The 10 Most Creative PR Agencies in 2018

www.insightssuccess.com August 2018

The

10 Most Creative

Agencies in 2018

Editor’s Pick The Impressive Impact of Organic Networking

Understanding Reformations Media Industry and its’ Digital Transformation

Ronald Wong President & CEO

Imprenta Communications Group Reaching Diverse Audiences Since Inception

Editor’s Note

www.insightssuccess.com August 2018

Public Relations: Managing the Identity of Organizations

The

10 Most Creative

Agencies in 2018

Editor’s Pick The Impressive Impact of Organic Networking

Understanding Reformations Media Industry and its’ Digital Transformation

Ronald Wong President & CEO

Imprenta Communications Group Reaching Diverse Audiences Since Inception

F

or decades, Public Relation (PR) agencies have been working with corporates as well as individuals to develop and execute campaigns that connect clients with the target audience. Any PR firm’s practice areas widely range from content creation, corporate communications, events, executive coaching, internal communications, promotional asset production, media relations, multi-media, social media, reputation management and more.

Recently, Public relations agencies have been shifting to a more customer centric structure, with the consumers playing a much larger role in online media. In other words, it is a considerable shift from a journalist or writer based public relations to a customer-focused approach. This has resulted in a dramatic impact on how PR agencies are structured and the services they provide. With videos becoming overwhelmingly popular on social media, digital teams are now a requisite for any agency, mobilized to work with clients on how best to leverage videography for social media platforms to reach key stakeholders.

Writing and distributing news releases and then pitching media, has now become an obsolete process.

Nowadays, PR specialists are typically working to establish and maintain relationships with an organization’s target audience, the media, relevant trade media, as well as other opinion leaders. According to independent researchers, the market data of this fast growing sector is designed to promote the interests and image of clients. The worldwide public relations revenue is projected to estimate approximately 19.3 billion by 2020 which advocates experiencing a significant growth compared to the previous years.

In the upcoming years, PR will entail more dependence on analytics and is likely to include the terms data techniques, data analytics and geo-location that all are coined as tools to target people with relevant, customer-specific content. Additionally, PR firms are looking forward to be ahead of the curve and finding ways to disrupt and innovate internally through exploring passions and developing skills in adjacent disciplines.

To shed light over the industry and recognize some of the most creative PR agencies, Insights Success has curated a list of “The 10 Most Creative PR Agencies in 2018” which are excelling their provision of best in class PR solutions and playing a vital role in the success of various organization.

Featuring as the Cover Story we have Imprenta Communications Group, a California-based, award-winning public affairs, ethnic marketing, and campaign firm, which specializes in reaching diverse audiences.

In this issue, we have also shortlisted Bob Gold & Associates, which is an independent Southern California-based public relations agency with offices in New York and a global network of high tech PR agencies. It delivers meaningful connections for its clients through integrated communications programs; Pietryla PR & Marketing, which is a boutique PR firm; North 6th Agency, who has built a culture that is rewarding, collaborative, and unique. Its people and its passion for what it does is what keeps the positive energy flowing through the heart of the agency; TrizCom PR, which is comprised of public relations practitioners, solely committed to their craft; NRPR Group, a publicity firm that believes in the power of coupling traditional PR with digital marketing and in the vast opportunities that creating innovative content; 120 WEST STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS LLC., a company that excels in marketing, investor relations and public relations firm created to help companies grow; K2 Global Communications, a boutique content marketing and public relations firm focused on driving our clients’ bottom lines through targeted content and PR services; NRPR Group is a strategic positioning firm that believes in the combined power of thoughtful public relations, social media and digital media marketing; BLOOM COMMUNICATIONS, which is an integrated communications agency that provides strategic marketing, public relations, and researchbased consulting services exclusively to organizations that are making an impact in their communities.

Kaustav Roy

Cover Story

Imprenta

Communications Group

Reaching Diverse Audiences Since Inception

8

Maestros Insights

AI:From Artificial to Authentic

16 Virtuoso’s Vision

22

Articles

Editor’s Pick

The Impressive Impact of Organic Networking

38

Understanding Reformations

Media Industry and its’ Digital Transformation

The Shift that broke the pendulum

30 Sports Insider

No More Staying Home:3 Ways We Get Our Customers to Come Out & Play

46

120 West Strategic Communications:

Business Growth Fueled by Strategy, Marketing & Public Relations

18

BLOOM Communications:

Specialized Marketing & PR Agency Serving Clients Committed to Giving Back

20 Bob Gold & Associates: Boosting Business through Digital Engagement

26 K2 Global Communications: Inuencing the Inuencers

28 North 6th Agency: Embracing the Pace since Inception

34 NRPR Group:

Setting a Benchmark for Excellence

36 Pietryla PR & Marketing:

Scaling Businesses Digitally

TrizCom PR:

Delivering Tailor-made Solutions and Building Unwavering Trust

44

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Editor-in-Chief Senior Editor Managing Editor Executive Editors Assistant Editors Visualiser Art & Design Director Associate Designer Co-designer

Pooja M. Bansal Anish Miller Kaustav Roy Jenny Fernandes Kedar Kulkarni Brian Smith Bhavithiran Murugan David King Amol Kamble Prashant Charpe Asha Bange

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August, 2018 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com

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Imprenta Communications Group:

Reaching Diverse Audiences Since Inception

Cover Story

“Our mission is to empower communities of color by giving them a voice and communicating to them in ways that respects their diversity and understands their culture.”

—Ronald Wong President & CEO

‘‘

We want to continue to deliver high-quality work, to access more people who have not been reached through mainstream communication, to build our capacity, and to continue to win.

What we do is about winning. Winning for our clients, and our community.

Transcending language is but a small part of the challenge; there is no substitute for genuine familiarity and an understanding of the myriad cultures that constitute a business’s potential audience and client base.

In this challenging environment, more smart businesses are turning to Imprenta Communications Group. Where communication is the art, Imprenta is the artist.

Imprinting a New Approach Operating out of California from Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco, Imprenta Communications Group, Inc. is a marketing and campaign strategy firm that focuses on connecting companies and causes with diverse ethnic and language communities.

