Navy Reserve Rear Admiral Vic Beck (left) has been named MD of the U.S. public affairs practice at Burson-Marsteller. Beck has been in the Navy Reserve for 25 years and serves as vice chief of information for the U.S. Navy. He’ll be based in Washington D.C. and Boston reporting to the chair of the U.S. PA practice, Nate Tibbits. Beck also has 20 years of public affairs experience working with companies and government organizations.

Krupp Kommunications (K2) has launched a parenting division led by Beth Feldman, former VP of comms at CBS and the founder of RoleMommy.com. The parenting division has already won new business like Zarbee’s and will be working with existing clients like Gaiam and the book Bonding Over Beauty by Erika Katz.

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Michael Frohlich has been named MD of Ogilvy PR U.K. He will continue as the regional consumer marketing head with the added day-to-day responsibility for the U.K. office. He’ll also sit on the firm’s U.K. board. Frohlich joined the firm in January 2012 from Bell Pottinger Group. [via]

Jeff Smokler has joined IMRE as SVP of the healthcare practice. He was previously SVP of healthcare public affairs at Weber Shandwick and once served as executive director of strategic comms of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

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To stand out against the competition during the RFP process, firms are adding all sorts of services to their proposal offerings, including research. Firms are also making all kinds of promises, some that are difficult or impossible to keep.

Today’s guest post is written by Mark Weiner, CEO of PRIME Research Americas, a global research and analysis firm, and author of Unleashing the Power of PR: A Contrarian’s Guide to Marketing and Communication. He looks at the role that research and evaluation can play in the RFP process and how firms can position the research services they plan to provide in their proposals.

Click through to read on.

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In case you didn’t get the tweet, PRNewser (@PRNewser) is attending the PRSA 2010 International Conference in Washington D.C., which began over the weekend.

We caught up with one of the weekend speakers at last night’s evening reception, Mark Weiner, CEO of PRIME Research. His workshop, titled “Quantifiable Objectives: The Key to Proving PR Value,” covered techniques for setting objectives and “linking objectives with results.”

Over sliders in the hotel courtyard, Weiner shared the “three forms by which PR can demonstrate and generate ROI.”

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