing communications engagements and Agency-of-Record relationships. The firm’s existing national clients base and strong referral channels among past clients, healthcare attorneys, strategy consultants, and state hospital associations fuel strategy.

Revive helps hospitals and health systems relate to stakeholders as customers and not just patients. To construct the most effective messages, the firm employs “Exclusive Interviews,” which are anonymous, person-to-person interviews with a representative sample from each of the major audiences that may need to be influenced by PR efforts. The interviews provide qualitative input that delves beneath the surface in order to tap into the community pulse on important healthcare issues with target audiences. The results provide additional ideas on messages, working and positioning to influence public opinion on reputation, health insurance issues, and possible contract issues.

In its first 20 months in business, Revive received numerous accolades for its work. In 2010, The Holmes Report named Revive “New Agency of the Year,” while more recently O’Dwyer’s named the firm the fastest-growing PR agency in the country and among the top 15 healthcare PR firms in the nation based on revenue. In April, The Holmes Report named Revive the “Best Boutique Agency to Work For” and in March, the Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing Association

of Southern California (HPRMA) recognized Revive with Gold and Silver awards for its community relations and crisis communications campaign work.

Also in March, Revive received recognition from The Holmes Report with nominations for its annual SABRE Awards that honor exceptional campaign work. Revive is also a finalist for a Gold and a Silver SABRE award in the categories of Issues Management and Healthcare Providers, respectively, and garnered two Certificates of Excellence in the categories of PR Agency Marketing for its 2010 National Payer Survey and in the category of Research and Writing.

Since launching in 2009, Revive beat performance expectations in every metric—financial, growth and recognition. In its first 12 months of operation, Revive exceeded its first year revenue goal by 62%. For 2010, actual revenues totaled $3,402,000 versus $2,100,000 projected.

Large Agency of the Year – $50,000,001 or greaterGoldAWARDED TOOgilvy Public Relations WorldwideFOROgilvy PR Celebrates 30 Years of Growth, Service and Success

Ogilvy PR is a global, integrated communications firm, specializing in social marketing, public affairs, healthcare, consumer marketing, corporate, technology and digital influence. Additional capabilities include: Ogilvy Health, which handles health policy; Ogilvy Earth, which covers sustainabiliy, government relations, biotechnology, cause marketing, issues and crisis management, investor relations, internal communications, branding and research; and Ogilvy Noor, the first Muslim marketing program.

The firm offers 85 offices in 50 countries, including

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newcomer Melbourne, which span all regions and practices. In Asia Pacific, Ogilvy PR has been the largest, most award-winning network for 15 years. Over the past year, Ogilvy worked for 17 of the top 20 Asian brands and retained 100% of its top 50 clients.

Most of Ogilvy PR’s major clients have been with the agency long-term, spanning five to 30 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Society of American Florists have been Ogilvy clients since the 1980s. Work with the American Chemistry Council, the American Forrest and Paper Association, Merck, National Institutes of Health, Novartis and Pfizer dates back to the 1990s. Clients Ogilvy PR has worked with since the 2000s include UPS, Intel, LG and Microsoft.

Last year, 100% of Ogilvy PR’s top 20 clients in size stayed with the agency. More than 75% of the 500 clients polled in its 2010 annual client survey said the Ogilvy PR experience was superior to other agencies and would recommend Ogilvy PR to others.

Serving more than half the Fortune 500 top 50, with more multi-office wins than ever, Ogilvy PR is the most global of the international PR firms. Clients such as Ford, LG, DuPont, Intel, Nestle, Pfizer, Bayer and other span three or more regions. Ogilvy PR’s multi-office client base grew by more than 15%.

Notable achievements in 2010 included “Powerful Storytelling,” a daylong workshop for clients and Ogilvy employees created by CEO Christopher Graves. Recognizing the potential of the Muslin consumer sector, worth $2.1 trillion and growing at $500 billion annually, Ogilvy launched Ogilvy Noor, the world’s first bespoke Islamic branding practice. Ogilvy also launched Ogilvy China, understanding the growing need for communications services by China-based companies and public sector institutions as they move into international markets, and for companies seeking to expand into China. Responding to increasing client demands for public affairs and government relations

strategies, they created The Ogilvy Exchange.

In 2010, Ogilvy earned numerous awards across its global network including six Cannes PR Lions Awards, 14 Campaign Asia PR Awards, seven TIVA Peer Awards, three PRWeek Awards, eight APRA Czech PR Awards, three IABC Crystal Awards and many more. In 2011, Ogilvy has already earned awards for Greater China Consultancy of the Year by The Holmes Report, Digital Consultancy of the Year (Asia Pacific) by The Holmes Report, two Gold SABRE Awards for Ford Explorer and Virgin America, Silver New Media Award for Deutsche Bahn and International Gold Quill Award for the Organ and Tissue Authority.

Ogilvy PR earned a “2010 PRNews Best Companies to Work For” award in 2010 and offers an above-average 89% retention rate.

Large Agency of the Year – $50,000,001 or greaterGoldAWARDED TOWaggener Edstrom Worldwide

Since its founding in 1983, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (WE) has been on the front lines of communicating innovation. The agency recognized the opportunity around digital influence, successfully monitoring, measuring and quantifying the value of influence for their clients for years — and winning awards and recognition for the efforts along the way.

From in-house creative, ideation and experience design services to cutting-edge programs, Waggener Edstrom invests in ideas, instruments and expertise that solve clients’ problems.

This past year, the agency expanded its product arsenal with the release of new tools to help clients coordinate, navigate and measure their social media efforts. New tools included WE twendz pro, created to provide proprietary influence ranking and insightful


analytics to help brands engage with people who matter most. The Twitter monitoring platform locates a brand’s influencers, gauges tweet emotion, analyzes trends, tracks conversations and measures campaign outcomes.

News Stream is a methodology that helps companies develop, publish and distribute content and messaging. Because it is digital, News Stream content is scalable and measurable. By synthesizing content management, News Stream helps brands tell a broader story about their organizations.

Ripple Effect shows which top influencers have the biggest, most positive and longest-lasting impact on a specific campaign. Building off its Integrated Influence approach, the tool shows how key influencers amplify their messages through digital media channels.

Waggener Edstrom also built its first application, Hot Spots, to showcase how the firm can make digital influence a marketable, meaningful and enlightening experience. The results of launching Hot Spots were more than 4,000 downloads, a significant spike in its own website traffic and more than $3,000 raised for charity—all while engaging in actionable conversations about digital work.

The firm continues to deliver for their clients—which include Microsoft, Shire, T-Mobile, Environmental Defense Fund, Columbia Sportswear and Pirelli—driving strategy and results in digital marketing, website design and development, strategy and execution to engage social media audiences, and monitoring and measurement.

This past March, WE joined the annual South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas as a first-time attendee and event host. The festival attracts the brightest minds in emerging technology, and everyone attends to find out about the very latest in new ideas.

To break through the competition, Waggener Edstrom

implemented a phased outreach plan to connect with multiple audiences. At the core of the outreach was Hot Spots: The Heat Map of Main Events.

With hundreds of parties happening in Austin each night, attendees were challenged with how to best spend their time. Every night, attendees went through the push-and-pull of where to go. To help with this exhausting barrage of conundrums, the firm put analytics behind the party hopping.

Using Foursquare data, WE designed, developed and launched the Hot Spots app, which enabled attendees to see a real-time heat map of the festival’s most-attended events as soon as they arrived in Austin. With the guesswork gone, attendees could beeline to what was legitimately the town’s hottest party. With more than 4,000 downloads by the night of WE’s own hot event, one in five people at the festival had downloaded and used the app.In 2010, the firm also won 60 new clients, including Toshiba America Info Systems, Kingston Technology, and Brookfield Properties.

Media Relations Professional of the YearGoldAWARDED TOKurt Fromherz Plaquemines Parish GovernmentFOROil Spill Disaster Response

The public information officer for Plaquemines Parish Government, Kurt Fromherz helped establish Billy Nungesser, the Plaquemines Parish President, as a household name in America as he fought for the fishermen and residents along Louisiana’s coast in the wake of the BP oil spill and resulting cleanup.

For Fromherz, the oil spill crisis began with a late-night call from Nungesser at 11:30 p.m. on April 20,

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2010 with the news that Deepwater Horizon oil rig had exploded off the coast south of Venice, Louisiana. Fromherz immediately made a round of calls to the New Orleans-based news media, tipping off the over night shifts to the breaking news.

With the Deepwater Horizon site 49 miles from their coast, Nungessar and Fromherz were determined to make sure Plaquemines Parish was a main focus and recognized as ground zero for the oil spill. The early combination of Fromherz’s efforst to expediate interview sessions and Nungesser’s strong presence resulted in overwhelming exposure.

But, as the disaster grew from a rig fire to an oil spill, it increasingly seemed that the U.S. Coast Guard and BP downplayed the severity of the event. Fromherz worked to bring the reality of the situation from the front lines to the headlines, offering an open door and all access policy for the media. Reporters who complained of difficulties with BP and the Coast Guard flocked to the welcoming and accessible local officials, resulting in regular news coverage across the United States.

The Parish leadership provided information and photos that may have otherwise gone unknown. When an oysterman alerted Fromherz to oiled pelicans in nearby Barataria Bay, he quickly summoned an Associated Press photographer to take pictures of the first oild Brown Pelicans—Louisiana’s State bird—and distributed the images widely. This changed the tone of the diaster, validating Louisiana official’s demand for a more urgent and transparent response.

With oil covering beaches and marshes around Coastal Louisiana, BP and the Coast Guard falsely reported that only 30 acres of shore had been impacted. Plaquemines Parish challenged that claim by releasing a map documenting nearly 3,000 oiled acres. In addition, when United Command established a law preventing members of the media from coming within 100 meters of boom—a violation resulting in a $40,000 fine and felony charge—President Nungesser opposed

the boom law and issued press badges in Plaquemines Parish. By offering press passes, more reporters and photographers became drawn to the area.