By creating this nexus of communication between these two segments of society that have traditionally overlooked each other, Imprenta has unlocked a world of mutually-beneficial potential. It strives to enable clients to foster meaningful bonds with millions of people across the United States and across the world.

However, Imprenta does not work exclusively with enterprise. Instead, they are equally eager to empower candidates, causes, and initiatives to break the barriers that have consistently marginalized large swathes of the population.

‘‘

C

ommunication is an art. In a world that grows smaller every day, the ability of a company to convey its message clearly to an increasingly diverse demographic is one of the bedrocks - and clear indicators - of success.

By participating in and, indeed, driving this essential course correction, Imprenta has established itself as one of the U.S.’s most forward-thinking and powerful media influencers. In 2016 and 2015, Inc. 500 Magazine named it the “Fastest Growing Company in America” and Imprenta was ranked by L.A. Business Journal as the tenth largest PR firm in Los Angeles.

The term ‘seismic shift’ has a tendency to be overused. In the case of what Imprenta and its founder, Ronald W. Wong have achieved, though, it is entirely appropriate.

A Bedrock of Personal and Community Achievement Mr. Wong is one of the most prominent leaders in the Asian Pacific American (APA) community. Not only as an entrepreneur but also as a voice of the people, he has made significant contributions to the advancement of people of color and given them a platform to make their voices heard.

Today, Mr. Ronald Wong is the President and CEO of Imprenta Communications Group, which is a multi-million-dollar entity. His role includes the development and implementation of marketing initiatives, communications strategies, and community outreach programs for the firm’s largest and most powerful clients.

While he established Imprenta in 2001, Mr. Wong’s role as an advocate for underrepresented communities precedes the new millennium by many years. He has spent over three decades helping Fortune 500 companies, government bodies, and elected officials with public relations, political, and communications strategies centered on reaching out to ethnic minorities.

“We develop and execute campaigns for Fortune 500 companies, candidates, causes, and initiatives that demand and expect to win.”

Advocating for and protecting the ideals of communities of color has long been one of Mr. Wong’s main passions. He was involved in ethnocentric marketing even before Imprenta in his role as a founding partner at Lang, Murakawa & Wong, one of the first strategic communication PR firms in the U.S. that was wholly APA-owned.

Immediately prior to founding Imprenta, Mr. Wong served the state of California as the chief deputy appointments secretary to Governor Gray Davis for three years. In that time, he was instrumental in filling over 3,000 positions in the state’s administrative services, including commissions, boards, and exempt positions.

This was neither the first nor the most prominent position that Mr. Wong held in the public domain. He also collaborated with Speaker of the Legislature Willie Brown, State Senator Art Torres, L.A. County Supervisor Ed Edelman, and was a political appointee in President Clinton’s Administration at the U.S. Department of Justice, Community Relations Services (CRS).

In 2012, he was part of President Obama’s Administration as a member of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Regulatory Fairness (RegFair) Board. Locally, Governor Davis appointed Mr. Wong to the L.A. County Metro Board of Directors and the Board of Governors for the California Community Colleges.

He is also the former co-chair of the Asian Business Association, and Secretary of the California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce, Board Member of Center of Asians United for Self-Empowerment (CAUSE) and Member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Mr. Wong holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He also completed the Management Development for Entrepreneurs program at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Business. He was awarded the Sloan Foundation Fellowship at the University of Washington, Graduate School of Public Affairs.

These achievements have laid the foundation for Mr. Wong’s work at Imprenta, which has already garnered nearly 100 individual awards. He has guided the firm to

recognition as Boutique Agency of the Year by Bulldog Reporter, as well as commendations for the design of creative ads and the execution of several successful campaigns.

In 2013, the Los Angeles Business Journal recognized him as the Asian Business Advocate of the Year and he was a semi-finalist for Ernest & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017 and 2016.

Mr. Wong’s efforts to draw the focus of both government and enterprise to the APA community has been honored by the California State Senate, State Assembly, Los Angeles City Council, Organization of Chinese Americans, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, Chinese American Elected Officials, Asian Business Association, and the Organization of Chinese Americans, among many others.

The Journey and the Destination Mr. Wong reveals that one of the key factors to the success of his company is an unwavering commitment to its vision of giving a voice to communities of color. This focus does not only dictate how they approach a campaign but also how they choose which clients to work with.

However, Mr. Wong does point out that this adherence to the mission is malleable enough to adapt to the unique needs of clients and their intended audience. It is this versatile methodology that has made success a hallmark at Imprenta.

While the firm is certainly on an upward trajectory today, that was not the case when the company was established.

Mr. Wong shares some of the hiccups they experienced.

“The biggest challenge in our early years was to keep up with global markets and trends. We always aimed to compete on a global scale but that means that you constantly have to identify and adopt the newest services, techniques, and technologies together with staff who can address that need.”

Rather introspectively, he also adds, “Then, and even now, the biggest personal challenge has been my lack of understanding of millennials. I have an incredibly difficult time relating to, and understanding what drives them. It is a

“In total we have won more than 20 awards and recognition for its creative work including Boutique Agency of the Year from Bulldog Report and recognition from the Public Relations Society of America, PR Diversity and Inclusion and other communications and creative industry awards.”

10PR The

Most Creative

Agencies in 2018

disconnect that I’ve tried to bridge for years, but perhaps I’m just too old.”

The teething stage has its pitfalls but Mr. Wong alludes to the reality that maintaining a stellar reputation is harder than establishing one.

“When you start, you have to prove yourself with every project and establish a trusted brand and reputation that is trusted. Then, clients expect you to deliver at the same level every day, every hour. Successes are minimized while failures are highlighted. Companies are remembered for the things they failed at, not for things they succeeded at.”

Sage Advice Entrepreneurial advice from an individual as personally accomplished as Mr. Wong is invaluable. When we asked him to share what he believed were the key principles to building and running a successful business, he summarized his views into five points: Ÿ Have a strong mission and stick to it Our mission has been the guiding principle that has allowed Imprenta to maintain its integrity as a team and as a brand.

