This week, BrightRoll is hiring a marketing manager, while Weber Shandwick needs a vice president of digital health. SpaFinder Wellness is seeking a lead generation coordinator, and Financial Times is on the hunt for a marketing acquisition manager. Get the scoop on these openings and more below, and find additional just-posted gigs on Mediabistro.

• Marketing Manager BrightRoll (San Francisco, CA)
• Vice President, Digital Health Weber Shandwick (Boston, MA)
• Lead Generation Coordinator SpaFinder Wellness (New York, NY)
• Marketing Acquisition Manager Financial Times (New York, NY)
• Public Relations Account Supervisor Murphy O’Brien Public Relations (Los Angeles, CA)

Find more great PR jobs on the PRNewser job board. Looking to hire? Tap into our network of talented PRNewser pros and post a risk-free job listing. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

Times Square in New York City will, once again, become the sun in our universe of public relations.

Not only are 1 million guests personally attending the lowering of the Times Square Ball down One Times Square building, but 1 billion more people are expected to tune in via TV and digital devices as the world rings in 2013. It doesn’t get any more public than that.

ABC’s annual “New Year’s Rockin Eve” has helped make Times Square the most expensive billboard advertising real estate on the planet, with companies such as Dunkin’ Donuts
paying $3.6 million a year for its signage and Anheuser-Bush shelling out $3.1 million for its space on One Times Square building.

This year, of course, the world will miss the iconic personality of Dick Clark. Yet the tradition will continue as this year’s Times Square Ball, made of Waterford Crystal (so keep the kids out of the Times Square dining room), heralds the theme “Let There Be Peace.” Indeed. That is one sentiment we can all agree on.

Happy New Year to all of our wonderful readers and thank you for supporting PRNewser. We’re looking forward to a healthy, safe, and productive 2013 with all of you!

For a live stream of the celebration visit the Times Square New Year’s Eve 2013 Live Webcast.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen lots of “best” and “worst” lists for the PR year that (almost) was. Most of them were well-researched, informative overviews that helped give us a fuller picture of a topsy-turvy year in public relations.

We debated whether to put our heads together, conduct a survey, consult the Twittersphere and create the definitive list of 2012′s most important/influential PR stories. But then we just decided to put all that reasoned analysis aside and go completely subjective—so we compiled our 12 favorite stories that appeared on PRNewser in 2012.

Some are serious, some are silly and some are nearly unbelievable. Do they all reveal some larger truth about the PR industry? No. Are they the most important stories of the year? Definitely not. Then why did we choose them? Because we really enjoyed reading and writing them. That’s pretty much it.

Here are the first six, in no particular order:

Read more

Advertising Age: The Biggest Advertising Debacles of 2012

The New York Times: Maxim Courts Military to Increase Readership

The Washington Post: Dave Barry’s 2012 Year in Review

The Chicago Tribune: Apple Abandons Patent Claims Against New Samsung Phone

The Los Angeles Times: Evidence Reveals Boy Scouts Did Not Report Abuse to Police

Amazon is hiring! The company is looking for a new senior marketing manager for its fast-growing pets team.

In this role, you’ll be responsible for conceptualizing, building and executing the full life cycle of merchandising for the Pets Products store, using creative development, targeting segmentation, and performance analysis. You’ll work to grow traffic via free and paid search, email marketing, affiliate marketing, social networking, mobile and on-site placements. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Read more

It is an odd fact about life that we spend our younger years wanting to fit in and be like everyone else, then grow up and yearn to be different than everyone else.

Dr. Pepper’s new marketing strategy targets the demographic that fits the latter part of that sentence. The beverage brand is rolling out a series of TV commercials featuring compelling individuals such as Mikaela Mayer, a former model turned boxer, and Justin “Nordic Thunder” Howard, air guitar champion.

Dr. Pepper’s campaign makes sense from a PR perspective. Instead of featuring larger-than-life entertainers and athletes with looks and talents few average Americans can relate to, Dr. Pepper has chosen to focus on people more like us—people with notable dreams and accomplishments but also idiosyncrasies and quirks. (Seriously, how can you not like someone who has mastered the air guitar?) Quirk is PR gold because it is sincere.

But will that sincerity translate into customer loyalty? Can a bottle of soda really make us feel unique and special? Dr. Pepper thinks it can. For a brand that views itself as a singular presence in the uber-competitive soda category, Dr. Pepper believes partnering with the exceptional people featured in its marketing campaign is a natural and apt brand alignment.

In PR theory this appears to be a logical association, but ultimately the public will decide if Dr. Pepper’s ad campaign lives or dies.

We recently told you about the Demand a Plan campaign launched by social advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. The social media campaign geared toward pushing American politicians to pass gun control legislation urges supporters to sign a petition, contact their legislators and mayors, write letters to editors of major publications and voice their support on Twitter and Facebook. The multifaceted project has all its PR bases covered–and now it has a celebrity-filled viral video to boot.

The spot, which features such familiar names and faces as Jon Hamm, Beyoncé, Chris Rock and many others, made it to number 6 on the Ad Age Viral Video Chart this week. Like all of the campaign’s content, the video’s simple, straight-forward, no-frills style serves to promote its overall message: less rhetoric, more action.

In this video exclusive, crisis communications expert and Solomon McCown & Company president Ashley McCown reviews her top 10 PR crises of 2012. Her top cases range from athletes on trial to deep-fried chickens for traditional marriage. Do we agree? Disagree?

Neeraj Khemlani has been named SVP and chief creative officer at Hearst Corporation. In this new role, Khemlani will work with Hearst’s creative teams, managers, and group heads across the company to support and enable them in the creation of user experiences on all screens and printed pages. Khemlani was formerly vice president and general manager of Yahoo! News & Information as well as Yahoo! Originals. (Release)

Andrea Levy has been named director, advertiser/agency business development at Alliance for Audited Media. In her new role, Andrea will develop new services and foster relationships with current and new advertisers and ad agency members. Before joining AAM, Andrea served as interactive director for Packet Media Group, a community newspaper publishing company, where she was responsible for a variety of tasks including communication, product development, revenue generation, marketing, events and sales training. (Release)

Emanate, an Omnicom DAS company with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, London and Munich, named Catherine Douglas as vice president. Ms. Douglas formerly served as group manager, corporate affairs; as VP, she will help manage the company’s Bank of America account. (Crain’s)

Charleston, SC-based BOLD Communications Group announced plans to merge with Pearson DeBoer Creative Solutions (PDCS) of Salisbury, NC effective January 1st. The newly expanded BOLD will offer strategic marketing and communications services to businesses, nonprofits, entrepreneurs and experts in a variety of industries. Patrick Pearson, a PDCS partner and Salisbury resident, will serve as vice president and general manager of the newly combined company while Jonathan Weaver, creative director for PDCS, will retain his title. (Homepage)

AdWeek: The Best Commercials of 2012

The Chicago Tribune: Almost 17.5 Million Apple, Android Devices Activated Christmas Day

The New York Times: Retailers Embrace Same-Day Shipping to Compete with Amazon

The Los Angeles Times: Public Embraces eBooks as Print Continues to Fade

Advertising Age: The Biggest Advertising Stories of 2012