Awards

[Jen Martin, Digital PR team director for CNN with her award for Social Media campaign of the year for the CNN.com-Facebook Inauguration Collaboration.]

PR News is honoring the winners of this year's Platinum PR Awards today. Weber Shandwick won Global Campaign PR campaign for their work with Honeywell. Edelman and Cone won the Online Communications category for work with Alpo and the American Petroleum Institute (API), respectively.

Ogivly PR won large PR firm of the year, Coyne PR won midsize and Lewis PR won small. View the full list of winners here.

New York magazine placed Howard Rubenstein in very elite company this week, including him their Power Dozen, a list anchored by mayor Mike Bloomberg. Called the "dean of damage control," Rubenstein is noted for his cross-aisle brokering, and for engineering the mayor's term limit putsch. The 76 year-old is President of Rubenstein Associates, a firm he founded in the 50s.

Megamogul Rupert Murdoch made the list, as did Vogue EiC Anna Wintour--the former owns a multi-billion dollar media empire, while the latter conducts and champions a multi-billion dollar business that employs 175,000.

The other nine are Al Sharpton, Sheldon Silver, Stephen Ross, Jamie Dimon, Herb Pardes, Andrew Cuomo, Mike Fishman, and of course, Chuck Schumer.

An hour ago the news broke that the Nobel committee will award President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. EU President Jose Barroso said it is "a tribute to President Obama's commitment to the values of peace and progress of humanity."

The Washington Post is collecting reactions, including this advice from Mickey Kaus: "Instant advice for Obama re: Nobel Peace Prize: Turn it down! It's win/win...the possibility for a Nobel backlash seems non-farfetched."

When Al Gore won two years ago, I argued it was for great communications. This Nobel was awarded to Obama for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." It's for one year of efforts, the symbolism, and for powerful oration.

The Center for Media and Democracy, publishers of PRWatch.org, have awarded their first "Golden Throne" to banking lobbyist Edward Yingling, for leading the pack of the "behind-the-scenes lobbyists and spinmeisters who have managed to maintain the status quo and hold off any meaningful reform of the financial services sector since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG rocked the world one year ago this week."

Yingling is the CEO of the American Bankers Association and pulls down $2.1 million a year for his efforts.

I criticized PRWatch before for their ironic inability to get the word out, though now that they have Cigna's ex-PR chief Wendell Potter thumping the healthcare reform message in the media and before Congress, all has changed.

Related: Ex Cigna PR VP, "Ammo for the Elephant Gun" in Healthcare Fight

Two legends of public relations made the Museum of the City of New York's list of 400 prominent New Yorkers, assembled in honor of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's arrival in the harbor.

Edward Bernays and Benjamin Sonnenberg both made the list. Howard Rubenstein did not, though the competition was stiff with major actors, politicians, academics, athletes and architects from all eras represented.

Bernays, author of the book "Propaganda," is known for bringing his uncle Sigmund Freud's ideas into PR for among many other things, getting women to smoke:

Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995) An executive and pioneer in the field of public relations, he started as a press agent on Broadway, opened his own agency in 1919, and taught the first course on public relations at New York University in 1923.

Sonnenberg was the aristocrat of PR, known for entertaining friends, clients, and journalists in his huge mansion:

Benjamin Sonnenberg (1901-1978) One of the first modern public relations men, whose work was, in his words, “fashioning large pedestals for small statues," handled the p. r. needs of organizations from Philip Morris to CBS and was known for his private mansion, 19 Gramercy Park.

More after the jump:

continued...

Harris Diamond, CEO of the giant Interpublic (NYSE: IPG) agency Weber-Shandwick jumps to the number one spot on PRWeek's 2009 Power List, topping Richard Edelman, the top dog for the last two years.

The trade magazine cites the number of fingers Diamond has in IPG's Constituency Management Group (CMG) division as the reason for the jump, as well as his dominion over other IPG divisions that help Weber intergrate including sports marketing agency Octagon and events firm Jack Morton. PRWeek also credits Diamond's thumping on leadership and reputation as the two main qualities helping WS deal with the bad economy.

Edelman sticks around at #2, and the recently-retired Charlotte Otto from Proctor & Gamble maintains third. Leslie Dach from Walmart moves up from 6th to 4th, and Jon Iwata rounds out the top five (down from #2 from 2008).

Power players six through 25 are after the jump, with the full list of 25 here:

continued...

[Case study video for Cummins Nitro's PR Lions Grand Prix and Direct Lions Grand Prix winning campaign]

The advertising industry this year finally let PR agencies into their annual festival/awards show/schmooze-fest that is the Cannes Lions.

Several American agencies won awards, including New York-based Taylor for their work with Guiness, Ketchum for work with Haagen-Dazs, MS&L for work with Proctor & Gamble and Weber Shandwick for their work with BPEX. View the complete list of PR Lions winners here. The top award, the PR Lions Grand Prix, went to Australian agency Cummins Nitro for their "Best Job in the World" campaign for Tourism Queensland.

Read AgencySpy's initial round up of the festival here, and stay tuned for more updates.

[Howard Rubenstein with St. John's president, the Rev. F. Donald Harrington. Image: NY Post]

The NY Post calls Howard Rubenstein "the most impressive Rolodex in New York," which sounds about right. The PR legend was honored by his alma mater St. Johns University at an event this week attended by New York Gov. David Paterson, Ivanka Trump and Al Roker, among others.

Rubenstein received the Caritas Medal, in honor of his charitable work over the years. The PR exec "beamed like a boy" when he received two Yankee stadium seats from George Steinbrenner's daughter Jennifer Steinbrenner Swindal. Rubenstein has long repped the New York Yankees.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs--or PS2POTUS as I've dubbed him in a previous post--won the Public Relations Society of America's PR Professional of the Year for his work on the Obama campaign.

The individual award was given during PRSA's annual Silver Anvil Awards dinner in Manhattan last night. The release explains that Gibbs won it for the campaign's message and ability to stay on it, its use of new media, and the "visible emphasis on communications transparency, openness and expediency, and generated a feeling of real-time connectedness with the electorate due to the active dialog with voters."

The PRSA held their New York chapter Big Apple Awards dinner last week at the Rainbow Room to give out 37 prizes in various categories, 18 honorable mentions. The annual John W. Hill (for leadership and public service, named for the Hill & Knowlton founder), the Philip Dorf (for mentorship) and the President's Award (for service to the Chapter) were also given.

PainePR took the top prize for their work on the Iams Home 4 the Holidays campaign launched to place a million pets in good homes. Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman fronted the effort which actually placed over 1.2 million animals. The agency is a 75 person shop with offices in New York, L.A., and Orange County.

The full list of Big Apple winners can be found after the jump:

continued...