Sticking to one’s mission clears away the smoke and things are much clearer when the mission is immovable. Ÿ Find the right team I often ask staff at gatherings and retreats to raise their hand if they feel they are the best at what they do. I expect every hand to be up. Good teams are primarily about trust. We are all accountable and that means taking everything to the finish line, every time. Ÿ Know your role, master it, and stick to it A team works best when everyone stays in their lanes.

Everyone should excel at their own role and minimize interference, regardless of intention, in anyone else’s.

Deviation from that model throws a spanner in the works. Ÿ Deliver for your friends The strength of relationships forged over decades of trust is priceless. I tell all my staff to tend to clients’ needs, anticipate pitfalls, give informed advice, and make them look good at all times. This is how we treat our friends; when you deliver for your friends, they deliver for you. Ÿ Have fun Every new employee gets a manual affectionately called “The World According to Ron”. Part of what I outline there is that none of the work we do is worth it unless we have

fun in the process. Work should not be perpetual toil. We relish our work and we relish our wins. Fun is what it’s all about.

Mr. Wong also touches on conflict management in the workplace. He has seen from experience that the bulk of such conflicts arise not from genuine hostility but a competitive streak.

“I am proud to have a competitive staff but competition can beget bad energy. They must remember that they are on the same team and their goals are the same. I think it’s a good idea to remind staff that we should not undercut each other to win the battle when the war is far from over.”

He personally seeks staff input and feedback because it reveals whether they are on the same page, their propensity for critical thinking, and an indication of how to nurture their potential. Mr. Wong encourages autonomy and relishes the order that emerges from the chaos when talented people are allowed to thrive.

The Climb Continues Many ethnically- and linguistically-isolated individuals tend to live within geographically-limited areas, and Imprenta is using technology to bridge that divide.

It has already begun to use proprietary digital ad technology that lowers investment cost and maximizes ROI for their clients. Part of this plan includes digital marketing campaigns with micro-targeting capabilities that narrow targeted ads down to one’s IP address.

Whereas an observer may say that Imprenta has almost reached the zenith of what is possible, Mr. Wong feels that they have barely scratched the surface of what they can accomplish as a team.

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10PR The

Most Creative

Agencies in 2018

Company Name

Management

Brief

Bob Gold & Associates bobgoldpr.com

Bob Gold Founder

Bob Gold & Associates (BG&A) is an independent Southern California-based public relations agency with offices in New York and a global network of high tech PR agencies. It delivers meaningful connections for its clients through integrated communications programs.

120 WEST STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS LLC. 120west.biz

Ira Gostin President & CMO

120 West is a company that excels in marketing, investor relations and public relations firm created to help companies grow.

Bloom Communications is an integrated communications agency that provides strategic marketing, public relations, and research-based consulting services exclusively to organizations that are making an impact in their communities.

BLOOM COMMUNICATIONS bloom-comm.com

Brianna Mckinney Founder & President

Imprenta Communications Group icgworldwide.com

Ronald Wong President & CEO

Imprenta Communications Group, Inc. is a California-based, award-winning public affairs, ethnic marketing, and campaign firm, which specializes in reaching diverse audiences.

JARGON PR jargonpr.com

Simon Corbett CEO

JARGON PR is an award winning agency that helps corporate and technology companies grow brand awareness, communicate key messages and drive sales.

K2 Global Communications k2-gc.com

Amy Kenigsberg Co-founder and Larry Kenigsberg Co-founder

K2 is a boutique content marketing and public relations firm focused on driving our clients’ bottom lines through targeted content and PR services.

North 6th Agency n6a.com

Matt Rizzetta CEO

N6A has built a culture that is rewarding, collaborative, and unique. Its people and its passion for what it does is what keeps the positive energy flowing through the heart of the agency.

NRPR Group nrprgroup.com

Nicole Rodrigues Founder & CEO

NRPR Group is a publicity firm that believes in the power of coupling traditional PR with digital marketing and in the vast opportunities that creating innovative content.

Pietryla PR & Marketing Christine Pietryla Wetzler pietrylapr.com Founder

TrizCom PR trizcom.com

Jo Trizila Founder & CEO

Pietryla PR & Marketing is a boutique PR firm.

TrizCom PR is comprised of public relations practitioners, solely committed to their craft.

Maestros Insights About the Author Mr. Jay Klein drives Voyager Lab’s technology strategy and core intellectual property. He brings more than 25 years of experience in data analytics, networking and telecommunications to the Company.

Before joining Voyager Labs, he served as CTO at Allot Communications where he steered Allot’s data inspection and analytics core technology offerings, and as VP Strategic Business Development at DSPG, where he was responsible for strategic technology acquisitions. He also co-founded and held the CTO position at Ensemble Communications while founding and creating WiMAX and IEEE 802.16. He also served as the CTO and VP of R&D at CTP Systems, acquired rst by DSP Communications and later by Intel. Jay Klein holds a BSc in Electronics & Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University as well as numerous patents in various technology elds.

AI: Artificial From

W

ith so much attention focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI), it’s worth remembering that one size does not fit all. There are specific business-related pain points in mind when a company decides to deploy AI technology, so making the right choices can be a tricky task.

For example, several months ago, an AI related breakthrough was announced – a robot learned and demonstrated the ability to perform a perfect backflip.

While it is well acknowledged that the invested research and development for this mission was huge and the commercial potential for some applications is enormous, it is somewhat unclear how this specific innovation or the core models and algorithms of it, can serve other industries and verticals. Herein lies the problem.

16

to Authentic

Gauging AI success in one field in many cases can be meaningless for another. To make things worse, even when trying to go deeper into the technology and attempting to evaluate, for example, which Machine Learning algorithms are utilized by the product, or what are the number of layers in the Deep Neural Network models mentioned by specific vendors, in the end it will be possibly pointless as it does not directly reflect the solution deployment ‘success’ implications.

Nevertheless, it seems that the market ignores this reality and continues to evaluate AI-based products by buzzword checklists using familiar and related AI terminology (e.g.,

August 2018|

Supervised, Unsupervised, Deep Learning etc.). While checklists are an effective tool for comparative analysis it still requires the ‘right’ items to be included.

Unfortunately, what typically is absent are the items which are important to the customer, from a problem-solution perspective.

