“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”—Oscar Wilde

TARA, Ink., a boutique public relations, creative marketing and special events firm specializing in the New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Miami Beach markets, is pleased to announce the addition of UK-based retailer Superdry to its roster.

TARA, Ink.’s charges include media relations, product placement, special event conceptualization, celebrity dressing, and influencer outreach. The agency will report to the North American President of Superdry, Stephen Cox.

The Superdry Womenswear Autumn/Winter ‘13 collection offers sophisticated street style with preppy flair executed in bright colors, bold stripes, floral patterns, hooded Eskimo capes and nautical-themed peacoats. The exclusive London Thomas Everest Collection makes its way to America, with the popular Everest coat now available in a bomber as well as longer styles. Other pieces include the Ernest dress in tweed herringbone, the sequined glitter ball skirt, signature style Windcheaters, Tin Tab tees, and colorful leathers.

“Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.”—Woody Allen

Balsera Communications, one of the nation’s premier U.S. Hispanic public relations firms, has been named the agency of record by Vme Television, the first national Spanish-language public television network in the United States. Balsera will be leading public relations and public affairs strategies for Vme in the United States.

“Over the past ten years the U.S. Hispanic demographic has not only grown in numbers, but it has also become more sophisticated,” said President and Partner, David Duckenfield, Balsera Communications. “We believe Vme is uniquely positioned to provide this new, up and coming Hispanic market the unique and educational programming that it is craving while also catering to the bilingual lifestyle that they are now embracing.”

“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”—W.C. Fields Read more

Lovers of air travel find it exhilarating to hang poised between the illusion of immortality and the fact of death.—Alexander Chase

Air New Zealand has appointed MWW, a top five global independent public relations firm, as its North American PR agency following a multiagency pitch.

The agency will work with Air New Zealand to drive brand awareness in the United States and Canada, with a focus on the airline’s west coast hubs of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver. Key upcoming projects will include leveraging sponsorship of the second Hobbit film, managing the airline’s International Media Program alongside tourism partners and continuing to build trade and travel media relations. The team will be led out of MWW’s Los Angeles office, with support from MWW offices across the U.S.

Air New Zealand’s Brand Manager Western Markets, John Wilhelm, says the airline’s aggressive growth strategy in North America will benefit from the creativity, strong west coast presence and social media insights demonstrated by MWW in the pitch process. MWW’s growing travel and tourism practice is comprised of industry experts with strong traditional and digital media relations.

It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn’t hear the barbarians coming.—Garrison Keiller

Strategic digital marketing firm LACED Agency has been officially selected for social media marketing duties for Williams Products (formerly Williams Comfort), a successful HVAC manufacturer located out of Colton, CA. The announcement marks a significant milestone in LACED Agency’s ongoing relationship with Williams Products, which began in April of 2013 with the launch of a 90-Day Social Media Pilot Program.

“It has been a successful pleasure to work with LACED Agency. In less than 90 days, they have taken Williams Products from zero existence in Social Media and developed a presence in the Social Media that Williams Products is very proud,” says, Tami Williams, VP of Marketing at Williams Products.

We’re not prone to bragging about our accomplishments (cough cough), but today brings official word that MWW Group has hired Jason Chupick, the founding editor of this very website, as vice president of editorial operations.

Jason previously worked as VP of PR at Harper’s Magazine. His experience spans the worlds of journalism, public relations and digital media: In addition to time spent in the publishing industry, he worked at several boutique agencies in the New York City area, and he frequently speaks at industry events and conferences like last month’s Mediabistro webcast on increasing the visibility of your press releases.

MWW plans to use his “ability to combine editorial content technology and editorial expertise” to implement media production and placement strategies for clients.

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Yesterday we shared some of the many third-party predictions and analyses of the Publicis/Omnicom merger and what it will mean to the future of the advertising and marketing industries. To recap: On the financial front, industry revenue totals will probably stay steady—but the organization of the game will undoubtedly change.

The next question: what role will PR firms and professionals play in this new arrangement?

Richard Edelman believes that PR will act as “part of the supporting cast” in this ongoing soap opera in order to back up the newest and biggest players, Digital and Data. In other words (via The New York Times), it’s all about the mega-agencies chasing Google to reach more targeted users via Big Data number crunching.

Yet, despite this hyper-focus on math nerds, Edelman writes that individual “thought leader” voices within the PR industry will grow even more valuable as they bring crucial “small data” research and insights to the table that no Google analytics study can provide. Jack Marshall of Digiday even argues that the role of Big Data has been overstated because the numbers ultimately belong to clients, not agencies (and that the whole thing is really an accounting issue).

Back to our main query: how dramatic will the change be for PR?

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We’ve all heard enough about this weekend’s Publicis/Omnicom merger to know that it’s too big for our limited minds to even fathom, much less evaluate.

So many questions followed: will it lead to mass layoffs or protracted battles over antitrust laws? Will it doom boutique agencies that don’t get picked up by major “holding company” conglomerates? Will it change our jobs in profound and permanent ways?

