In some ways, the move is a trade media equivalent of what we’ve seen in the last year with well-known journalists such as the Washington Post‘s Howard Kurtz, who left the newspaper to join Tina Brown at the Daily Beast.

PRNewser spoke with Morrissey this week for his first interview since the announcement.

We’ll start with the question many folks are probably interested in: why did you make the move?

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Left to right: David Kirkpatrick and Adweek's Brian Morrissey Photo: Nancy Lazarus

David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World, offered his views regarding The Social Network as well as the future of Facebook during a lively discussion with Brian Morrissey, digital editor of Adweek, at Adweek’s Social Media Strategies conference in New York on Wednesday.

While The Social Network was not based on his book, Kirkpatrick summarized his reaction by saying, “I liked it as a movie, but not as history. Aaron Sorkin acknowledged that he invented some characters and situations for the movie.”

Kirkpatrick added, “Mark Zuckerberg is not as vindictive a person as he is portrayed in the film. It’s a shame that young people will see the greatest entrepreneur of this era, but along with those distortions.” Overall however, Kirkpatrick believes that the movie is good for Facebook, since “it turned Mark Zuckerberg into a global celebrity.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This was supposed to be the year that PR firms made a splash at what has traditionally been the advertising industry’s hottest party: The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Although PR category submissions were up 32%, many of the PR awards actually went to advertising agencies.

While PR agencies overall didn’t have a strong showing, it should be noted that this is only PR’s second year at a party that advertising has been hosting for the past 57.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This was supposed to be the year PR firms stormed advertising’s biggest party, the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

However, so far it seems most of the awards are being taken home by ad agencies, including the PR Lions, which was won by TBWA\Chiat\Day for their Gatorade “Replay” campaign (video above). Fleishman-Hillard did receive some creative credits on the submission, which had two high school football arch-rivals replay a game which they tied in November 1993. In other words, it was a PR stunt created by an ad firm.

Adweek‘s Brian Morrissey reports, “non-PR shops won 27 of the 42 gold and silver Lions awarded.” Paul Taaffe, CEO of Hill & Knowlton and PR jury chair issued a statement today which read in part:

The advertising industry is eating our lunch at these awards and the PR industry has to raise its game. There was a big increase in entries to the PR lions category overall but the number of entries from PR agencies was actually down. The PR industry has got to wake up and understand that our work can be exceptional and this is an opportunity to showcase that work in the best possible light. We need to do more.

Taaffe said he will speaking with festival organizers about removing the word advertising from the festival’s name. “Cannes Lions is no longer just an advertising festival. Good creative ideas can come from anybody but the different disciplines have grown up for a good reason and it is misleading to group all of these under the ‘advertising’ umbrella,” he said.

Wins by PR firms so far include Weber Shandwick’s Silver PR Lions for work with GLAXOSMITHKLINE, Fleishman Hillard’s Silver PR Lions for work with Papa John’ and Ogivly PR’s Silver PR Lions for work with Ford. Fleishman was the only U.S. based PR agency to win a Gold Lion, the second highest award after the Grand Prix.

Taaffe’s full statement after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It’s no secret to PRNewser readers that the lines between agencies — whether they be PR, digital, or advertising focused — continue to blur.

At this point, it can be a question of who is moving faster into the other’s turf: ad agencies offering more “PR like” services or PR agencies offering more “advertising like” services.

AdWeek‘s Brian Morrissey pinged PRNewser to get our thoughts the issue and just published a story on the topic today.

One interesting anecdote came from Peter Yesawich Jr., who “lasted just a month” as a vp at Edelman Digital in San Francisco. Says Yeaswich:

PR firms “don’t understand digital” [and] bill high rates for rote activities like Twitter updates.

Certainly, a number of PR executives would disagree with Yeaswich. From PRNewser’s point of view, we certainly see more ad agencies hiring PR types as opposed to PR agencies hiring ad types. What is your take on this trend? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

TurboTax, the tax preparation software from Intuit Inc., launched “Friends Like You” today, which is “a new software recommendation service that lets users access reviews from their friends or people with similar tax situations,” reports our sibling site Social Times. The new campaign plays big with Twitter and Facebook, allowing customers to share thoughts on the product and questions with people in their social graph.

“We know the most influential part of decision making comes from people you trust and others like them for product recommendations,” Seth Greenberg, director of media and digital marketing for TurboTax told Social Times.

This is somewhat counter to recent data from Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer, which stated, “Trust in information from friends and peers, ‘people like me,’ dropped by 20 points, from 47 to 27 percent,” over the past year. However, that is just one study, and we’d be surprised if overall people didn’t trust their friends and family more than advertisements and media reports.