Introducing Authentic AI Given all of this, there is a need to change the narrative around AI technology and solutions to something meaningful and authentic that reflects the real-life challenges and opportunities that businesses are facing.

This is the time to introduce Authentic AI. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘Authentic’ as both ‘worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact’ and ‘conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features’. This is not about ‘Fake’ to be contrasted with ‘Real’. It’s about the essential features of AI which need to be acknowledged, and hence, redefine the ‘checklist’. Often, these essential ‘authentic’ features are hidden and only surface when a CIO/CDO is faced with a new problem to be solved. This is seen especially when the AI aspects of a proposed product or solution are fully explored by asking questions such as: - Is the AI technology utilized by the product aimed specifically for my problem, optimally (e.g., performance, cost, etc.)?

- Is it capable of addressing the complete problem or only a part of it?

- Can it be assimilated into the existing ecosystem without imposing new demands?

- Can it address the compelling environmental conditions of the problem space?

These issues can be grouped into three different ‘classes’ ‘Original’, ‘Holistic’ and ‘Pragmatic’: Original – How innovative is the solution? This can be quantified by assessing the following: - the invention of new algorithms or even new models and - the use of complex orchestration techniques or - through the capability to handle complex data formats and structures.

|August 2018

While there is no need to re-invent the wheel repetitively for any problem, there are distinctive characteristics which require optimizing.

Holistic – How complete is the proposed AI technology? It takes into account the capability of handling the end-to-end aspects of the solution, the competence of harmonizing the operation of the various AI components of the solution and the ability to adapt to ever changing conditions of the AI application.

Pragmatic – Can the technology solve real world problems in their actual and natural space in a commercially viable way? This means that for example the data sources can be processed in their most native format (both unstructured or structured) as well as provide insights or results matching the pragmatic needs of the specific market expectations. In addition, the ability to be quickly deployed and rapid to act are assessed.

All of these elements should be used to systematically assess and evaluate AI-based products and solutions to assess their authenticity and therefore effectiveness in specific use cases.

For example, many home-loan mortgage evaluation and recommendation systems utilize a somewhat isolated machine learning based applicant classification method, one of many other processes included within the solution.

The AI in this solution cannot be considered Authentic AI to a high degree as it ‘scores’ low on the ‘Original’ and ‘Holistic’ classes as it isn’t innovative ‘enough’ (from an AI sense). In addition, the AI component itself does not cover on its own the end-to-end aspects of the solution (hence affecting the overall performance and precision). It could be considered to be ‘Pragmatic’ to some level if it can handle the required data sources of financial institutions or the customer applications natively, and if the solution ‘output’ are the explicit results required as a specific recommendation (e.g., loan conditions). However, the deployment timeline (time-to-market) and commercial aspects need to be evaluated as well. This is just one example of many others, covering all kinds of variations.

Perfect backflips may grant you a gold medal if you are a gymnast but if you are a master chess player don’t expect a winning move.

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120 West Strategic Communications: Business Growth Fueled by Strategy, Marketing & Public Relations

O

‘‘

Communications is the Voice of Business Success.

‘‘

—Ira M. Gostin President & Chief Marketing Officer

18

ver the past five years, the public relations industry has experienced a robust growth. PR agencies are providing clients with targeted campaigns to reach an increasingly fragmented consumer market with the rising power of social media. According to the independent research over the next five years, PR firms will continue to benefit from rising marketing budgets.

Serving as a one-stop solution for all communications, marketing and PR needs for corporate brands, 120 West Strategic Communications LLC is a marketing, investor relations and public relations firm focused on helping companies grow.

120 West provides comprehensive investor relations and public relations campaigns aligned directly to move companies towards their goals. They work with both public and private entities by employing strategic engagement campaigns to drive business momentum and deliver measurable results. The team has works with local business all the way to Fortune 500 companies.

The agency creates growth opportunities for companies through strategy, marketing and public relations. Its strategic engagement, innovative business solutions and collaboration move the needle on the client’s business.

Communication Strategist

Ira M. Gostin, MBA, APR is the President and Chief Marketing Officer at 120 West. As an entrepreneur and marketer, he is an influential and creative business development advisor specializing in achieving measurable results. 120 West combines his passions and entrepreneurial spirit while crafting strategies for clients.

August 2018|

10PR The

Most Creative

Agencies in 2018

Prior to 120 West, Ira directed investor relations and corporate communications for Tahoe Resources Inc. A $4+ billion publicly traded company, where he was a founding executive and established the company’s brand as one of the top precious metals producer in the world.

He coordinated communications for Tahoe’s $505 million IPO in 2010 while directing communications and branding for mergers in 2015 and 2016. Later on, Tahoe was named as a Top Gun company in Canada in 2016.

Ira launched his career as a photojournalist for the Associated Press by honing his newsroom intuition to effectively brand a company’s external communications.

After having his photos featured in publications ranging from Time magazine, Washington Post, New York Times to several Fortune 500 companies, Ira retired from photography. Soon after this, Ira earned his MBA degree from University of Phoenix and began to continue his career on his path. He was also an adjunct professor at the University of Nevada, Reno’s Reynolds School of Journalism. He is also a graduate of Columbia University’s Executive Leadership program.

Unique Approach A company can leverage all of their stakeholders to tell their story, to create engagement and grow revenue through increased sales. 120 West believes that every company has a story to tell and that’s possible by creating a 360 degree stakeholder engagement. What makes 120 West unique is their approach towards storytelling. The company’s skillsets are:

Entrepreneurial Spirit When Gostin left his corporate job two years ago, his passion for business growth and storytelling encouraged Ira to once again embrace his entrepreneurial roots and create a modern type of communications agency focused on helping business achieve their growth goals.

During that time, his team members use the financial key performance indicators to measure success of their clients. Firstly, they create a strong strategy followed by the tactics and measurement that can provide the CEO’s, a strong snapshot of the company and its growth.

Awards and Achievements During their path in achieving their goal, the company has received numerous awards which include the Best Integrated Marketing Campaign, American Marketing Association 2018; Top Agency in the Western U.S., Corporate Vision Magazine 2017, 2018; One of Best PR Agencies in Reno, Expertise.com 2017 and 2018; Most Innovative Strategic Marketing Agency – Nevada, Acquisition International.