As Nungesser stood up to BP and the Coast Guard, the media demand for him increased to a near-celebrity rate. Fromherz coordinated interviews for Nungesser with more than 130 unique news outlets, which included radio, television, print, documentary and the Internet. He became a nightly fixture on CNN alongside Anderson Cooper and had several major news organizations feature profiles on him, including The New York Times, “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer,” Reuters, The Associated Press, CNN.com, The Los Angeles Times and The Times-Picayune.

Fromherz wrote and designed an oil spill book, printed in-house, that detailed the disaster from the perspective of Plaquemines Parish. The book, updated as the event progressed, described local spill response efforts, challenges faced and obstacles overcome through captioned photos, diagrams and time lines. The book gave outsiders an inside look at the response, which helped them better engage the community.

Media Relations Professional of the YearSilverAWARDED TOJim Engineer e-Rainmaker Public RelationsFORMANDIANT | Buzz Responsible Media Relations for the Security Industry

Founded by Jim Engineer in 1999 during the dot com boom, e-Rainmaker Public Relations works with innovative and unknown emerging start-ups into respected category leaders and eventual acquisition targets. Currently celebrating 12 years of independent operations, e-Rainmaker focuses on cultivating the image and reputation of the smallest and most distruptive breakthrough technology companies.


Of the 21 current and former clients represented today, nine are information security industry start-ups. Indeed, it is in the information security industry that e-Rainmaker specializes, earning a reputation as one of the industry’s most influential PR agencies. These clients include, e-Security, Intellitactics, ENDFORCE, LURHQ, Lucid Security, Safeboot, KoolSpan and MANDIANT.

MANDIANT retained e-Rainmaker in April 2008, remaining as the company’s current agency of record. Prior to e-Rainmaker, MANDIANT had used several PR agencies at much higher fee structures and been dissatisfied in the quantity and quality of coverage. The company enjoyed a niche-y but respected reputation as a leading incident response and computer forensics company, but lacked the buzz, awareness and groundswell required to establish a true following and influence in the marketplace.

MANDIANT is among the largest and most respected incident response forces in the world, tackling information security breaches through services and products that help enterprise organizations speed response time, minimize risk and ensure a speedy return to normal business operations after being hit.

After spending millions internally to develop the first incident response tool for the enterprise, MANDIANT was challenged to market and compete aggressively with other similiar offerings in the incident response and computer forensics space. Multiple media tours, in-person and telephone briefings, tradeshow media relations, day-to-day responsiveness to inbound inquires and continous outreach and engagement have helped MANDIANT establish a framework of credibility for its expertise and market offerings, especially among its core media and analyst constituencies.

MANDIANT senior executives and principal consultants delivered 20 high-profile presentations at industry conferences and symposia in Q1 in 2011, and more than 50 industry presentations in 2010. The

company has been featured in 30 high-profile national, technology- and security-industry trade news stories in the first quarter of 2011, including print and video features in USA Today, and prominent articles in The New York Times and Financial Times.

In 2010, MANDIANT received favorable coverage in 76 articles, including features in well-respected national business and technology media, such as Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, The Associated Press, National Review and The New York Times. This year, MANDIANT earned an Excellence Award for Best Overall Security Company from the editors of InfoSecucrity Products Guide, and a Hot Company award from the Network Products Guide.

Midsize Agency of the Year – Between $10,000,001 and $20,000,000GoldAWARDED TOMakovsky + CompanyFOR“Makovsky + Company: Broad-based Excellence”

Makovsky + Company’s performance in 2010 exhibited excellence in a variety of areas—finanical performance, client satisfaction and retention, marketing, new business and worlkplace culture. Only a fraction of Makovsky clients left during the year and none for performance reasons. Nine in ten clients rated the agency’s work across the board as good to excellent.

Makovsky is consistently recognized as one of the best places to work in the PR industry, as its employee retention rate led the industry. The firm received seven different industry awards for achievement during the year, while a rigorous quantitative study identified Makovsky as one of the most visible PR agencies in the world.

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Other notable achievements in 2010 included revenues up 133% over the past eight years and currently stand at $10.5 million. According to an evaluation by Dow Jones & Co., Makovsky was the third-most in-the-news PR firm in the world in 2010, while the firm added 49 new business wins in 2010, closing nearly one out of every four sales leads. High-profile wins include Merck, Credit Suisse, Itron and Cephalon. Over the past year, 90% of clients rated Makovsky as “good” to “exceptional” in the six metrics that define success, including overall performance, value for budget and creativity. The agency also achieved a 92% employee retention rate.

This year, through volunteering, staff members supported National Wear Red Day, Yorkville Common Pantry, Skip Lunch Figh Hunger, New York Blood Center, New York Cares, Toys for Tots, Million TreesNYC, Children’s Aid Turkey Drive, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, American Heart Association and March of Dimes, among others.

Midsize Agency of the Year – Between $10,000,001 and $20,000,000SilverAWARDED TORF | BinderFORRF | Binder: A different kind of agency producing stand-out results

Established ten years ago, RF | Binder Partners is an independent subsidiary of the Ruder Finn Group with the goal of being a different type of public relations firm—one whose people and organizational structure delivers more effective, strategy-based, creative solutions to help clients achieve their goals.

New clients in 2010 include About.com Consumer Search, Breyers Yogurt, CredAbility, CVS, Dealer.com, Wegmans, Dr. Praeger’s, Malaysia Kitchen, Pilsner Urquell, Stride Rite, Vinho Verde. Account expansions

during the year include Dunkin’ Donuts, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Johnson & Johnson, Irving Oil, Dagoba Organic Chocolate, Calorie Count, Kayem Foods and Scharffen Berger.

Highlights of the firm’s 2010-2011 work were Malaysia Kitchen for the World, a campaign that boosted awareness of Malaysian cruisine and ingredients and increased patronage to Malaysian restaurants in the New York City metropolitan area, while also creating a greater understanding of Malaysia as an exporter of food products as well as a country to visit.

As the longtime agency of record for Bank of America’s corporate social responsibility program, RF | Binder provided media relations counsel and support nationally and in local communities for the bank’s signature philanthropic program, the Neighborhood Excellence Initiative. By leveraging current socioeconomic news and trends impacting communities, as well as pitching compelling human-interest stories, RF | Binder garnered a steady increase in print, broadcast and online coverage during each sucessive program year despite a reluctance among many reporters to cover feel-good news coming out of American’s largest banks amid the financial crisis.

As Dunkin’ Donuts’ agency of record, RF | Binder positioned the restaurant as a place busy people want to go for great products served fast, fresh and at an affordable price. The firm pursued coverage for Dunkin’ Donuts’ new products, advertising campaigns and promotions with the country’s most prominent food, advertising and marketing and media bloggers. RF | Binder and Dunkin’ Donuts offered national media a greater level of access to Dunkin’ Donuts’ leaders than in years past, with the aim of creating a fuller understanding of what makes the brand so unique and different from competitors.


Midsize Agency of the Year – Between $10,000,001 and $20,000,000BronzeAWARDED TOAtomic PR

Atomic PR combines analytics-enhanced strategy and program measurement with well-developed, in-house capabilities spanning print, broadcast, online and social media, video and SEO to drive a higher order of results. The firm works at the intersection of technology, lifestyle, commerce and digital culture, working with social media, entertainment, mobile and consumer, and technology brands, including Polaroid, Verizon, IMAX, Sigma Designs, Echelon, Hitachi Data Systems, LinkdIn, Mint.com, Bebo, BitTorrent and Living Social.

Atomic programs typically produce a level of community activation, media and call to action clients haven’t experienced with more traditional agencies. Apart from the firm’s own branded agency experience, Atomic executives bring with them a wealth of experience managing communications programs that mix brands big and small with traditional broadcast and print media, digital and social media, digital video and SEO, as well as entertainment and technology tie-ins.

Atomic also contributes time and funds to youth-related computer and arts education through Zeum, a non-profit arts and activity center in San Francisco.

Atomic employs 93 people across offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London and Munich.

Notable accounts won in 2010 include Citrix Online, Pioneer Electronics, NETGEAR, Bertazzoni, Dropbox, EyeFi, MarkLogic, Milo, Indochino, Shopkick, PeopleMedia, the Hotlist, Gaia Online, myYearbook.com, Betterment, Billeo, ValueClick, Simplify Media, Mocana, Audience and others.

Major wins in 2011 include Sony Electronics, RingCentral, Contour, WIMM Labs, Millonyi, Shoutlet,

Scrollmotion, MyHeritage.com, Fanbridge, NextJump, Lot18, PayDivvy, Affine Systems, Enkata, Fusion-io, TigerText, BlackboardEats, HealthTap, CareCloud, Gobble, Symform and LiveOffice.

For Atomic PR, 2010 kicked off with the re-launch of Polaroid at CES, which included a campaign effort with Lady Gaga. Shortly after that, the Trust for Public Land entrusted Atomic to create a campaign to save the land around the famous Hollywood sign. The campaign combined a huge stunt, public affairs, press conferences, top Los Angeles politicians, the Governor, A-list celebrities and the Vatican News Service. Hugh Hefner also kicked in nearly $1 million at the end and tweeted about it.

The agency increased U.S. revenue by 46% to $11,150,000 and added 41 new employees. Atomic received Top 10 Tech Agency honors by O’Dwyer’s, won a PRSA “Campaign of the Year Award” for “Save the Hollywood Sign Land” and a finalist for two PR Week “Campaign of the Year Awards” for Polaroid and Save the Hollywood Sign Land.

The Holmes Report also named Atomic “U.S. Tech Agency of the Year” in 2010.