Like any other brand opening itself up via social media, TurboTax has to take the good with the bad. The first post on the site reads as of this morning read, “Shame on TurboTax for their lack of transparency. They announce e-file is free but that is not exactly true. You don’t find out that e-file is “included” in the price until you have finished your return.” The site today includes a mix of both positive and negative comments.

Adweek‘s Brian Morrissey looks into the TurboTax campaign today, as well as a rival campaign from competitor H&R Block.

RELATED: PRNewser Interview With Scott Gulbransen, Senior Manager of Public Relations & Social Media, Consumer Group, Intuit

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Brian Morrissey, digital editor at AdWeek, and Marian Salzman, president of North American PR for agency Euro RSCG joined CNBC’s “Power Lunch” today to talk “Top Marketing Trends for 2010.”

Salzman said with social media taking even more of a front seat, “it’s not going to be paid anymore, it’s going to be persuade. It’s all about being part of wherever the news is being created, co-creating the news.”

“It’s about replacing ads with action” said Morrissey, emphasizing that companies need to “prove it” and “show, don’t tell” when it comes to their products and customer service.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The question has been popping up with increased frequency over the last year: who “owns” social media? Adweek‘s Brian Morrissey talks to a number of agencies in a story today, yet the answer still seems to be: it depends. It depends on the client, their needs, the agency’s capabilities, and a whole lot more.

We’ve asked the question in numerous interviews, and each time received a different answer. We particularly enjoyed FutureWorks Principal Brian Solis‘ answer. In a recent interview with PRNewser, he said, “The reality is that every single department which has an outward facing focus is going to have to socialize: PR, marketing, sales, etc. All of these things are going to need assistance, help and direction. And once it starts to proliferate it will look like this – who will own email within a company? No one, but IT was responsible for implementing email.” High level? Yes, but it makes sense.

In Morrissey’s story, he speaks mostly with agencies that have more of an advertising or online marketing background and are branching out into social media engagement and being named social media agency of record for large brands. In his search for a social media help, Ken Stellmacher, director of consumer marketing at eye-care insurance company VSP said, “We found that different suppliers brought different things to the table, but there wasn’t one agency or partner that satisfied all our needs.”

What is clear: brands are more and more interested in “earned” media as it is more effective in social channels than “paid” media such as banner ads. Given that, agencies that have roots in advertising are increasingly going up against PR firms. Is this PR’s game to lose?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As the Facebook platform continues to grow by leaps and bounds, it’s not surprising that more and more people are receiving invites to become “Fans” of brands from Coca-Cola to your local pharmacy. If anything, these requests have increased in recent months, since Facebook changed features to allow brands to be part of the all powerful “feed” section of the site, essentially giving brands equal standing to that of your actual real life friends.

So, which brands are doing best at utilizing the platform? Adweek‘s Brian Morrissey took a look. Here are the leaders in several categories:

Consumer Packaged Goods: Coca-Cola
Retail: Best Buy
Restaurant/Foods: Starbucks
Tech: Microsoft
Apparel: Adidas
Insurance: Aflac
Automotive: Ford
Airline: Southwest

Click through to read Morrissey’s full report and see what these brands are doing to be successful.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This is a big development for anyone responsible for media relations. Since Google came on to the scene, many of its products and approaches to information have helped PR people do their work–especially Google News and Google Alerts–and have in turn, quickened reaction time and made monitoring and client reporting easier, and cheaper.

Looking at a journalist’s byline history is an obvious strategy, yet it’s continually something that gets public relations people in to trouble. When pressed for time, account executives give in to temptation and skip their Lexis-Nexis research (an expensive product) and begin blasting out pitches. I’ve always argued that PR isn’t deteriorating, just that journalists now have new steam valves in which to out bad pitching and pushy publicists, seen in the early Tweets of AdWeek’s Brian Morrissey, for example.

Startups such as PRMatchPoint and HARO have taken different approaches to reducing PR spam.

Like the classic NBC PSAs say, “the more you know”.

Older companies like and services like Lexis, Profnet, Cision, and Vocus may see their subscribership deteriorate–even though they’re constantly improving and innovating–as Google and others develop free products.

Byline history was available on Google News all along, though not hyperlinked, and not available in search window functionality. The former allows you to track a journalist even if they change jobs. The tea leaves get harder to read if you choose to do an Archives search.

Information on how to use Google Byline and a screenshot (courtesy of BayNewser) of a typical search are after the jump:

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.