Unveiling the Mission While discussing the mission of 120 West, Ira said “We want to grow but stay small and agile enough to help CEO’s achieve their dreams and goals.”

Investor Relations - IR strategy and execution, Stakeholder engagement campaigns, corporate branding and rehabilitation, corporate presentation design, media and executive presentation training, analyst and shareholder events.

Marketing & Public Relations - Public relations and business communications, Growth strategies, strategic engagement campaigns, communications strategies, branding and marketing design, corporate events |August 2018

19

Bloom Communications: Specialized Marketing & PR Agency Serving Clients Committed to Giving Back

‘‘

Providing heartfelt, high-quality and meaningful work is how we will continue to grow professionally as individuals and collectively as a team.

‘‘

—Brianna Mckinney Founder & President

20

B

loom Communications is an integrated communications agency bridging the gap between the marketing, market research, and public relations disciplines. Since 2012, Bloom has provided strategic consulting services to organizations making an impact in their communities. With specialization in nonprofit and healthcare, Bloom represents a portfolio of happy clients in a variety of industries from its offices in Austin, Texas, Portland and Oregon. Dedicated to the growth of nonprofits and socially conscious for-profit companies, Bloom’s mission is simple: You win. We win. The world wins.

Brianna McKinney is the Founder and President of Bloom Communications.

She is widely recognized as a thought leader and innovator in marketing, public relations, sales and brand management. Brianna founded Bloom Communications to build a seamless bridge between the marketing, market research, and public relations disciplines while serving the global community.

Her perspective of measuring growth is very telling of her experience as well as her unique vision of leadership. When asked to define her success in her own words, she said, “On a per-campaign basis, our success is measured by the success of our clients. Overall, success for us comes in building a team of talented, like-minded individuals whose personal beliefs and quality of work align with Bloom’s Core Values.”

Brianna is fortunate to love what she does so much that she would do it for free. And because of that, she often found herself doing more free than paid work specifically for causes and organizations seeking to solve some of our most critical social challenges. So, she considered starting a nonprofit organization, until a lunch conversation with a nonprofit executive friend caused a lightbulb moment. She determined to use her experience and passion for marketing, PR and market research to propel those who could truly benefit - nonprofits and socially conscious for-profit companies.

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10PR The

Most Creative

Agencies in 2018

During its initial journey, Bloom could have easily been overshadowed by the tsunami of countless challenges that await new, small businesses. As the founding days of Bloom were personally funded by Brianna, she spent the first three years building up enough capital to begin hiring a team. Bloom started with a one-client portfolio in 2012.

Since then, the company has grown to employ a team of ten, has experienced over a 1066% growth in revenue and remained profitable year after year.

As a small business founder and owner, Brianna could have pursued faster growth and higher margins by taking on different kinds of clients, but instead stayed true to her personal mission of giving back to the community, and through that focus has created a business that is truly unique, while also being financially successful. In 2017 alone, Bloom experienced a 149% revenue growth over 2016, and personnel grew by 60%.

Under Brianna’s leadership, Bloom’s unique, differentiated business model serves to attract potential clients, itself. Not many agencies can say they are exclusively dedicated to serving organizations that make a positive impact in their communities.

Bloom’s purpose-driven business also attracts staff at all levels that are aligned to Bloom’s mission and vision.

Brianna has designed a uniquely flexible work model that attracts highly experienced staff who are seeking improved work/life balance. Through these two methods, Bloom is able to offer all nonprofit clients regular access to highly experienced staff, ensuring work remains high quality — at a level typically reserved for clients with big budgets at other agencies.

As another unique component of its business model, Bloom invests 30 percent of agency services directed toward nonprofit clients as pro bono, making Bloom’s services more accessible to a wide range of nonprofits who are then better able to achieve their missions through the agency’s combined efforts. In 2017 alone, Bloom contributed 562 hours in pro-bono communications services to nonprofits and faith-based organizations, a value of over $123,000.

Overall, Bloom Communications invests a minimum of ten percent of its gross revenue in our communities on an annual basis. In 2017, Bloom’s investment was nearly twenty percent.

Bloom’s long-term vision is to thoughtfully grow to 25 employees over the next three to five years, while consistently increasing its long-standing commitment to the social impact space. It aims to continue to serve the local and global community through the success of its clients, acting as their communications consultants, and ultimately, their advocates.

With a sole focus on serving nonprofits and socially conscious for-profit companies, Brianna pushed forward in building a business that people told her would fail. In fact, the most common refrain Brianna heard when conceptualizing Bloom was “you’ll never make money working with nonprofits.” Every day she proves that’s wrong. Leading from a place of heart and genuine caring for others, and building a staff of like-minded individuals who believe giving back is good business, Brianna is able to care for a community of employees - and the community itself - by running a company that is true to her convictions.

In parallel, Bloom is able to offer staff interesting projects, working with organizations that are making an impact in their communities, leading to high employee retention. In conclusion, in founding Bloom, Brianna created a business that treats staff with respect and dignity and treats nonprofits better than is typical in the agency world.

Providing heartfelt, high-quality and meaningful work is how the Bloom team continues to grow professionally as individuals and collectively as a team.

|August 2018

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Editor’s Pick

The

Impressive of

Impact

Organic Networking T

he main reason for the invention of website, Internet and technology devices that provides the platform for software to run and connect with each other is mainly to make networking of services, products and people possible. Technology leaders such as Cisco, Arista and Apple are dedicating their resources to provide various business enterprises and the masses the ability to communicate their values through technology mediums called as Networking.

The works and provisions of these organizations are very outstanding, and are believed to last for ages. This is because the growth of technology is not going out of style so soon, but rather it is believed to continue into the future.

Technology networking strategies is good, but to make it more eective there is the incessant need to incorporate organic strategies.

You may be asking what I mean by Organic Networking or Strategies. The organization that will survive in the market in the near future, considering the increasing rate of competition are the ones who take the necessary steps, to develop more human connection for their business, more than they do for machines such as provided by AI. The Factors to Consider for an Eective Organic Networking: Even as our age is encouraging more of technology strategies, if we must survive the future of it all, then we must connect more people, than we do for machines. As an

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innovative networking solution provider, it is going to pay more, when you include human intelligence and physicality in your networking strategies over machines.

