Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal reports that former MGA co-founder Jeff Julin has formally launched his new communications consulting firm.
Julin Strategic Communications will “focus on assessment and development of stakeholder engagement programs for businesses and community-based organizations. In addition, the firm will also offer strategic planning and facilitation to help companies reach their business goals.”
7News reports that GBSM is handling community engagement for a controversial plan to use City Park Golf Course for a stormwater project.
Denver hired a public relations company called GBSM to engage the community and get input on the project. The total contract budget is worth $328,000 and the company was hired in July 2015.
Miguel Piedra of RockOrange argues that tennis star Maria Sharapova’s response to a failed performance-enhancing drug test will become a crisis communications blueprint. From his column in PRWeek:
Her tack was one of honesty, directness, and accountability. She did not use spokespeople or press releases or even Oprah to come clean. In doing so, she has saved herself countless hours of brand-damaging news reports.
Her forthrightness is a case study in proper reputation management. It’s a stunningly bold and mature handling of the crisis, especially considering her youth as compared to the old hands who vainly clung to their claims of innocence, and the even older PR axiom that tells us to “deny, deny, deny.” …
Getting out in front of the story — let’s call this “the Sharapova Response” — means owning the narrative. Information flows from the source directly to the media, unfiltered, and even if it is obscured later it is done through the lens of an initially honest act.
Orapin Marketing + Public Relations has signed three new clients and re-signed one more. The agency has been named the agency of record for Century Communities, a national homebuilder headquartered in Denver; Golden Software, a Golden-based provider of scientific graphics software; and Dunbar Kitchen + Tap House, a neighborhood restaurant and pub located in Denver’s only historic cultural center, Five Points. OMPR is also entering its fifth year working with the Original Pancake House of Denver.
WordenGroup Public Relations has added Brooks Lake Lodge & Spa in Dubois, Wyo., to its client roster. Brooks Lake Lodge has a 100-year history combining an authentic Western country living experience and outdoor adventure with outstanding accommodations, gourmet dining and 5-star service.
Fox31’s Drew Englebart covered Brock Osweiler’s recent tussle in Scottsdale, and included the PR perspective from dovetail solutions’ Andy Boian.
It’s unlike other athletes, including like Buffalo Bills running back LeSean McCoy, who was recently involved in a bar brawl, and the Los Angeles Clippers’ Blake Griffin, who punched a member of his team’s equipment staff. Osweiler avoided what could have been a PR disaster.
“At the end of the day, what happens is if you compose yourself and handle yourself well, there’s no story there and that’s what he did,” Boian said.
When the correction is longer than the article, it may be time to revisit those copyeditor layoffs.
(Hat tip: James Cormish)
If you were chasing the Chipotle account, bad news: the company has selected Burson-Marsteller as its agency of record. Diana Bradley at PRWeek reports:
Chipotle Mexican Grill has picked Burson-Marsteller as its US AOR as the company tries to rebound from the E. coli crisis that caused widespread reputational damage and bogged down its fourth-quarter earnings.
Chris Arnold, communications director for the QSR chain, said Thursday that the company is “meeting with Burson tomorrow and will begin to map out a plan based on our priorities and needs.” He declined other comment on the matter. …
Chipotle split with previous AOR Edelman last fall due to “a sizable piece of business they were taking on that presents a conflict,” Arnold said at the time. …
More recently, the chain has been focused on rebounding from a widespread E. coli scare that began last fall. It has enacted several food-safety procedures, and it closed the doors of restaurants across the country on February 8 to ensure all employees were up to speed.
The Denver Post gave 9News’ Mark Koebrich, who retired yesterday, quite the send-off on the front page of its Life & Culture section today:
In its defense, the Post did run a two-paragraph brief about Koebrich’s retirement on page 6A.
PRWeek is out with its 2016 PR industry salary survey, and Chris Daniels reports:
As the labor market tightens in the U.S., PR employers must accept the unprecedentedly powerful position the workforce now occupies. …
There is more movement within agencies and corporate PR departments, as well as from company to company. This, in turn, heightens the pressure on employers to fight harder to keep talent, with pay raises an obvious means to do that.
The survey found 75% of respondents who have remained at their company in the past year received a pay increase in the past 12 months. And even among those who stayed in the same position, 68% saw their salary rise. …
Corey Hutchins at the Columbia Journalism Review reports:
On Monday of this week, something was missing from Colorado’s largest daily newspaper: For the first time in memory, no house editorial appeared in the pages of The Denver Post.
It wasn’t a glitch or a printing malfunction, just the latest small sign of retrenchment in the newspaper business. One of the Post’s editorial writers, Jeremy Meyer, left a few weeks ago for a job in government PR. There are no plans to replace him in the near future, according to Vincent Carroll, the editorial page editor.
That leaves Carroll—who became the page editor in 2013 when his predecessor, Curtis Hubbard, left to join a public affairs firm—as essentially the lone editorial writer left at the Post. And that means there will be days when publishing a locally written editorial won’t be possible.
“I do not know how often that will occur,” he said via email. “Probably once a week, maybe more often.”
That is a tremendously sad development for Denver. A newspaper’s editorial page can be a strong, forceful voice in a world that needs to be held accountable.
Denver Public Relations Blog 