While many agencies rely on experience and professional opinion and have only recently come to understand the power of analytics, as well as digital and social media, video and search optimization, Atomic has relied on sophisticated analytics to deliver key insights and enhance strategic planning and creative thinking for 10 years. The agency is one of the pioneers in mixing classic PR capabilities with digital and social media, web and app design, video and pro-level SEO to produce campaigns which frequently deliver improvements of 100% to 300% or more across numerous key measures of program performance compared to metric, pre-Atomic baselines.

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Midsize Agency of the Year – Between $20,000,001 and $50,000,000GoldAWARDED TOMWW Group

Named the “2011 Midsize Agency of the Year” by The Holmes Report and “2010 Digital Firm and Team of the Year” by PRNews, MWW Group is a mid-size agency with year-over-year growth for over 25 years and at the forefront of developing revolutionary industry tools.

New 2010 clients include Heathway’s, Altec Lansing LLC, Travel Zoo, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Services, MovieTickets.com, Marcum LLP, Market America, United States Bowling Congress, Next Day Blinds, Copart, Inc., MDE Group, Inc., Psomas FMG, i3 Group, LDT, alliantgroup, L.P., Healthcare Insight, Pathstone Family Office and Young Audiences. The firm also expanded its relationship with the 1-800-Flowers company to become agency of record for three of its subsidiaries: The Popcorn Factory, Cheryl’s, and Fannie May Chocolatier.

The firm received numerous awards during the year, including honors for multiple awards for outstanding client work from organizations such as The Holmes Report, International Business Awards, American Business Awards, PR News, PR News Platinum, PR News CSR Awards, Mercury Awards, IRIS Awards, Bulldog Reporter, and SABRE Awards. The Holmes Report named MWW Group “2011 Midsize Agency of the Year” and “2010 Strategic PR Firm of the Year.” In addition, the firm’s work for Volkswagen of American received every industry award, including a Silver Anvil—public relations’ highest honor.

In 2010, MWW Group was named a “Top Place to Work in PR” by PRNews for the third year in a row. The award is based on positive feedback from company employees.

During the year, MWW Group delivered award-winning

service to their clients with programs that propelled them to the forefront of their industries. Top campaigns of the year, included the launch of Volkswagen’s 2010 GTI, working with Sara Lee, including generating major social media buzz at BlogHer, the largest gathering of women bloggers, and the Nikon Festival, the first-ever online film festival relying solely on social media.

MWW Group also launched Dialogue Digital, which helps brands and companies leverage digital and visual branding strategies to build and maintain trust and relevancy among their core constituents. Their campaigns have established best practices for the PR industry and successfully leveraged the power of digital and social strategy, content creation, distribution and measurement to advance the goals of MWW Group clients.

The agency is only the second PR firm to obtain ISO Certification as a “Green Company.”

New Agency of the YearGoldAWARDED TOBhava CommunicationsFORBhava Communications: Defining an Integrated Approach to Communications

Founded in August 2009 and headquartered in Berkeley, Calif., Bhava Communications is a full-service integrated communications agency devoted to serving enterprise and consumer technology and services companies in every stage of the business lifecycle.

Bhava blends new and traditional media and marketing techniques to achieve maximum reach and optimum results for its clients. Founder and principal Elizabeth Zaborowska’s 360 Mixed Media methodology is the cornerstone of how Bhava approaches its client, media,


analyst and end-user relations, and is the primary driver behind the company’s early success and strong trajectory.

Recent clients include emerging vendors like Pure Storage, Oxygen Cloud and Yummly.com, Cloudera, Data Robotics, Yardsellr and Socialcast, as well as publicly traded companies such as IBM and Overland Storage.

To stay ahead of the curve and cultivate a competitive edge, Bhave diligently works to expand its service offerings and technology repertoire. The agency is developing expertise and forging new media and analyst relationships in emerging technology disciplines like cloud computing, big data, semantic web and enterprise 2.0.

The company introduced new video, graphic design and inbound marketing services in 2010, including a highly-successful integrated marketing campaign for IBM’s Real-time Compression business unit that featured infographics, presentations, print ads, online ads, case studies and a motion-graphic-driven customer testimonial video series.

Bhava executed numerous client campaigns in 2010, including a corporate brand makeover and turnaround campaign, three company launches, nine product launches, and a guerrilla marketing campaign. The firm’s work has won national recognition, including a MarCom Gold Award for Best Guerrilla Marketing Campaign and finalist recognition from PR News in its Digital PR and Platinum PR Awards for Best Media Relations and Best Re-branding & Re-positioning Campaign, respectively. Two of the agency’s 2010 client campaign successes—its corporate reimaging and rebranding effort for Overland Storage and its guerrilla marketing campaign for Yummly.com—were showcased by PR Week and the Dallas Examiner, respectively.

Additionally, Zaborowska has been nationally recognized for her leadership achievements and

business savvy, named a finalist in the PR News’ “PR Professional of the Year” award, the Stevie’s Women in Business Awards “Best Entrepreneur” category, and the Stevie’s “PR Executive of the Year” award in 2011’s American Business Awards.

Nonprofit/Association Communications Professional of the YearGoldAWARDED TOPat RiccardsExemplar Strategic Communications

For 65 years, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) had no external communications operation until the company tapped Patrick Riccards to build a 21st century communications shop for the non-profit in the midst of a significant transition.

Riccards employed research-proven communications techniques aligned with AIR’s commitment to the best in behavioral and social science to highlight the organization, its mission and its successes. He also constructed a communications department, establishing tactical streams focused on media relations, public affairs, events, publications, website marketing, social media and internal communications.

In 2010, Riccards established AIR’s Communications & Public Affairs Department by focusing on four key issues—Mission, Brand, Reputation and Value. Working from Dan Yankelovich/Public Agenda’s model for successful public engagement, he created a disciplined, successful communications department focused on research, audience segmentation, message development, strategic partnerships, community relations, government relations, media relations, new media, social networking, events and crisis communications. He constructed an ongoing feedback loop and measurement rubrics to evaluate programmatic success and adjust specific tactical

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streams as activities move forward.

Riccards increased AIR media coverage for 2010 by more than 1,000 percent from the previous year, while adding significant coverage from national broadcast outlets and leading national and trade newspapers. A new website replaced an eight-year old site, which increased unique visitors by more than 25 percent from the previous year. In addition, AIR launched an aggressive social media effort, building out multiple Twitter streams and vaulted to second in its industry sector. By developing a comprehensive public affairs engagement campaign, AIR staff members now regularly brief Capitol Hill and Administration offices on recent research and its impact on current policy.

At the end of 2010, The Washington Post named AIR to its “Post 200” list, as one of only five not-for-profits to make the list. This is the first time AIR has ever received the honor.

PR Blogger of the YearGoldAWARDED TOMakovsky + CompanyFORKenneth D. Makovsky, My Three Cents Blog: Participating in the Worldwide Discussion…

Founder and president of Makovsky + Company, Ken Makovsky joined the circle of CEO bloggers on Monday, January 9, 2006, when he created “My Three Cents” and posted his first entry “Ambition.” He continued to post once per week until March 26, 2009, when he began posting twice weekly, on Monday and Thursday. Makovsky penned 104 blogs posts during 2010 and has more than 360 entries to date.

Carried on BusinessWeek’s “Business Exchange” site, Makovsky’s “My Three Cents” blog is also featured on Forbes.com, while observations in his blogs have been

catalysts for a number of feature articles in publications such as Chief Executive and PR News. His blogs have led to invitations to participate on panels and to serve as a “guest” on other blogs, including the Council of PR Firms’ “The Firm Voice,” PRSA’s “ComPRehension” and the Arthur Page Sociey Blog.

His foray into social media encouraged his colleagues to do the same. In addition to “My Three Cents,” Gene Marbach’s “IR Therefore I am” is one of the most widely-read blogs devoted to investor relations. Makovsky’s blog has also helped drive traffic to the firm’s website, contributing to 29% of all new business leads in 2009 and an estimated 26% of leads generated in 2010.

Makovsky’s “My Three Cents” blog consistently showcases his unique, thoughtful, sometimes provocative and always interesting point of view on a wide range of topics in a number of key categories. Topics covered include breaking news in which public relations has or should have played a major role, leadership issues, sector-specific trends and issues in health, technology, financial services, business and professional services, investor relations and sustainability, tools and techniques of marketing and public relations and advice to PR professionals.

PR Blogger of the YearSilverAWARDED TOMarian SalzmanEuro RSCG Worldwide PR

CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, North America, Marian Salzman is a top trend-spotter, producing an annual trends report that helps clients discover unexpected opportunities and plan for long-term success. She has contributed regular trends columns in the past to Forbes.com, CMO Network, CNBC.com and written for Adweek, PRWeek, PR News, Bulldog Reporter, Marketing Week (UK), Psychologies (UK),


among other industry, business and general-interest blogs and websites.

When she was chief marketing officer at Porter Novelli, she was lead blogger for its blog pnintelligentdialogue.com and currently blogs at The Huffington Post, Euro RSCG Worldwide’s prosumer-report.com, “Thinking Campaigns” at eurorscgpr.com, euroscgsocial.com and the Adweek-AOL collaboration “Fuel the Future.”

In her first year at Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, she started the blogs “Thinking Campaigns” and “Social.” The agency’s flagship blog, “Thinking Campaigns” covers a wide range of industry and agency topics, including PR campaign, strategy, industry, marketing, advertising, brands, social media, technology, politics and political campaigns, health and wellness, CSR, media trends and general trends. “Social” is a Euro RSCG companywide blog whose focus is social media and won a Bronze SABRE Certificate of Excellence this year.

“The Sisterhood” runs posts from teen girls, and sometimes from marketers such as Salzman, about topics related to teen girls. Salzman created the initiative on which the blog is based, an agency-within-an-agency and social media lab launched on the heels of research about the communications and consuming habits of teenage girls. It was a 2011 finalist for PRWeek’s Innovation of the Year.