Imagine a day that the machines are going to have a serious breakdown, and the owner organization do not have the capable persons to figure out the cause of the breakdown and possibly provide a feasible solution? What will be the fate of the organization? This means that, there will be a great loss of value and possibly a strike off the industry. I know you would never want that to happen. So, plan from now, to never pay for the loss in the future.

Balance Your People to machine Deployment Social Medias are for networking, Newspapers and various Medias are also for networking, but there are people behind the arc of this innovation. The more you incorporate AI and machine learning strategies, always remember the need for Control Engineers and those are human beings.

The most successful organizations identify the major importance of |August 2018

people networking and how best to utilize human intelligence in their business quest.

For example; if you write an article and share it on a website, who do you expect to read your article; human beings or machines? It is obvious that the organic networking aspect of computing will never go out of style; else, there will be a day in the future that digital connection and values will be measured on the number of bots that read your articles and/or that paid for your services. So, remember to balance the rate of your people to machine deployment, by acknowledging the need of human networking over technology networking.

The Need for Organic Sense in Networking and the Future: Technology is the miracle of our age, Artificial Intelligence is a major molding factor of this development, IoT is the liberator from machine isolation by providing the platform to interconnect millions of them over the virtual platforms, but humans make these things possible.

Networking is an innovative concept with high profile technology terms. If one does not implore deep interest and concentration while exploring this realm, there may be a serious distortion of original motive of indulgence, and this can lead to serious breakdown of enterprise infrastructure. Sometimes, it maybe direct and other times, it will be indirect, but in all, it will always have an impact. The future of technology is very bright, and that is mainly dependent on how available we make the resources to help manage what we have today in the near future. For this to be possible, the networking solution providers must incorporate more of organic sense in their solutions and industry advancements.

Technology will advance, more machines will be connected, devices will be programmed to run independently, but in all these things, the humans in the network will still rule the universe. The more organic you make your networking strategies, the lesser the fear of a disastrous future for your organization.

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Bob Gold & Associates: Boosting Business through Digital Engagement

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ince its founding in 1997, Bob Gold & Associates has grown into one of the premier independent PR and Marketing agencies in the U.S., bringing strategies that engage audiences across all media platforms with compelling content. The agency specializes in entertainment technology. From tech innovators to content creators, clients depend on BG&A to drive measurable results.

The company’s track record of success is based on an intimate and constantly evolving understanding of how individuals perceive and engage with brands.

‘‘

All business is the business of relationships.

‘‘

—Bob Gold Founder

Clients know they’ll get more buzz for the budget with personalized attention, reliable counsel, a robust network of contacts, and impeccable tactical execution.

Bob Gold & Associates’ team of results-driven former journalists and communications experts transforms complex thoughts and insights into persuasive stories.

Clients enjoy a solid return on their investment. In fact, one of the cornerstones of their operations is guaranteed results. That means guaranteed story placements, interviews and much more. And these deliverables are written into the contract!

With 22 years of experience to bank on, the firm is adept at recognizing factors critical to a successful campaign before it begins and sets realistic and accurate expectations prior to any engagement. The company has enjoyed many honors and awards including Top 50 California PR Agencies by Los Angeles Business Journal, Top Content Marketing Companies by Clutch, and Top PR Firms in Los Angeles in O’Dwyer’s, among others.

As a co-founder of WIN PR Group, the company taps into a global network of partner high-tech PR firms for boots-on-the-ground support anywhere in the world.

Accomplished Leader Bob Gold has helped numerous companies and associations, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, launch, re-brand, and execute campaigns that are not just successful, but exceed expectations. He has helped raise millions of dollars for charity, mentored hundreds of students, and also authored a popular children’s book that his wife illustrated, called The Shiny Penny.

His career runs from handling publicity for the Academy Awards, to HBO and Fox Sports before he began the agency which quickly counted ESPN, Charter and Bravo as early clients.

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In 2007, Bob was inducted as a Cable TV Pioneer, a prestigious achievement he shares with luminaries like Comcast’s Brian Roberts and CNN’s Ted Turner. Bob holds a Master’s degree in Communications Management from the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California, where he also sits on the Alumni Board of Directors.

Digital Engagement Bob Gold & Associates recently expanded its services to include digital marketing, digital & print advertising, website development, and meaningful social media marketing campaigns.

Its full-service marketing team develops everything from animated banners, sales videos, presentations, interactive web destinations and digital content. The integration of cutting-edge technology ensures each element can be tracked and its efficiency measured.

Best of all, the company executes across the most popular social media platforms, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube to directly reach millennials and Gen Z consumers.

A Very Different Place Headquartered in Redondo Beach’s Riviera Village, the company is just two blocks from the beach, and in close proximity to Los Angeles and the flourishing entertainment industry.

Today clients include Cisco, which counts on the firm for special events at international trade shows; Corning, to promote its Fiber Optics advances; Ooyala, one of the world’s premier digital video playout companies, Amazon Studios, and others. Clients literally stretch from the UK to China. One of the newest clients is the LIKE video app, which is among the fastest growing video editing apps in the world because it’s so much fun and easily shareable.

The staff is a tight-knit, collaborative group where everyone knows and likes each other. A frequent comment is how friendly everyone is. They work hard as a cohesive team to help clients succeed and grow. The company fosters an environment where employees are endlessly curious and fascinated by innovation.

Guaranteed Results The agency’s longstanding personal relationships with reporters, editors, publishers and analysts benefit its clients.

They treat editors as partners in the content generation business.

works to exceed its promised deliverables as measured in coverage capture reports and its own exclusive S.M.A.R.T. Report – SMART: Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timely – for tracking KPIs. No other PR agency does this.

“Bob Gold & Associates is smart, proactive, and gets us in front of the right audience at the right time. The team is simply invaluable.” Jeff Weber, CEO, zone·tv Clients choose BG&A for its credibility. They are stalwart brand stewards. BG&A has launched or serviced more than 25 TV networks, 30 technology companies and numerous associations. The team is seen as indispensable partners and have served as advisors to CEOs and heads of PR and Marketing. In each situation the staff has made lasting friendships that often result in repeat business.

