Video: Jim Whaley, VP, Communications and Marketing, Siemens Corporation

PRNewser caught up this week with Jim Whaley, Vice President, Communications and Marketing at Siemens Corporation. Whaley oversees communications and marketing, meaning Siemens’ CMO reports to him. “We do have a seat at the table,” Whaley said, when it comes to the communications arm. The b-to-b company, with 69,000 employees and $25 billion in revenue in the U.S. alone, does business in verticals from health-care to energy to consumer products.

We talked a bit about Siemens’ “Answers” campaign, which Whaley said seeks to educate people on how the company “has the answers to the tough questions here in the U.S.” They’ve invested four times the budget to this campaign as compared to any other previous Siemen’s campaign, he said.

Whaley previously served as Director of Communications for the United States Military Academy at West Point. In that role, he was responsible for a campaign celebrating West Point’s 200th anniversary that resulted in 24 books, eight network television documentaries and on the 2003 PRSA Award of Excellence and the PRWeek Public Campaign of the Year.

Not in this video, but an interesting story nonetheless, Whaley told us a about how the book, Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point, came about. Author David Lipsky, then a long-haired Rolling Stone reporter fresh out of Brown University, approached West Point about a story on the academy. Some top brass were skeptical of giving Rolling Stone unfettered access, but Whaley insisted. The story turned into the book, which became a New York Times best seller. For his research, Lipsky carried around a signed note from Whaley in a Ziploc bag that said he has complete access to the academy, its facilities and personnel.

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