The blogs and initiatives during her first 19 months at the helm of Euro RSCG represented key reason why Salzman was named PRWeek’s “2011 Professional of the Year.” She also won the 2011 Bronze SABRE award for Speech or Bylined Article, for her four-part thought leadership/memoir series on the brain that she wrote for The Huffington Post called “Headstrong.”

The “Headstrong” series counts as just four of the 40-plus posts she’s written for The Huffington Post since early 2010. Among her many other topics have been today’s teens and millennials, love and social media,

politics, local as the new global, the state of the U.S. since 9/11, BP’s branding, media and the Olympics, the presidency and more.

Most recently, Salzman blogged on the future of football for The Huffington Post, and what a football-less future would mean for the marketing business for “Fuel the Future.” Salzman covers a wide range of topics in her blog writing—everything from digital photography to privacy to the next hot color. She says “blogging is part diary, part memo to the files, part memo to the world to document my sightings, log my hypotheses about marketplace changes and to monitor where our industry, the world and my world is heading.”

PR Blogger of the YearBronzeAWARDED TOCarreen WintersMWW Group

An executive vice president at MWW Group, Carreen Winters is the author of the “Return on Reputation” blog and has covered corporate communications since the early-90s. Updated on a daily or near-daily basis, “Return on Reputation” covers the most urgent reputational themes faced by brands, companies, professionals and stakeholders.

Recently, Winters touched on Twitter’s use in breaking news on Osama Bin Laden’s death, the reputational risks companies face when their success is perceived as being “on the backs” of others, the recent Burson-Facebook flap, and a detailed analysis of how to change PR’s reputation for the better. Winters’ unique insights and point-of-view have turned the blog into an industry favorite and receives more traffic and user engagement than any other MWW Group blog.

In her 20-year tenure with the firm, Winters has worked in every major practice area, specializing in corporate communications for the last 15 years. One of the first communications practitioners to use dark websites,

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blog strategies, technology-based plan maintenance in managing crises, she has also created other innovative training techniques, such as real-world simulation exercises and ambush media training to ensure that her clients have a clear chain of command and a shared vision for their response.

Named in NJ Biz’s “40 Under Forty,” for her expertise in restructuring communications, she is a frequent speaker and communicator on crisis communications, employee engagement and reputation management.

Public Affairs Agency of the YearGoldAWARDED TOSinger AssociatesFORSinger Associates: Making the Difference

Public Affairs Professional of the YearSilverAWARDED TOVic BeckInternational Security Assistance Force, Afghanistan

Rear Admiral Victor M. Beck is a Navy Reserve Public Affairs Officer and currently the director of public affairs for the entire NATO and International Security Assistance Force mission throughout Afghanistan. Previously, Beck held the position of chief of media operations in Baghdad, Iraq from August 2007-April 2008, during the surge of operations. During both wars, he worked under General Petraeus at the headquarters, running public affairs, news and media operations.

Many communication challenges exist in Afghanistan, but the public affairs mission, in direct support of the NATO/ISAF mission, is to inform and educate various audiences of the realities on the ground, while working

through the challenging complexities of combat. One of the many public affairs hurdles is that the war in Afghanistan has gone on for a decade and audiences worldwide are numb to war, what it represents and in many cases, simply ignore it.

Rear Admiral Beck provides public affairs guidance to the entire force of over 140,000 troops, while providing public affairs leadership to approximately 400 public affairs professionals across the country. He accomplished this while synchronizing efforts with senior communication personnel at NATO, U.S. Central Command, the Pentagon and the White House.

Upon stepping into his job, Beck made the public affairs organization substantially flatter, having more people reporting to him directly. This change enabled quicker access to senior leadership by junior personnel, increasing internal communications flow and creating an environment fertile for learning and sharing information.

Beck’s next challenge was to synchronize the messages across the country. All public affairs offices in Kabul needed to utilize messaging representative of the comprehensive war, not just what happens in a remote village. Rear Admiral Beck’s initial review found many messaging products that were produced in varying format, style and content. Their periodicity and distribution varied greatly as well.

To remedy the situation, Beck reviewed the campaign plan for the war in Afghanistan and used this as the foundation to ensure all public affairs messages systematically aligned with the specific operational objectives of the campaign. Though synchronizing meetings, conference calls and reporting existed prior to Beck’s arrival, he used the existing internal communication activities to better integrate communication activities to align messaging.

Rear Admiral Beck also put forth the guidance to public affairs personnel throughout the country to write about


what occurred on the ground. His directive is designed to create stories about what the troops are focused on. Through various communication channels, public affairs products are published in various formats, print, radio, video, but are not pushed upon any audience that does not want to receive the information.

Public Affairs Professional of the YearGoldAWARDED TOWilliam P. MurrayMWW Group

William P. Murray, executive vice president at MWW Group, manages the firm’s regional and national public affairs practice from the firm’s headquarters in East Rutherford, N.J. At MWW Group for more than 20 years, Murray has more than 30 years of experience in directing and conducting public relations and public affairs campaigns in a wide range of industries and on a variety of issues.

Murray specializes in campaigns that focus on impacting public policy, building and mobilizing third-party advocates at the state and federal level, and directing supporting media relations programs. From energy to the environment, from public utility issues to human rights, healthcare, patient advocacy and general advocacy issues, Murray has a wide range of expertise. Murray also specializes in broad-based community relations campaigns and co-manages the firm’s 50-state government relations and public affairs network.

Murray’s issues-oriented way of viewing client needs often result in innovative communications programs that meet or exceed client objectives. Murray and his team create critical mass for clients by focusing on online and offline engagement, targeted initiatives, influencer relations and integrated approaches. National and regional campaigns include Water Research Foundation, Student Access for

Student Choice, Intelligent Global Pooling Systems, Immunodeficiency Foundation, Roche, Schering-Plough, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, American Teleservices Association, National Association of Community Healthcare Centers, NJ Department of Human Services, Northeast Physicians, Direct Marketing Association, National Hemophilia Foundation, Puerto Ricans in Civic Action, Cuban American Foundation, Financial Services Centers of America, Consumer Speciality Products Association, Coalition for Asbestos Resolution, Planned Parenthood, Falun Gong and many others.

Murray approaches public affairs and public relations campaigns as if each one is new and unique—allowing client solutions to become the focus, as opposed to tactical approaches that may traditionally work or simply implementing new applications for the sake of being ahead of a trend. He also encourages his team to capitalize on new ways to communicate with key audiences—Facebook, Twitter, text messaging and other social media. Murray insists they focus on strategies and avenues that “motivate” and “mobilize” audiences to action.

He exhibited his commitment to fresh thinking in a campaign for the Financial Services Centers of America, an organization that faced widespread misunderstanding and criticism among public officials, consumer groups, media and the general public. During the past three years, Murray led a campaign that introduced and expanded the organization’s communications strategies and vehicles, from online and social media strategies never before used by the group, to broaden media relations and public affairs activities. Murray also suggested that the organization take a more strategic and direct approach to build support for its industry and even its public policy interests—third-party outreach to other organizations representing their communities and customer base, and who often were considered as opponents. One-on-one meetings with officials of key organizations that represented interests from minorities and senior citizens to consumers and select

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likes of Google, eBay, Omnicom, Nokia, ValueClick and GREE Inc. In 2008, Chattha founded the first PR agency for apps called AppLaunchPR, focused on driving discovery of smartphone apps and within six months, established what has become a multi-million dollar business. In addition, he has led VSCpr with consistent revenue growth of 20% annually since its founding in 2002. The agency even grew revenue during the 2008 economic downturn.

He has made his industry contributions within the fields of his clients, including speaking on industry trends at CTIA, SXSW, DiscoveryBeat and The Entrepreneurs Organization, and as the first PR executive invited to the “Davos Meets Burning Man” event Summit Series. He may not be attending many PR industry events, but Chattha is often the only PR voice at many mobile, gaming, advertising and retail thought leadership events, which is the core to his networking strategy. His insights are featured in the The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Venturebeat, and a variety of industry publications.

At 34, Chattha runs a multi-location, multi-million dollar practice, celebrating its nine-year anniversary in 2011. He is one of the few examples of a minority CEO running a mainstream PR practice. While many minority PR CEOs run multicultural agencies, few of these minorities run PR agencies that target the mainstream consumer and mainstream influencer. He also fosters a diverse environment within VSCpr that includes South Asian American, Asian American and Latino American PR professionals.

Chattha is the only Indian American CEO and founder to lead a standalone PR agency in the U.S. with annual revenue over seven figures.

religious denominations helped to establish stronger relationships and broader understanding that would allow the Financial Services Centers of America to create stronger bonds between the industry and its related communities.

The effort led to a cooperative program, whereby the Financial Services Centers of America and a large number of these third parties have established a consortium to create new financial products that serve low income families not serviced by banks or other main stream institutions.

Publicist of the YearGoldAWARDED TOVijay Chattha VSCpr

The CEO of VSCpr, Vijay Chattha at the age of 25 founded the agency, which focuses on mobile, gaming, social entertainment, retail and advertising technology. Chattha turned his one-man shop into an agency with a global presence, including offices in San Francisco, New York, London and Mumbai.

VSCpr helps small companies to become big, and big companies to act small, helping technology startups from inception to exit. The majority of VSCpr clients have minimal brand awareness prior to engagement and spend next to nothing on traditional advertising.

A leading PR voice in the mobile, social games and location-based technology world, Chattha has helped to shape the narrative of these markets, including the first mobile marketing M&A of ipsh! By Omnicom in 2005 to the acquisition of Greystripe for $70 million by ValueClick.