“I look to Bob and his team for guidance on how to navigate our brand in an increasingly complex media landscape.” Guy Finley, Executive Director, Media & Entertainment Services Alliance Disruption. Challenges. Opportunities Bob Gold & Associates is now one of the most reputable media agencies in the country, but it has had to overcome significant challenges along the way.

The reality of audience fragmentation means the days when one major national story could make an impact has long passed. Major media is struggling for advertisers and audiences. Whether it’s the Wall Street Journal or Los Angeles Times – papers are thinner, reporting staffs are smaller, and competition for their reporters’ attention is fiercer. And this is also true for TV, radio, digital, and trade publications.

Bob Gold & Associates believes it needs to think smarter and more creatively. Maybe the home for a story is best placed on LinkedIn instead of a trade publication. Maybe the news hook needs to be made sexier. And many times, a one-minute video can be more impactful than a 1,000-word article. The goal is to maximize recognition and ROI for clients, whether it’s through PR, marketing, advertising, web development, social media, or a mix of everything.

By constantly evolving and committing to always exceed client expectations, the company guarantees its campaigns will result in dramatic growth and deeper customer engagement for its clients.

Clients want to know what they are buying. The agency tells them in its contract what they can expect; and then |August 2018

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K2 Global Communications Influencing the Influencers

‘‘

It doesn’t matter if you have the best solution on the market if nobody knows about it.

‘‘

—Larry Kenigsberg Co-founder

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K

2 Global Communications uses inbound and digital marketing, social media, and public relations to aggressively target potential customers and investors for its global clients.

K2’s employs an action-oriented, niche-focused philosophy forged over a decade of experience in the nexus of Israel’s hightech climate. The organization has recognized what works, what doesn’t, and why, allowing it to identify the gaps in a customer’s worldview and meeting their challenges with creativity. The company crafts narratives that relate its clients’ values to reach key decision makers. “You must influence the influencers.”

Rather than following formulaic or traditional PR formats, K2 creates flexible, customized action plans to drive their clients’ market presence and strengthen the bottom line.

The Leaders: Strength through Diversity Amy Kenigsberg and Larry Kenigsberg are the Founders of K2 Global Communications. Amy banks on a wealth of experience in journalism, marketing, and PR. She earned an MBA from the University of Kansas and a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Larry’s first career was as a psychotherapist, where he worked primarily in private practice as well as in a variety of agency August 2018|

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settings for 20 years “to see human nature in all its forms,” experience he brings to bear when crafting client materials. He graduated from New York University with an MSW. Collaboration is Key Drawing on their diverse backgrounds, the K2 team delivers a unique service in Israel, the “Start-up Nation.”

K2 believes that client collaboration is key to all its services. “The more we know about a client’s goals, vertical by vertical, region by region, the better we can tailor their deliverables to match their needs.”

The other side of collaboration involves being totally honest if a client wants something that is a poor use of their resources. “We’ve been doing this a long time, so while someone may be initially surprised by a ‘no, it’d be better to spend your PR bandwidth differently,’ they also realize we won’t waste their time and money.”

The company’s niche-by-niche approach connects its clients directly to influencers to reach their end customers.

As a boutique company, K2 provides all its clients a small, dedicated team, unlike most firms where work is delegated to junior associates. However, despite continued year-over-year growth, K2 fully intends to maintain its small-team, hands-on approach.

Measuring the Challenges K2 is essentially an American agency based in Israel, providing U.S.-level service.

Amy Kenigsberg Co-founder

Today, K2 measures success in several ways. It uses traditional benchmarks such as year-over-year growth, length of client retention, and referral source and volume. K2 also uses myriad metrics to measure its efforts on behalf of its clients.

Future Expansion K2 Global Communications is continuing to focus on organic growth by adding new services. The company is enjoying robust success after adding inbound marketing to its service roster. It is strengthening its presence aggressively in cybersecurity, IoT, AI, enterprise software, and biotech.

The founders are American immigrants in Israel who initially faced struggles with the language (fortunately, Israelis tend to be very proud of their high-level English) and customs of conducting business in a different culture. Simultaneously, both the founders were from vastly different professional backgrounds and faced the initial challenge of how to understand each other’s lingo and perspective. Their complementary skills and experiences forged the company. |August 2018

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Virtuoso's Vision

he

TShift that

broke the pendulum

Murray Oles President CHALEX Corp.

About the Author Murray Oles is the President of CHALEX Corp. The company is specialized in Workow Management for Marketing Communications Projects through the use of SmartFlo and integrated third party tools.

C

orporations are shifting their marketing services in-house and re-defining relationships with their suppliers. This is a strategic shift brought about by a confluence of technical, social and political change on a global scale. At the core of this movement is the corporation’s need to control global brand messaging quickly in an increasingly regulated world. Is this a temporary shift or is there more to it, and how far might it go?

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The rise of mobile computing combined with an explosion in SaaS software development has led to more intuitive purpose-built applications with built in learning tools. The net effect is that corporations can do much more with less.

Hence, the rapidly accelerating move to take internal control of the corporate global supply chain. More specifically, control of process, digital assets, resources, and the brand message. Evidence of the shift can be seen in global corporations like P&G who in recent years consolidated their packaging prepress supply chain from hundreds of companies to only three. The ANA (Association of National Advertisers) committee for in-house agencies includes members from hundreds of the Fortune 1000. A Google search reveals many recent articles detailing the rise of in-house ad agencies.

that can be analyzed as a service in real-time. The ability to analyze any combination of process and behavioral data yields valuable predictive insights. Standards such as BPMN notation and the XPDL file format have allowed developers to simplify the user experience for defining, managing, and sharing process maps across BPM platforms. A virtual task can automatically serve up the tools the user will need. SaaS tools have one thing in common. They can be called through a RESTful API without the need for a software developer. The workflow can be configured to invoke access to tools based on the nature of the task. For healthcare workflows a digital radiology file format (DICOM Web) enables secure cross-platform viewing and collaboration over a patient’s scanned images and medical history.

