Events

The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival is the most prominent advertising festival in the world. This past year, the festival added a PR category for the first time, and awards were won by Weber Shandwick, MS&L Worldwide, Taylor and Ketchum.

Tony Burgess-Webb, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President, Hill & Knowlton, told PRNewser that PR submissions "were low" with 450 entries. "The number of the PR category entries that actually came from PR agencies was less than 43%, and the winning entry came from a Sydney-based ad agency," he said. "So from point of view of panel of judges - Hill and Knowlton had two judges on panel - it was pretty disappointing."

Burgess said that the Cannes team asked what they could do about the low turnout in regards to PR. In response, Hill & Knowlton hosted an event with the PRCA - PRSA's equivalent in the UK - and invited 100 agencies to come in and hear about how they can win a gold at Cannes next year. "The fact is it's not an advertising festival, it's a marketing communications festival. Why not drop the whole title," asked Burgess-Webb. "I certainly think they should," he said.

Asked if the festival is dropping advertising from the title this year to appeal to a broader audience, Philip Thomas, CEO of Cannes Lions said, "No, that's not correct" and did not elaborate further.

Rob Flaherty, President and Senior Partner, Ketchum delivered the opening remarks at today's sold out Critical Issues Forum, hosted by the Council of PR Firms. The theme of this year's event was, "Aftershock: Restoring Confidence and Trust in 2010," and Flaherty pointed out that 80 years ago today was Black Tuesday, which led to the stock market crash of 1929.

"Statistics on drop in trust are incredible, like nothing we've seen our career," said Flaherty. "Are we willing to anticipate stakeholder expectations and push companies to change? Are we willing to step up to the plate and shape corporate character, not just words?" he asked.

Following Flaherty's remarks was a panel discussion that got contentious at a few points, mostly between James Wiggins, Executive Director, Corporate Communications, Morgan Stanley and Susie Gharib, Anchor and Senior Strategic Advisor, Night Business Report.

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"I use trust to move revenue," said Chris Brogan at an event held at the Harvard Club in New York this morning. Brogan was joined by his Trust Agents co-author Julien Smith, alongside David Maister and Charlie Green, authors of The Trusted Advisor.

The panel discussion examined how trust, one of the basic human qualities, can be earned and developed within communities not just for marketing or business purposes, but because, "people trust people, people don't trust companies," said panelist Charlie Green.

Smith added that the concept of trust hasn't changed, but "the megaphone has changed," referring to new media. Brogan took things one step further when he asked, "What if you made your most disgruntled customer your CMO? What effect would that have on your business?"

However, Brogan isn't one to be vague when it comes to the end goal of building trust. He kept getting back to revenue and concrete business goals when asked how he measures his work with clients. "Yield over time" and "driving awareness into the sales funnel," were two specifics he mentioned. Does this sound shallow? Perhaps, but Brogan and the panelists all insisted that businesses must move profitability from simply an "objective" to a "sideways outcome." Meaning: make good stuff, treat people right, and the profits will follow.

In the wake of FTC clampdown on blogger payola, and just plain bad offers to buy coverage, Thrillist and title sponsor Jet Blue are doing it right, flying 70 bloggers and journalists to an undisclosed location for a 3-day party.

The mystery weekend in summer 2008 to Las Vegas earned coverage in Elle.com, CoolHunting, PRWeek, HuffingtonPost and others. This time around the party will amass alot of hashtag love and re-tweets from both Thrillist and from JetBlue (3.5 million followers), and make Director of Communications Flavie Bagnol dozens of media contacts for life.

We know from #jetmystery that Mashable COO Adam Hirsch, Newsweek's Kurt Soller, PSFK blogger Dan Gould, and RandomNightOut blogger/photographer Nick McGlynn will need a release form, swimwear and something to wear to a "white party".

We don't see a booze sponsor this time, though Starbucks promises in a press release to keep them all buzzed on VIA.

PRNewser was invited to this year's Blog World Expo in Las Vegas - possibly the second largest gathering of social media cool kids outside of SXSW. Unfortunately we couldn't attend, but it looks like all everyone is doing is getting drunk and having hamburger eating contests and stuff. Kidding. We know there is some (a lot?) of learning going on too.

Do you have a story to tell? We're all ears.

SideBAR was packed last night for PRNewser's latest happy hour party. Thanks to everyone for stopping by and enjoying the drink specials, complimentary appetizers, and of course, the good company.