Chattha has led PR programs for over 50 startups, leading to a combined $4.7 billion USD exits to the


Publicist of the YearSilverAWARDED TOJeopardy!FORJeopardy! The IBM Challenge: Man Vs. Machine: Phil Zimmerman, Senior Publicist for Jeopardy!

A senior publicist, Phil Zimmerman serves as the lead media contact for “Jeopardy!” He has successfully managed the publicity for a wide range of special tournaments, including “Celebrity Jeopardy!,” the” College Championship” and most recently “Jeopardy! The IBM Challenge.”

During the highly-publicizd “Jeopardy! The IBM Challenge,” Zimmerman positioned the broadcast as a historic man vs. machine television event. Due to the publicity campaign, “Jeopardy!” achieved its highest ratings in five years and surged 30 percent from the previous year. The preliminary and final matches were the second highest-rated shows on television each night during a highly competitive February sweeps.

Zimmerman secured 42 television interviews, 50 radio interviews and 65 top-tier print interviews. By the end of the campaign, the matches became one of “Jeopardy!’s” most publicized events in its 27-year history. Top-tier coverage included 15 stories by The Associated Press as well as print hits in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Time, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, People, Entertainment Weekly and Parade magazine.

Coverage also appeared on nearly every late night and daytime television program, including a top 10 list by David Letterman, a hot topic on “The View,” discussion on “Regis & Kelly,” five taped comedy bits with Conan O’Brien and jokes by Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Chelsea Handler, Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, George Lopez, Craig Ferguson and Ellen DeGeneres. An online campaign led to a spike of 230,000 unique visitors on Jeopardy.com—five times

the average amount of traffic. “Jeopardy!” ranked as a top Twitter trend during the week of broadcast.

Zimmerman wrote a total of six major press releases to drive national media coverage. He selected original photography and behind-the-scenes video clips to accompany any anncouncement. A live demo and press conference held at IBM with contestants Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter and Watson the IBM machine, created early buzz. This allowed journalists to see Watson first-hand in action and gain excitement for the February broadcast.

Finally, a press tour with Jennings, Rutter and Trebeck traveled to New York City with Zimmerman to do live studio interviews for television, radio and online programs. Zimmerman’s efforts secured coverage on nearly every major national talk, entertainment and news program.

Small Agency of the Year – $1,000,000 or underGoldAWARDED TOThe Conroy Martinez GroupFORBig Thinking

The Conroy Martinez Group (CMG) prides itself on its senior leadership, immediate service and team approach. The firm offers a full-time, bilingual staff of eight, including president Ms. CL Conroy and vice president Mr. Jorge Martinez.

In 2010, the agency experienced its best year since 2006 with a 40% increase over 2009. The firm’s social media division also grew as well since its inception in 2009, developing an experties in the social media arena, launching, marketing and maintaining Twitter and Facebook pages.

With eight full-time employees and one paid intern,

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new hires and interns receive valuable mentoring and training experience. Eighty percent of interns ultimately receive full-time positions. Martinez is a testament to this philospophy, having been hired as an intern in 1990.

Average employee tenure at CMG is 13 years. The entire staff participates in the interview process to guarantee new hires will both complement and thrive in the environment of the firm.

Now in its 20th year in business, CMG specializes in general business, healthcare, banking, hospitality, entertainment, education, consumer products, retail and real estate. Client retention rate averages nine years.

Long-term clients include a 10-year relationship with Cirque du Soleil, as well as long-stading associations with The Dolphin Mall and The Coca-Cola Company. Success with Cirque du Soleil has led to frequent visits to South Florida, instead of every three years. CMG succeeded with innovations, such as “Sneak Previews,” where performers show the media what the show highlights will be weeks in advance, which resulted in significant media, boosting ticket sales.

For The Dolphin Mall, CMG increased media exposure during the 2010 holiday season, providing more than $285,000 of media exposure and an increase in holiday business. The agency helped launch the first Magical Midnight Shopping event at Dolphin Mall on Black Friday. The vast majority of stores reached their sales goals for the day by 11 a.m.

Coca-Cola hired the bilingual agency to make a mark in the Hispanic audience. Through the Coca-Cola Telenovela Club, eight families from across the country won a trip of a lifetime, a five-day, four-night vacation for six to Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. Through the 2010 Coca-Cola Telenovela Club, CMG generated 3.5 million media impressions and close to $400,000 in media value in eight regional markets throughout the

country including Phoenix, Ariz., Miami, Fla., Chicago, Ill., Channelview and Frisco, Texas, Brooklyn, N.Y., and Modesto and Lawndale, Calif. The Spanish-language media coverage included local print and TV, as well as national TV shows such as Univision’s “Despierta America” and “El Gordo y La Flaca.”

Account wins in 2010-2011 included the Adrienne Arsht Center, “Cirque Éloize iD,” Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, Manchester Business School, Fisher Island Hotel and Resort National Family Partnership Banyan Health System.

Small Agency of the Year – $1,000,000 or underSilverAWARDED TOJB Cumberland PRFORJBCPR: 25 Years and Still Flying High

In mid-July, JB Cumberland PR (JBCPR) celebrated 25 years in the public relations field—a great success for any small, privately owned business. During the year, the agency helped a few longtime clients add on significant new lines of business, even in the midst of the recession, while also becoming the driving force behind all social media platforms, connecting clients to their end consumer directly.

The landing of the clever and witty kitchenware design company Joseph Joseph marked another agency achievement for 2010. Already well appreciated in their home base in the United Kingdom, the brand entered the U.S. market with very high expectations on sales results, but a very small budget. JBCPR positioned the company as a design leader crossing all categories and reached out exclusively and personally to the most influential design bloggers and media.

The resulting online praise and buzz prompted attention from trend-setting and traditional media outlets and retailers. The resultant 599,310,761 consumers reached


in six months allowed Joseph Joseph to triple what they themselves had referred to as “an extremely aggressive sales forecast for 2010.”

JBCPR maintained 100% account retention in 2010, while three clients entrusted the agency to manage promotions and media relations for significant brand extensions and product launches. For example, Starfrit, one of Canada’s leading companies for cookware and kitchen tools, relied on JBCPR to take their brand upscale with the launch of the Cat Cora by Starfrit collection. This allowed JBCPR to increase business with Starfrit by nearly 50%.

The firm also began working with ThermaCell to position their products as the most effective mosquito-repellant solution on the market. A product well known in the niche sporting and gaming industries, JBCPR expanded this line into the world of outdoor entertainment.

In 2010, JBCPR also was among the finalists of the PR News Award for “Best Digital PR Campaign.”

Small Agency of the Year – $1,000,000 or underBronzeAWARDED TORedSky Public Relations

Red Sky PR is a 100% female-owned agency led by two principals who call themselves “accidential entrepreneurs.” Market opportunity and economic circumstance led to the launch of Red Sky in Spring 2008 in Boise, Idaho to satisy the demand for sophisticated communication strategy in the region.

In just three years, Red Sky has grown to into a team of 14 employees, doubled revenues year to year, become the largest PR agency in the state, and now count Fortune 500 companies among its roster of partners.

The firm’s mission is to act as strategic counselors, providing creative, integrated communication solutions for business needs. Red Sky identifies who their

customers want to reach, what they want to say, what they want their audience to do, and the best communication channels to spur that action. The agency works with Idaho and Intermountain West clients with national aspirations, as well as national clients with global reach.

Red Sky is committed to the philosophy of Clifton StrengthsFinder, an assessment of a person’s normal wiring based on the perspective of Positive Psychology. Rather than building account teams, Red Sky analyzes the innate strengths of those they hire and leverage them for the best outcome for the client and the employee’s workplace satisfaction.

Red Sky approached $1 million in billable revenue by the end of 2010, which amounted to 62% growth over 2009. The agency staff grew to 14, a 20% growth over 2009, as Red Sky became the largest public relations firm in Idaho, based on employees and billable revenue. Its ranked as the sixth fastest-growing agency in 2010 in O’Dwyer’s, ranked as the 13th fastest-growing agency in 2010 in PRWeek, expanded employee benefits to company-matched 401(k) , employer funded short and long-term disability, life insurance, a flex spending account, medical, dental and vision coverage, flex time options and a $1,500 professional development budget.

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Small Agency of the Year – Between $1,000,001 and $3,000,000GoldAWARDED TOStrauss Radio Strategies

Since its inception in 1995, Strauss Radio Strategies, Inc. has made a specialty of connecting a wide variety of clients with the public through using the radio. Now in its 16th successful year of business, Strauss Radio Strategies has evolved and is widely recognized as the nation’s leading communications, public relations, consulting and strategy firm specializing in radio.

Over the years, the company has expanded to a diverse staff of 13 people working out of the firm’s headquarters in the National Press Building in Washington, D.C. as well as in satellite offices in New York and Los Angeles.

During its sixteen years of existence, Strauss Radio Strategies successfully served a diverse group of hundreds of clients from around the country. Strauss Radio Strategies works with all levels of the radio medium, from small local radio stations to the largest national and international radio networks and syndicated programs.

Strauss Radio Strategies regularly works with specialty formats such as sports and business, and boasts a record of accomplishment with outreach to African-American and Spanish-language radio formats. A sampling of some of the more prominent African-American syndicated shows that Strauss Radio Strategies regularly works with includes, “The Tom Joyner Show,” “Steve Harvey Show,” “Russ Parr Show,” “Joe Madison Show” and “Bev Smith Show.”

Radio is the company’s only business. Much of the company’s staff is drawn from within the industry. Company founder and president Richard Strauss had a career in radio before being named the first-ever White House Radio Director under President Bill Clinton. In

addition, managing director John Irving worked for more than 40 years as a radio reporter, news director, talk show host, and top executive for a national radio network.

The company boasts three bi-lingual Spanish speakers, a strategic hiring decision made by management to help service the growing Spanish-language needs of clients. The company also maintains a robust and active internship program, offering college students the unique opportunity to learn in an open “hands-on” environment the skills to help them grow professionally and allow them to become more successful in future internships and job opportunities.