These are all valid, fascinating issues that must be considered—and for now we’ll let other people do the thinking for us, starting with those smartasses at The Onion.

Surprisingly accurate! That headline stings a bit, though we finally understand why they didn’t hire us for the grad school internship we wanted so badly (should’ve learned to code in high school, dammit). On a more serious note, Richard Edelman is skeptical of this supposed sea change, writing:

Bigger does not mean better. My 84-year-old mother’s first reaction yesterday was that this reminds her of AOL’s* merger with Time Warner. “They were all screwed up for years,” she said.

In other words, don’t freak out…at least not yet. But there will be blood.

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This weekend we moved a step closer to The Singularity as the world’s two largest PR/marketing/advertising groups announced plans to join, creating one unstoppable media megalith that will easily pass WPP to become the biggest, most powerful group in the history of big, powerful groups.

Together, Publicis and Omnicom include agencies from Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett to BBDO and DDB Worldwide.

On Saturday and Sunday the two companies confirmed the move and released statements from co-CEOs Maurice Levy and John Wren, who made a public appearance together; Levy said the merger started as “almost a joke” six months ago. One thing the pair didn’t do was secure the Twitter handles @OmnicomPublicis or @PublicisOmnicom, a fact that allowed a couple of industry wise guys to have a bit of fun in the wake of the announcement:

All your base are belong to us. C’est moi.

— Publicis Omnicom (@PublicisOmnicom) July 27, 2013

Bring it, bitch. @PublicisOmnicom — Omnicom Publicis (@OmnicomPublicis) July 28, 2013

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Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.–Redd Foxx

Mount Sinai Medical Center has chosen Miami-based IGT Media Holdings as its agency of record for media buying services. Located in Miami Beach, FL, Mount Sinai is South Florida’s largest independent, private, not-for profit teaching hospital and home to Florida’s premier cardiovascular program– the Mount Sinai Heart Institute.

IGT Media Holdings will focus its expertise in media planning, buying, coordination, and management with the goal of using strategically placed media to increase awareness of the hospital’s services and its convenient community satellite facilities located throughout Miami-Dade.

Mount Sinai is Miami Beach’s only hospital serving the South Florida community for more than 60 years. IGT Media Holdings has already embarked on helping Mount Sinai build awareness of its new primary and specialty care center in Coral Gables.

“We are honored to represent a cornerstone institution such as Mount Sinai Medical Center. Our relationship aims to increase brand awareness and shed light among the general public as to why Mount Sinai is the right choice for exceptional health care in South Florida,” said Ric Roth, President, IGT Media Holdings.

“There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.”– Brendan Behan

Abel Communications is pleased to announce that the mobile engagement company Hipcricket selected the growing Baltimore PR firm as its agency of record. Abel will provide strategic communications campaigns with a focus on content development and media relations.

Headquartered in Kirkland, Washington, Hipcricket is a one-stop mobile advertising and marketing company. It provides a unified mobile engagement platform that drives awareness, sales and loyalty for some of the world’s leading brands.

“The Abel Communications team impressed us with their understanding of the mobile market and our business model, as well as a track record of great results for technology clients,” said Doug Stovall, chief operating officer at Hipcricket. “We look forward to a successful collaboration.”

“The world has undeniably gone mobile and Hipcricket is leading the way with creative and accountable mobile marketing and ad campaigns,” said Greg Abel, president of Abel Communications. “With a group of outstanding, Fortune 100 clients, Hipcricket operates at an elite level and we are thrilled to become their new PR agency of record.”

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”—Jim Rohn

PHIT America – the non-profit education and advocacy organization designed to combat the obesity and sedentary activity crisis – has selected Buffalo Communications (Buffalo) as its public relations agency.

Buffalo will create and implement an aggressive publicity and media-relations program targeting print, digital and broadcast outlets with focus on consumer health and wellness, sports, business, parenting and related editorial niches.

Since its January 2013 launch, more than 130 leading companies and associations from the sports, fitness, retail and media industries have contributed funds and services to support PHIT America. Each shares the vision and goal to create “A Movement for a Fit and Healthy America” by educating men, women and children about the importance of an active lifestyle to improve overall health.

“A sedentary lifestyle is the prime contributor to escalating health care costs we all face,” says Jim Baugh, Founder of PHIT America, former President of Wilson Sporting Goods and a 2011 inductee into the Sporting Goods Industry Hall of Fame. “Consistent press coverage through Buffalo’s national network of contacts will impart ways to fight the obesity epidemic gripping the country.”

Here’s a great video to show your grandmother the next time she asks “What does a PR company do, anyway?”

Last night, Cleveland-based crisis management/media training firm Hennes-Paynter posted this short YouTube video featuring each of the three young women who spent more than a decade in captivity after being abducted by a neighbor in their Ohio suburb. Their dramatic rescue moved millions of Americans, and this clip marks the beginning of the next chapter in their very public saga.

Why did Hennes-Paynter decide to release the video at this point in time?

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