PR Newswire has launched a new brand positioning campaign with the theme “Engage Opportunity Everywhere.” The campaign includes a series of white papers and video.

One of the videos discussing audience engagement in a “multichannel world” features speakers from Weber Shandwick, J.P. Morgan, and TheLadders.com, among others. Interesting how basically the entire campaign is embedded with the video, from the white papers to a picture of the CEO, Ninan Chacko.

Exclusive: Reputation management and media monitoring company has been acquired by Canada Newswire.

The acquisition is not a complete surprise, as over the last five years CNW has been a key collaborator on the dna13 PR software platform, which they market and sell in Canada under the brand name MediaVantage.

“The integration of dna13 into CNW completely changes the basic concept of a newswire,” said CNW CEO Carolyn McGill-Davidson.

A dna13 spokesperson tells PRNewser, “Negotiations on this acquisition project began in earnest about 3 months ago.”

This acquisition will not affect the partnership between dna13 and Thomson Reuters in the U.S. market. dna13 announced the partnership in November 2009, in which dna13 became a part of Thomson Reuter’s PR software offerings.

CNW is co-owned by PR Newswire, and PRN CEO Ninan Chacko is on CNW’s Board. dna13 clients include Royal Bank of Scotland, Wachovia and the Miami Heat basketball team.

PRNewsire launched a re-design of its Website today, featuring an “Optimized News Platform” which organizes releases to appear more as they would on a news website, as opposed to just a wire service. New features include enhanced search, “most read” and “most emailed” story rankings and the ability to sort releases by popular news topics, such “Health Care Reform.” New social features also make it easier to share releases or directly publish them to your blog.

“One of our goals with the redesign of PRNewswire.com was to make it easier for our audiences – media, communications professionals, Investor Relations officers, small business executives and the general public – to enjoy immediate access to tools, expertise and content that helps them meet their objectives,” said Ninan Chacko, president and CEO of PR Newswire in a statement.

First on PRNewser: News and information distribution services company PRNewswire has laid off 2% of its work force today, PRNewswer has confirmed. A source told PRNewser this morning that 45 people had been laid off at the company, however Rachel A. Meranus, Vice President of PR at PR Newswire said the number is much lower.

Meranus sent PRNewser the following statement:

PR Newswire did reorganize some resources the other day. We eliminated some positions in the U.S, and in certain areas we are replacing those positions with new ones that are better suited to our future needs. We are also actively hiring in other areas. While we are not giving specifics on these changes, I will tell you that it’s less than 2% of our total headcount when considering the positions we are replacing and the new ones we are hiring. Once we have filled those positions, our headcount today will be exactly where it was this time last year.

We are reorganizing these resources because the communications and media industries are changing and the market for our products and services is evolving.

The company announced a new CEO, Ninan Chacko in February, which coincided with the planned retirement of then current CEO Charles Gregson.