Despite the challenges of a still weak and shaky economy, Strauss Radio Strategies continued to grow during 2010, winning business from new clients, expanding business relationships with existing clients and carried out 159 separate radio outreach projects on behalf of 40 different clients. The company also expanded in size, establishing a West Coast presence by opening a new office in Los Angeles to serve a growing client base across the country. Client wins and retention allowed Strauss Radio Strategies to secure $1.4 million in 2010 company revenues, representing a 15% increase in company profitability from 2009.

Small Agency of the Year – Between $1,000,001 and $3,000,000SilverAWARDED TOmarlo marketing/communications

Founded on April 1, 2004, marlo marketing/communications (mm/c) is known for “marrying” its clients, giving back to the community, pushing the creative envelope, creating a unique workplace culture and offering clients an integrated and cost-effective marketing and communications partner.

In her first PR job in 2000, agency principal Marlo


Fogelman was called out at a company meeting for “marrying” her clients. It was the first time she heard the term, but quickly realized that it was, intuitively, the way she managed her client relationships.

A strong driver behind the creation of marlo marketing/communications, Fogelman’s desire is to ensure she maintains control over her client selection. Today, that has expanded to everyone at the agency. If someone isn’t passionate about a client—whether because of the product or the people they get to work with—they’re not going to do their best work. That’s why Fogelman and her team constantly take the pulse of both client and agency contacts to make sure each feels the same.

Under Fogelman’s direction, the firm is well known around Boston for its commitment to the community. Their non-profit clients include Zoo New England, Friends of Boston’s Homeless, Culinary Guild of New England, YouthDesign, PeaceLove and the Greater Boston Food Bank.

Also known for its innovative approach to building its own brand, marlo marketing/communications pushes the creative envelope, which includes publishing a monthly, award-winning newsletter, “marlo monthly,” a company blog, and launching marlo venues, the firm’s newest division that brings an untapped source of revenue for restaurant and hospitality clients. The company’s website, marlomc.com, offers a wealth of innovative resources for media, prospective clients and the general public. The “social calendar” is a comprehensive one-stop-shop for what’s going on in Boston, while “mm/c clients in the news” is how the firm shows off its work to the world and “The Suite” is how the firm welcomes celebrities to Boston.

Today, mm/c is divided into five divisions, including restaurant, travel & hospitality, consumer lifestyle products & services, professional services, creative and marlo venues.

The firm has been recognized by BizBash magazine

as one of the seven most innovative event companies in Boston. Today, the firm’s clients range from local businesses like Hotel Commonwealth, to national brands such as Hair Club.

Small Agency of the Year – Between $1,000,001 and $3,000,000BronzeAWARDED TOAffect

Affect is a public relations and social media firm located in New York with 15 employees. The firm offers public relations, social media and strategic marketing services to clients in many industries, with main practice areas including technology, professional services and healthcare.

In 2010, Affect continued to grow, increasing revenue by 40 percent. In the past year, they continued a strong relationship with client Regus North America, a provider of flexible workplace solutions, and added client Omni Hotels & Resorts. Affect also continues to see demand for its business-to-business technology public relations services due to a proven ability to translate highly technical concepts into business value for the media and other influencers.

This year, the firm added mobile application platform provider Kony, open source device platform Bug Labs, Internet talk radio provider Blog Talk Radio and IT security provider Sophos to its roster. It also grew its consumer-technology client base, executing media relations-focused campaigns for consumer deal website dealnews, online dating site Adopt-a-Guy and natural insect repellant product Shoo!Tag.

In the summer of 2010, Omni Hotels & Resorts selected Affect to conceive and implement a social media strategy to significantly increase brand awareness and recognition. The organization wanted to create an online presence that directly targeted meeting and

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event planners, as well as their influencers. Affect successfully made Omni Hotels a constant presence for meeting and event planners on social media by using a multi-platform approach, including Twitter, Facebook and blog comments.

One of the firm’s top accomplishments during the past year was the creation of The New York Intern Project, an online contest used to find its next summer intern. Prospective interns submitted creative and persuasive video or photo entries explaining why they would make an ideal intern. The winner received a three-month paid internship and housing stipend to live in New York City for the summer. The New York Intern Project website saw over 62,000 visitors, and grew the agency’s Facebook follower base from 86 at the start of the seven-week contest to 570 when it wrapped. Top outlets featured the contest, including Crain’s New York Business, Bulldog Reporter and PR Newser.

Affect also focuses on the continual investment in the professional development and training of its employees so they can keep delivering campaigns that reflect the current market conditions. For example, Affect created Social Media Success Series tip sheets with best practices and effective strategies for businesses engaging in social media. Launched in February 2010, two new tip sheets discussed creating a social media usage policy and developing a social media launch kit, which have become key components of successful social media programs.

Small Agency of the Year – Between $3,000,001 and $5,000,000GoldAWARDED TORon Sachs Communications

Now in its 16th year of business, Ron Sachs Communications is a small firm consistently ranked among the Top 100 independent public relations firms in Florida and nationally by PR Week and O’Dwyer’s.

Ron Sachs Communications has been involved in most of the significant issues affecting Florida, including working in partnership with the Governor’s office to rebrand public adoption in Florida and promote the adoption of the hardest-to-place children, teenagers, sibling groups and children with disabilities. In addition, when the federal EPA singled out Florida as the only state on which to impose numeric nutrient standards for Florida’s water bodies, the firm created an effective public- and leader- education effort to clearly show the federal approach was unfair, unscientific and would drive up costs to consumer and businesses. The agency’s work achieved overwhelming bipartisan support and active engagement by Florida’s state and federal elected officials, extensive media focus, and a delay in implementation.

Ron Sachs Communications offers a diverse client roster with 24 ongoing clients: 18 are long-term and six came on board in 2011. They also have dozens of clients that come on board on a project basis.

Clients include Pfizer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, Nestle Waters and many state agencies and statewide associations, and the firm’s oldest client, the Florida League of Cities, remains a client today.

Over the past three years, the firm has contributed more than $250,000 in chartiable support for causes as diverse as heart disease research and treatment, funding for school supplies, college scholarships and domestic violence.


With offices in Tallahassee and Orlando and 18 full-time employees, Ron Sachs Communications was named one of Florida’s “Best Companies To Work For” by Florida Trend magazine in 2009, earned two Emmy Awards in the past two years, numerous Image and Golden Image Awards from the state and capital chapters of the Florida Public Relations Association and a combination of 38 Gold and Silver ADDY Awards from the American Advertising Federation of Tallahassee.

Small Agency of the Year – Between $3,000,001 and $5,000,000SilverAWARDED TOLane PR

With offices in New York and Portland, Oregon, LANE PR has represented consumer and lifestyle, food and beverage, financial services and technology clients since 1990 on a regional, national and international level. Current clients include Consumer Cellular, Davidson Companies, E&J Gallo, Integra Telecom, Redhook, Roundarch, Sexy Hair, Tree Top, Thoma Bravo, Umpqua Bank, Widmer Brothers Brewing and Wines from Spain.

Eighty-one percent of clients served in 2010 renewed their agreements for 2011. This high client-retention rate speaks to the firm’s ability to demonstrate the business value of a focused public relations plan, as well as its ability to serve as a trusted business advisor. Each client receives a high level of attention and the expertise of senior-level practitioners who strategize and keep campaigns on target.

After finishing 2009 with 23 employees, the agency added eight in 2010 to keep up with demand for its services, ending 2010 with a staff of 31.

Committed to keeping abreast of industry trends and changes, LANE PR launched LANE University, a program established to highlight the importance of

contining education. The program serves as a training ground for new employees, providing an introduction to the agency’s policies, procedures and culture, and it also serves as a conduit for relaying best practices, information and developments impacting all PR practitioners.

On a regular basis, LANE University brings media and speakers into its office to give staff first-hand knowledge about approaching the media in a rapidly changing environment. In addition, LANE University sends staff members to relevant conferences, seminars and speaking engagements to gather information and report back to the agency.

LANE PR celebrated its 20th anniversary by experiencing its best year ever, growing revenues to more than $3.8 million—a 37 percent increase over 2009. While much of the agency’s 2010 revenues can be attributed to client retention, approximately $1.3 million of billings are attributed to new business acquisition and increased billings for existing clients.

During its 20-year history, LANE PR has been recognized for innovative, high-impact public relations campaigns across a variety of industries, including a 2011 Bronze Bulldog Award for Media Excellence for its work with Roundarch in 2010, and named a finalist for the 2010 Gold SABRE Award for a social media-driven “Caring is Sexy” campaign developed for Sexy Hair, an internationally distributed salon brand of hair care products.

Small Agency of the Year – Between $3,000,001 and $5,000,000BronzeAWARDED TODonna T. PepeFORCommunications Strategies, Inc.

Since 1993, Communications Strategies, Inc. has

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created meaningful change that sparks market shifts, drives market share, raises awareness, changes consumer mindsets and influences the influencers. The firm works in many categories, including oncology, respiratory, allergy, asthma, cardiovascular, dermatology and cosmeceuticals, infectious diseases, CNS disorders, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, women’s reproductive health products from contraceptives to anti-fungals, HT, Osteoporosis and IVF. The agency’s mission is to help clients identify and take advantage of opportunities for success and help turn brands into household names.

As the head of CSI, Donna T. Pepe brings together healthcare professionals, advocates, media, influential bloggers and others—all in support of women’s health. She is an entrepreneur and business leader committed to making a difference for women and changing assumptions about how marketers view women.

Recently, on behalf of client Teva Women’s Health, Inc., CSI spearheaded advocacy support and communications around the FDA approval of Plan B, the first emergency contraception pill approved in the United States, as well as the groundbreaking ruling to allow women 17 and older to purchase Plan B without a prescription.

