Trust in government fell nine points to 43 percent internationally, according to 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer. The result shows clearly that citizens around the world have little faith in the government’s ability to do what needs to be done in the wake of political and economic upheaval.

A total of 25 countries were surveyed. In 17, less than half of respondents think the government will do what’s right. In a dozen, including France, China, and Japan, trust in government fell more than 10 points. And across the broader swath of the population, almost half say they don’t trust the government to tell the truth.

“What we saw around the world was that government didn’t step up and do its job,” Ben Boyd, Edelman‘s global chair of the corporate practice, told us this morning. In the U.S. Boyd said the “inaction and friction between Congress and the President” was a big problem.

Read more

Accor North America has chosen GolinHarris as AOR for the Motel 6 chain of discount lodgings. The firm’s Chicago office will lead the account

Work will include consumer and trade media outreach, social media work, and support for the company’s 50th anniversary here in the U.S. and in some European cities.

Julie Roehm. Photo: Scott Breithaupt

Julie Roehm is joining business software company SAP as SVP of marketing after a five-year hiatus. When we last heard from her, she was locked in a legal battle with her previous employer Walmart. She was SVP of comms there. [via Ad Age]

Bill Colletti has been named EVP and Los Angeles GM at Hill + Knowlton Strategies. Colletti was previously a senior strategist at Public Strategies Inc., a unit of H+K. He was with that firm for 11 years. Interestingly, he’s also served as a senior advisor to the government of Bulgaria.

Solomon McCown has named Ed Cafasso SVP at the firm. Cafasso was most recently SVP and director of corp comms for Sovereign Bank-Santander. In May 2011, it was announced that he had left MSLGroup in Boston where he was MD.

Read more

Photo: Reuters

Kodak chief comms officer Gerard Meuchner has stepped down from his post, The Wall Street Journal reports. A number of people have left the company, including three directors, as the company tries to sell or license some of its patents in the hopes of avoiding a bankruptcy filing. Kodak has been downgraded by Moody’s and the stock price was below 50 cents yesterday. Meuchner joined Kodak in 2000. It’s unclear where he’s heading.

Euro RSCG Worldwide PR has promoted Dalton Dorné to CMO of the firm. Dorné has been with the firm for four years, most recently serving as regional marketing director of Euro RSCG Asia Pacific in Singapore. In this new role, Dorné will launch the ERWW PR Marketing Council and serve as chief of staff to CEO Marian Salzman.

Matthew Henson has rejoined GolinHarris as executive director leading a number of accounts across the corporate communications space. He’ll be based in Boston but reporting to to Jennifer Cohan, MD in New York. Henson was with GH for nearly 10 years before leaving in 2009 to join Monster.

Read more

Pam Edwards has joined GolinHarris‘ Los Angeles office as director of the automotive practice. GH introduced its g4 agency model in June. Edwards will be part of the catalyst group. (The others are strategists, creators, and connectors.) She’ll report to the executive director of the practice, Dan Zukowski.

Edwards joins from Volvo Cars North America where she was online business development manager and also previously served as corporate comms manager. She’s also worked with automotive clients at PCGCampbell and Ketchum.

GH’s auto roster includes Toyota, Yamaha, and Autotrader.com. Abroad, the firm works with have Jaguar/Land Rover and Pirelli.

GolinHarris has added two new clients to its roster out West. BillFloat, a financial service company that helps consumers who are having trouble paying their bills, has chosen GH as its AOR. The firm will provide consumer and trade media outreach and help in the public affairs area. And Southern California’s University of Redlands has chosen the firm for media outreach (national and regional). Both accounts will be handled out of GH’s Orange County office.

Unruly, a video advertising company that works across YouTube, Facebook, and other social networks, has chosen The Morris + King Company as AOR. The firm will work on an integrated PR campaign.

Read more

For its final act, the PRWeek NEXT conference gathered three firm heads — Edelman’s Richard Edelman, Ketchum’s Rob Flaherty, and Fred Cook of GolinHarris — to talk about what it means to not just have the “seat at the table,”* but to maximize it.

The consensus among the three can be summed up simply: “Be bold.” In fact, Cook used those words specifically. Flaherty used a quote, that we’ll quote in part here: “Try not to be the understudy in your own life… We have all the permission we need to step to center stage.”

Read more

Interpublic Group announced its Q3 earnings this morning, reporting 11.1 percent revenue growth in Q3 for a total of $1.73 billion. Organic revenue growth was 8.7 percent — 10.1 percent in the U.S. and 6.7 percent abroad. Operating income for the quarter was $173.2 million versus $100.2 million for the same time in 2010.

For the first nine months, revenue totaled $4.94 billion compared to $4.5 billion for the same period in 2010. Organic revenue increase was 7.5 percent and operating income was $301.9 million. Operating income was up from $218 million compared to the same time last year. Adweek credits the investment in Facebook for the results, which were better than expected.

IPG’s PR firms include GolinHarris, Weber Shandwick, and DeVries Public Relations. We spoke with Harris Diamond, CEO of the Contingency Management Group that houses the PR firms, which saw 10.8 percent organic growth for the quarter and 8.8 percent year-to-date organic growth.

Read more

Simon Ruparelia has been appointed head of GolinHarris‘ digital team in Asia Pacific, a newly created position. He was previously Unilever’s global program planner of digital marketing. According to a statement from Jonathan Hughes, president, international, this is the first hire under GH’s new g4 model.  Ruparelia will initially be based in Singapore.

David Press has joined kwittken + company as MD of the new Corporate Strategy Group, which will provide corp comms services such as issues and crisis management, IR, and executive coaching. Press was previously with FTI Consulting (formerly Financial Dynamics).

Read more

Interpublic Group has acquired majority control of S2Publicom, a top Brazilian firm that was formed last year by the merger of two PR firms, S2 and Publicom. The firms have a 20-year history in the country.

S2Publicom was an affiliate of Weber Shandwick and GolinHarris, and will continue to aid with regional growth plans for those two firms.

S2Publicom will continue to be led by CEO José Luiz Schiavoni with the other founding partners, Luciana Gurgel and Aldo De Luca, remaining in their positions as senior strategists and counselors. S2Publicom specializes in media relations and media training, crisis comms, and digital work.