We chatted with newly appointed dna13 Vice Chairman and former PRNewswire President Dave Armon. "We'll be expanding in North America this year," he said. Lane Buschel, President of Morris + King's digital division SeisMK talked to us about some recent successes with client Glam Media. We asked him if he had any agency news, to which he said, "no." [Update: It turns out M+K does have some news as they announced a new client, LBi IconNicholson US, in today's Spin the Agencies of Record.] Rob Manfredo let us know he just landed at Beckerman Group this week, an agency that was in the news recently for their acquisition of Wise PR. Matt Caldecutt and Scott Rosenblum of TrylonSMR were in attendance, perhaps toasting to the agency's new client win: LocateTV. Matt also posted a brief recap on his blog. Alyson Campbell of AMP3 PR looked more at ease after a big week managing client Grooveshark and their deal with record label giant EMI.

Kaplow VP Chaim Haas has been busy keeping things running smoothly on the Skype account and was Tweeting away throughout the night. Waggener Edstrom account manager Jeremy Bridgman was busy mingling and reminded us that he is not on the Microsoft account. PRNewser's favorite couple, Converseon's Paull Young and M Booth's Alyssa Galella were enjoying beer and wine, respectively. Tiffany Winbush let us know that she landed at Bridge Global Strategies as a Senior Account Executive. The Dowd Agency publicist Laura Dempsey told us that she runs the agency's Twitter feed. They're up to 450 followers. Not too bad.

The most telling sign was that despite the economy, about 90% of attendees (rough estimate) seemed to be employed. Were there job seekers in attendance? Sure, but they were the minority.

There were also a few journalists that snuck in, and some racy ones at that. Playgirl editor-in-chief Nicole Caldwell told us that she is consulting with the magazine on some projects including the Levi Johnston photo shoot. That's about as far as we got on that one.

Every time PRNewser throws a party, we have a good time. And it seems that you do, too! So, we're throwing another one, next week in New York. Lets get together, enjoy a few drinks, (We'll have some of our usual great drink specials.) talk shop, avoid talking shop, whatever you feel like. Here are the details:

When:
Wednesday, October 14, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Where:
Sidebar
118 East 15th Street at Irving
New York, New York 10003
Click here for a map.

Please RSVP in advance here.

PRNewser stopped by mediabistro's annual event for women's magazine editors last night, Desert and Discourse, and caught up with Nicole Stagg, Senior Director, Content & Product Strategy for Digital Media at Hearst. Stagg is the founding editor of Hearst properties Delish.com and RealBeauty.com, and was a panelist alongside Michelle Adams, founder of new online shelter magazine Lonny; Caroline Little, former CEO of The Washington Post Co.'s digital side and current CEO of North America for Guardian News & Media; Newser co-founder and editor-in-chief Caroline Miller and Glam Media's Jennifer Salant.

RealBeauty.com is still a baby, having launched two weeks ago and the staff is "happy to work with PR," said Stagg. The site covers "wellness, fitness and beauty inside out," she said, and welcomed PRNewser readers to send their pitches to the press@realbeauty.com email address, which goes out to all staffers.

We also asked Stagg about her thoughts on charging for online content and her reaction to positions such as those of Rupert Murdoch, who is aggressively pushing online pay walls. Stagg said that Hearst is still in "experiment mode" but did also point out that 25% of their print subscribers come directly from their online properties.

For a full recap of the night, check out FishbowlNY's comprehensive coverage. MediaPost's Kelly Samardak provided her usual snappy, visual and entertaining review. Folio was there and has a recap as well.

[Photo: Kelly Samardak]

There are no "deadlines." Twitter is our number one source for getting news. We're all kind of working 24-hours a day. Those were just some of the statements made at the Publicity Club of New York's "New" Media Beat luncheon today.

Featuring David Kaplan of PaidContent, Nicholas Carlson of The Business Insider, Mediaite's Rachel Sklar, The Huffington Post's Danny Shea and The New York Times' Brian Stelter, the panel dug into what "reporting" means and how it has completely changed in the digital, social world.

PRNewser attended and live-tweeted the event. You can checkout the complete stream here and our updates here. After the event, we caught up with Huffington Post Media Editor Danny Shea for a brief video interview in which he described how he uses social media for sourcing stories, what some of the best PR pros do to get his attention and if PR is doing a good job of communicating in the real time, 24/7 news environment.

With millions of Americans facing home foreclosure, families face not only losing their homes, but also their pets. Either families can't afford to keep their pet, or they are moving to a new property that doesn't allow pets.

One PR pro has decided to do something about it. Joseph Hassan, a former Account Supervisor at Fleishman Hillard who is now an independent consultant, has set up "Pup Crawl," which is an evening dog walk over the Brooklyn Bridge that will take place this Saturday.

"I can't imagine losing your job, your house and losing your pet on top of all the other emotional stress you're dealing with...We're trying to help these little guys out until the economy picks up again," Hassan told The Wall Street Journal.

Hassan has already lined up pet food company Iams as a sponsor, and advanced registrations are more than double what he expected. The event is a perfect photo opportunity for local media, so we'll be on the lookout to see what kind of coverage he gets over the weekend.

[image: young and with it/Flickr]