The firm’s clients, both large and small, are attracted to CSI primarily because of its vast experience in the healthcare arena, success in the social media arena and Pepe’s unique passion and understanding of women’s health and its evolvement in the past thirty years. CSI’s mix of clients includes Teva Women’s Health (formerly Duramed/Barr), with whom they’ve worked with for over seven years on groundbreaking and sometimes controversial products, such as Seasonique, Plan B One-Step and ParaGard. ForTeva Corporate, they provided strategic counseling related to a host of issues and crisis management, and conducted a steady stream of pharmacy and medical advisory boards, including the long-standing Women’s Health Education Counsel, an annual gathering of

thought leaders in women’s health.

CSI’s work in women’s health resulted in the introduction of revolutionary new products for women to the marketplace and greater public awareness of women’s reproductive health and well-being.

In 2010, the firm received a number of significant accomplishments and awarded several honors including MM&M Gold Award for “Best Use of Public Relations” and PRSA New Jersey Chapter Pyramid Awards. This year, the company ranked as the 12th largest independent healthcare PR agency in the United States and the first in New Jersey byO’Dwyer’s PR Daily. Additionally, Pepe received the Garden State’s “Woman of the Year” honors in Media and Communications.

Small Agency of the Year – Between $5,000,001 and $10,000,000GoldAWARDED TOFahlgren Mortine

Fahlgren Mortine specializes in corporate communications, marketing public relations, internal communications and public affairs. Industry groups include automotive, consumer products and services, education, healthcare, industrial and manufacturing products and services, professional and financial services, technology and travel and leisure.

To date, the agency has earned more than 25 prestigious Silver Anvil awards for work done on behalf of their clients, and a handful of Bronze Anvils as well. Fahlgren Mortine campaigns completed in 2010 received honors as finalists in the PR Week Awards and PRNews Awards, while also winning the tourism industry’s highest public relations honor—a Mercury Award from the U.S. Travel Association—and the firm has won two SABRE Awards in separate categories.


The firm has dominated the local awards program for the past decade, regularly taking home the largest share of trophies in the Columbus Chapter of PRSA’s PRism ceremony. At the most recent ceremony, their work won nearly one-third of the awards distributed, and both the profit and not-for-profit “Best of Show” awards.

In addition to awards for their work, many Fahlgren Mortine employees have earned accolades for their achievements, including 10 of the past 12 annual Rising Star Awards from Central Ohio PRSA, a PR Week Young Professional of the Year award, several Business First “Forty Under 40” honors, Central Ohio PRSA presidents award, a member of the Smart Business Columbus Power 100, a Central Ohio PRSA award for Outstanding Service to the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), and more.

Fahlgren Mortine also invests time and resources into continuously evolving the tools at their disposal and, when necessary, building new tools. Notably, the firm continues to build upon their social media practice for new and existing clients. The firm offers clients a propriety baseline social media audit or “SMORE” (Social Media Opportunity Research and Evaluation), which helps to frame the need for an ongoing, strategic social media outreach program.

To further their social media arsenal and embrace the use of technology, Fahlgren Mortine developed its own self-branded integrated media dashboard. The dashboard provides stakeholders with real-time insight into sentiment about a company, as well as the industry climate, across both traditional and social media channels. In addition to supporting the interests of internal stakeholders, the public-facing dashboard also takes overwhelming amounts of disjointed online information and presents it in an efficient and innovative way that adds value to the proactive and reactive communications efforts of a company.

Clients adopted the dashboard solution as part of their

comprehensive monitoring programs, which contributed to at least five major new-client wins and marked growth in several marquee clients.

In 2010, the firm’s work for clients included: Helping Elmer’s Products execute a multi-faceted campaign resulting in more than 35 million earned impressions for Elmer’s Glue; coordinating and implementing a promotion for McDonald’s–the McCafé Cup Hunt–which was so successful in the region in terms of exposure and sales that McDonald’s nationally implemented a version of it in their largest markets; and assisting Lifeline of Ohio target motorcycle enthusiasts to redefine the meaning of the word “organ donor” for this population, helping to gain 2,999 additional donors, so far.

Last year, Fahlgren Mortine acquired three new companies and reported $9.5 million in revenue, moving up many agency rankings, which includes jumping from #71 on PRWeek’s ranking in 2009 to #52 in 2010 to #49 in 2011. In 2003, Fahlgren Mortine reported revenue of $2.4 million, meaning that today’s $9.5 million reflects growth of nearly 300 percent in just seven years. The public relations firm also won 22 new “non-project” clients totaling roughly $1.5 million in revenue.

Small Agency of the Year – Between $5,000,001 and $10,000,000SilverAWARDED TOSinger AssociatesFORSinger Associates: Making the Difference

Celebrating its 10th year, Singer Associates, Inc., a San Francisco-based public relations agency founded in 2000 by Sam Singer, continues to grow and profit. With a staff of 12 people, the agency had revenues above $5 million this year and maintains a 20-percent profit rate, providing them one of the highest rates on return

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per employee in the public relations industry. Singer possesses the experience to handle the most difficult crises, public policy issues and communications projects, yet the agency is flexible and small enough to offer personal service to its clients. Singer is the “go-to” firm in California for crisis, reputation and issue management, public affairs, litigation support, community affairs and political campaigns. The firm is at the center of almost every major issue in California, including transportation, real estate, labor, healthcare and international environmental laws.

This year, Singer helped Chevron create its first blog, educating the public about a $27 billion lawsuit in Ecuador. The agency also launched a $4 billion redevelopment project, hailed as the “Grand Central of the West,” to bring high-speed rail, commuter train and bus service into the center of San Francisco. Singer secured the permits to redevelop Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, while also helping clients at the forefront of major recycling, labor, litigation, healthcare and real estate issues.

The agency won 20 new accounts over the past year, including Cargill, ING Bay to Breakers, NUMMI, U.S. Pet Food Industry Association, California Pacific Medical Center, Children’s Hospital and Research Center Oakland, Hotel Council of San Francisco, W Magazine, American Medical Response, City of Vallejo, County of San Mateo and Auto Return. Singer has also seen growth from existing clients, such as Chevron, Calpine, Stanford University, Lennar Homes, Recology, AC Transit and the Transbay Terminal.

Significant projects included developing the communications strategy to close the NUMMI automobile plant in California, helping BART win its first labor contract in its over-30 year history, and winning a major election victory for the city of Vallejo.

Singer created its own Internet news service, SingerMedia, which gives clients daily news bulletins,

blog postings, and video clips and information vital to their business.

Over the course of Singer Associates’ 10-year history, the agency has been a finalist four times for PRWeek’s “Small PR Agency of the Year,” in 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2010. All three of Singer’s vice presidents, Adam Alberti, Courtney Lodato and Jason Barnett, have been named to PR Week’s “40 under 40,” with Barnett earning his award in 2010.

This past year, PR News named Sam Singer “Spokesperson of the Year,” while the agency won a Gold SABRE Award from The Holmes Report for crisis communications.

Singer employees actively involve themselves in San Francisco PRSA, Public Relations Round Table, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Hotel Council of San Francisco, and making presentations at PR Divas of San Francisco and other professional communication organizations.

Small Agency of the Year – Between $5,000,001 and $10,000,000BronzeAWARDED TOLambert, Edwards & Associates

Founded in 1998, Lambert Edwards & Associates provides expertise in the technical aspects of investor relations, while also providing a full range of PR services. The firm’s blend of business knowledge and public relations expertise has created valuable differentiation that has resonated in the marketplace, helping Lambert Edwards & Associates grow its reach to serve clients in 20 states and five countries.

The acquisition of John Bailey & Associates, founded by Detroit PRSA Hall of Fame inductee John Bailey, is the latest milestone in the growth of Lambert Edwards & Associates, which also includes two previous


acquisitions spanning both PR and investor relations. It makes the agency the first coast-to-coast firm in Michigan with offices in the three largest metro markets with a diverse team offering staff experience from big agency execs and Wall Street analysts to Fortune 100 corporate communications staff members and former journalists.

Lambert Edwards & Associates is organized into five practice groups, focused on areas in which has national expertise and experience: Automotive, Consumer, Financial Communications, Healthcare & Emerging Technology and Public Affairs.

In 2010, Lambert Edwards & Associates implemented a variety of highly successful PR and investor relations campaigns, such as Inventure Foods, an innovative snack food marketer and manufacturer with company-owned or licensed brand names, including T.G.I. Friday’s, Burger King, Jamba, Rader Farms, Boulder Canyon Natural Foods, Poore Brothers, Tato Skins and Bob’s Texas Style. The agency also created a campaign for Two Men And A Truck, a Michigan-based moving company with more than 220 franchise locations across North America.

Lambert Edwards & Associates posted revenues of $6.15 million in 2010, up 15% from 2009, marking its 11th consecutive year of growth. This growth garnered industry awards, including PR News 2010 “Small Firm of the Year,” PRWeek’s 2010 “Small Agency of the Year,” the PRSA Silver Anvil, Edward Lowe Foundation’s “50 Michigan Companies to Watch” and president Jeff Lambert was named to PRWeek “40 under 40” list.

The agency also moved into a new headquarters in 2010, relocating into a building that previously served as a car repair shop for much of the 20th century. The space won the “2010 Best Adaptive Reuse Award” from the Grand Rapids Downtown Alliance and the “2010 Green Award” for Green Building from Business Review West Michigan.

In the past year, Lambert Edwards & Associates added more than 10 new clients, including the Detroit Regional Chamber, energy and energy technology provider DTE Energy, provider of whole home energy efficiency retrofitting WellHome, auto manufacturer Chrysler, household cleaning brand Brillo, state hospital and medical clinic operator Trinity Health, and the Michigan Department of Education.

Social Media Innovator of the YearGoldAWARDED TOSam FordPeppercom

Realizing the growing importance of social media and the need for an experienced leader, Peppercom brought Sam Ford on board. He had previously served as project manager for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Convergence Culture Consortium and as an instructor at MIT. As director of digital strategy, Ford helps guide strategy and approach for Peppercom’s PepperDigital practice and builds strategies for clients’ social media platforms and infrastructure.

Ford consults wth all Peppercom clients and teams to guide overall strategy and approach to digital projects, and has worked closely to develop digital infrastructure and programs for clients ranging from Puget Sound Energy to Siemens to Ernst & Young. He regularly participates in developing new busienss for Peppercom and helped to expand business with clients such as Whirlpool, Yahoo! and BBC.

Ford is a key to crafting the firm’s social media rule and guidelines. He developed a four-phased approach to social media programs that served as Peppercom’s guide to providing recommendations and has helped turn clients’ digital content in “spreadable material” that they could share among one another—helping to position them as go-to resources and thought leaders

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on crucial topics.

He writes weekly pieces for Fast Company and has been published in outlets such as BusinessWeek, The Huffington Post, Portfolio, The Christian Science Monitor, Advertising Age, Chief Marketer, The Public Relations Strategist, PR News, Bulldog Reporter, TelevisionWeek and The Official PR Salary & Bonus Report.

Ford has also been quoted by and featured as an expert on CNN, NPR, BBC Worldwide, in the The Boston Globe, Mashable.com, ESPN The Magazine, The Financial Times and a variety of other publications. Outlets ranging from The New York Times Magazine and Wired to Soap Opera Weekly and Reader’s Digest have featured his classes and books.

Technology Agency of the YearGoldAWARDED TOWaggener Edstrom Worldwide

With more than 25 years of experience supporting leading innovators, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (WE) tells the stories of influential products, services, companies and people at the forefront of important technological advances that change the world.

For example, WE helped launch every version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, the software that ultimately came to be used by hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses around the world.

Since the firm opened for business in 1983, they have sought to be the recognized leader in communicating world-changing innovations that influence markets, inspire people and improve lives. This vision guides the work they do with many of the world’s leading brands, which includes GE Healthcare, HTC, MeryCorps, Microsoft and T-Mobile USA.

Over the past year, Waggener Edstrom launched T-Mobile’s 4G network, helped Toshiba Storage announce 14 new products and collaborated with longstanding client Texas Instruments DLP to drive coverage and awareness for the projection technology found in today’s digital movie theaters, conference and classrooms. The agency also built a creative website for the Sasquatch Music Festival, continued its long-term partnership with Microsoft, and worked with new clients such as Sony Electronics.Waggener Edstrom expanded its product arsenal with the release of new tools to help clients coordinate, navigate and measure their influence efforts, including WE twendz pro, News Stream and Ripple Effect. They also built their own app, Hot Spots, and saw double-digit growth for their WE Studio D business through increased client demand for digital experience and video, digital newsroom development, and social media consulting.

The firm added 60 new clients during the year, while also receiving a number of awards, including Best Web-based Business, Best Website, Animated Video, Website of the Year and Corporate Social Responsibility. With new offices in Mumbai, India and Johannesburg, South Africa, Waggener Edstrom extended its global footprint.

More than 75 percent of its client portfolio has been with the firm for more than two years, while 11 have been clients for more than three years. The firm maintained 90 percent of its client revenue base in 2010, despite the tough economy.

During the year, successful campaigns included work on the launch of the Windows 7 Phone and developing a campaign for Internet Explorer 9. The efforts helped the business exceed its expectations of 2.36 million downloads within the first 24 hours of availability. WE’s Ripple Effect allowed the Microsoft Bing team to understand the impact of key influencers on the product launch in order to evaluate how to adjust their


communications strategy moving forward. The WE Studio D team built a website for the Sasquatch Music Festival that drove 100,000 ticket sales, 4,600,000 page views in three months, and an average bounce rate of 4 percent.

Currently, more than 850 employees work in Waggener Edstrom offices around the world, while the firm offers a lower-than-industry-average turnover rate of 6.6 percent.

Technology Agency of the YearSilverAWARDED TOAtomic PR

Atomic PR combines analytics-enhanced strategy and program measurement with well-developed, in-house capabilities spanning print, broadcast, online and social media, video and SEO to drive a higher order of results. The firm works at the intersection of technology, lifestyle, commerce and digital culture, working with social media, entertainment, mobile and consumer, and technology brands, including Polaroid, Verizon, IMAX, Sigma Designs, Echelon, Hitachi Data Systems, LinkdIn, Mint.com, Bebo, BitTorrent and Living Social.

Atomic programs typically produce a level of community activation, media and call to action clients haven’t experienced with more traditional agencies. Apart from the firm’s own branded agency experience, Atomic executives bring with them a wealth of experience managing communications programs that mix brands big and small with traditional broadcast and print media, digital and social media, digital video, and SEO as well as entertainment and technology tie-ins.

Atomic also contributes time and funds to youth-related computer and arts education through Zeum—a non-profit arts and activity center in San Francisco.

Atomic employs 93 people across offices in San

Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London and Munich.

Notable accounts won in 2010 include Citrix Online, Pioneer Electronics, NETGEAR, Bertazzoni, Dropbox, EyeFi, MarkLogic, Milo, Indochino, Shopkick, PeopleMedia, the Hotlist, Gaia Online, myYearbook.com, Betterment, Billeo, ValueClick, Simplify Media, Mocana, Audience and others.

Major wins in 2011 include Sony Electronics, RingCentral, Contour, WIMM Labs, Millonyi, Shoutlet, Scrollmotion, MyHeritage.com, Fanbridge, NextJump, Lot18, PayDivvy, Affine Systems, Enkata, Fusion-io, TigerText, BlackboardEats, HealthTap, CareCloud, Gobble, Symform and LiveOffice.

For Atomic PR, 2010 kicked off with the re-launch of Polaroid at CES, which involved Lady Gaga. Shortly after that, the Trust for Public Land trusted Atomic to create a campaign to save the land around the Hollywood Sign. The campaign combined a huge stunt, public affairs, press conferences, top Los Angeles politicians, the Governor, A-list celebrities and the Vatican News Service. Hugh Hefner also kicked in nearly $1 million at the end and tweeted about it.

The agency increased U.S. revenue by 46% to $11,150,000 and added 41 new employees. Atomic received Top 10 Tech Agency honors by O’Dwyer’s, won a PRSA “Campaign of the Year Award” for “Save the Hollywood Sign Land” and a finalist for two PR Week “Campaign of the Year Awards” for Polaroid and Save the Hollywood Sign Land.

The Holmes Report also named Atomic “U.S. Tech Agency of the Year” in 2010.

While many agencies rely on experience and professional opinion and have only recently come to understand the power of analytics, as well as digital and social media, video and search optimization, Atomic has relied on sophisticated analytics to deliver key insights and enhance strategic planning and

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creative thinking for 10 years. The agency is one of the pioneers in mixing classic PR capabilities with digital and social media, web and app design, video and pro-level SEO to produce campaigns which frequently deliver improvements of 100% to 300% or more across numerous key measures of program performance compared to metric, pre-Atomic baselines.

Technology Agency of the YearBronzeAWARDED TORainier CommunicationsFOR“Outlier” Credentials Give Technology its Most Credible Voice

Founded in 1993, Rainier Communications is a technology PR agency, one that has focused on the topic for almost two decades. Rainier founder and CEO Steve Schuster, a former engineer with an MBA, has alone logged over 50,000 hours of creative PR success in an innovation-industry career spanning nearly 30 years. But what enables Rainier to stand out is the firm’s consistent focus on giving technology a credible voice, and its near-zero-turnover team of tech-PR industry veterans.

The agency’s mastery of technology, business-to-business vertical market audiences and public relations allows Rainier to bring a uniquely strategic approach to technology PR. No matter what the technology domain might be, Rainer starts with a level of comprehension difficult for other agencies to ever attain.

Some of the world’s leading technology companies, including Fujitsu, Analog Devices, Texas Instrument, AMD and Sprint, have turned to Rainier to produce measurable results. More than 170 technology companies have enlisted the firm to create and execute PR programs.

Rainier’s mantra is, money invested in PR must return

money in one of three ways—revenue growth, new funding and successful exits. The agency’s campaigns have put technology startups like Axxana on the map and propelled established market leaders like Fujitsu to even greater success. And Rainier is the only technology PR agency created from within the technology industry by a founder who made Rainier the agency he wished he could find as an industry executive.

In the case of Fujitsu, the agency’s senior staff pushed the company to position a seemingly mundane, incremental product announcement in the more impacting context of the impending “data deluge,” a term Rainier created.

Preparing to announce the FLASHWAVE 9500, a new telecom infrastructure platform that could transport Ethernet packets over legacy optical network assets, Fujitsu’s product manager described the new product as an incremental innovation, which would not have much of a competitive impact on the market.

Rainier recognized that the highly modular characteristics of the new product meant that telecom service providers could use it to quickly provision very precise increases in broadband service bandwidth as market demand increased.

Rainier advised Fujitsu to differentiate the new product completely from competing systems by taking the bold step of establishing an entirely new market segment called Packet Optical Network Platforms (PONP).

The PR campaign for Fujitsu generated major coverage of the FLASHWAVE 9500 in key industry publications, including Light Reading, Telephony, Xchange, Telecommunications, Lightwave, and EE Times. An independent analysis firm rated Fujitsu’s coverage as having a “higher impact” than the company’s competitors, with more than 50% of the coverage rated as “very positive.”


Please note that awards were not given in categories or at category levels for which judges determined no qualified winner.

2011 Stars of PR Hall of Fame Magazine

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Transcript of 2011 Stars of PR Hall of Fame Magazine