The drivers of this shift are affordable and effective new technology and the need for speed to market. The value of a middleman controlling portions of the marcom workflow has diminished. This does not mean that everything is being produced in-house, just internally controlled and managed by in-house staff who are defining new best practices for their agile enterprise. Many companies go back and forth between insourcing and outsourcing, but this time it is different. Companies are focused on process, and it is not just marketing, legal and business analytics, recruiting, employee services and even providing in-house healthcare.

Business agile companies adjust to market conditions faster by adopting a culture of managed change. It is no longer acceptable to be so disconnected from your projects that you can’t even access your own brand packaging and promotion files. The same is true for legal, regulatory and compliance work. The agile company controls all of these processes. Their DAM enabled BPM system interacts with a SaaS reporting service like EZBI that concatenates and reports on data across distributed systems. Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma programs are used to configure these systems to monitor compliance to regulated processes.

With change comes opportunity. Demand for business process management tools is growing rapidly. Many new companies are developing SaaS products to further enable the agile business. Online workflow modeling and business process management tools are becoming main stream. File sharing and digital asset management services are widely accepted. Integrating these services to meet the requirements of a project has never been easier now that RESTful APIs have become widely available. Artificial intelligence applied to big data analytics will provide the agile business with insights previously inconceivable. Best of all, the enterprise can securely access most SaaS services without making any upfront investments or long term commitments.

These changes are far more profound than may appear on the surface. The gig economy is fueling a virtual cottage industry that circles the globe. Project managers are increasingly in demand. This is not just an IT thing, every business runs on projects. The certified project management professional PMP is a new college certification. Rachel Burger in a Capterra article explained The 5 Biggest Project Management Trends Shaping 2018. In brief, “business agile” is the new way of doing business. A visit to the Fiverr.com web site will show how one SaaS service is bringing buyers and sellers of creative services together.

This in-house trend is not just another swing of the pendulum.

At the core of the agile business is an integrated business process management platform. This is the tool that enables distributed process control. In-house is only practical when the technology enables the staff to do an order of magnitude more with less. BPM systems capture huge amounts of data

|August 2018

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North 6th Agency: Embracing the Pace since Inception

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‘‘

Every part of our customer service approach is rooted in speed, efficiency, and making sure we never miss a beat for our clients.

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—Matt Rizzetta CEO

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orth 6th Agency, Inc. (N6A) is an award-winning brand communications and social media agency based in the heart of SoHo in New York City and Toronto’s financial district. Its client roster includes emerging, mid-sized and enterprise brands from more than 30 industries. Every part of the organization’s customer service approach is rooted in speed, efficiency, and making sure it never misses a beat for its clients.

The top-notch customer service, measurable results and team collaboration are a few examples of how the organization “Embraces the Pace” for its clients in today’s fast-paced, non-stop media environment. Working across 30 industries, N6A’s Embrace the Pace approach has proven to be effective no matter the industry, location or size of the client.

An Influential Leader Matt Rizzetta has served as CEO since N6A’s inception. Under his leadership, N6A has been ranked as the fastest-growing agency in the United States in its revenue category by O’Dwyers, as well as one of the 50 most powerful agencies in the United States by the Observer.

Matt has been instrumental in creating N6A’s Compete and Care culture and Embrace the Pace atmosphere, which have been lauded as the most rewarding, collaborative and unique in the agency world by Forbes, Monster.com, New York Post, Chief Learning Office Magazine, Entrepreneur, and others. Matt serves on the Alumni Board of Directors at his alma mater Iona College, and resides in Westchester County, NY, with his wife and three daughters.

Embracing the Pace N6A’s Embrace the Pace atmosphere defines the way in which its employees work quickly and strategically to deliver the optimal results that clients deserve. Every part of N6A’s customer service approach is rooted in speed, efficiency, and makes sure that it never misses a beat for the clients. The organization’s top-notch customer service, measurable results and team collaboration are a few examples of August 2018|

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how it embraces the pace for its clients in today’s fastpaced, non-stop media environment.

As a full-service public relations and social media agency, N6A connects its clients to the audiences that matter the most, whether it’s via traditional media, broadcast media, trade media, analysts, or social media. The company believes that the clients’ goals are its goals, which is why N6A prefers to take a data-centric approach when it comes to customer service. The organization’s proprietary 6PA dashboard, a digitally interactive platform for clients, offers full transparency on its performance, results, KPI tracking, and other key outcomes that the clients care about. N6A even asks its clients to provide feedback each month, creating full alignment between the success of the team and the success of the client’s business.

A Distinctive Organization N6A’s company culture embodies an employee-first mindset, focusing on appreciation, recognition, reward and collaboration in order to ensure that employee engagement, productivity, morale and overall happiness is always present. Much of its culture revolves around individual, group and team achievements, always abiding by the concept that employees should be rewarded and recognized for their success.

Understanding that there is no one size fits all approach, N6A strives to create a culture of recognition that is customized to the individual employee, customizing valuedriven programs that speak to each employee as individuals. N6A’s systems promote the utmost transparency in the workplace while creating an open, collaborative environment for honest communication, performance awareness and recognition in order to keep employees engaged and productive.

Tackling Adversities N6A opened its doors just under a decade ago. At first it was tough for the organization to recruit top-notch talent and clients when it lacked an established track record.

However, the organization was fortunate that some clients and employees early on made a bet on N6A, believing in it when few others would. This helped lay the foundation for

|August 2018

what it has become today. To overcome initial challenges, the company has always been laser focused on creating rather than copying.

N6A has always been committed to coming up with innovative programs and assets that are unique to N6A and help it stand out from others. This helped the organization to attract talent and clients in the early days – everything from experimenting with employee rewards programs that went way beyond standard programs, to creating measurement systems for the customers. These are programs that have been a part of the fabric of N6A since its early days, and helped the organization to overcome initial struggles before it was seen as a well-established brand in our industry.

Feedback and self-improvement have always been an important part of the organization’s culture. Even back when it was small and unproven, N6A always tried to listen, solicit feedback, and learn from any mistakes it made. The company’s business is nothing more than nine years of learning and getting better from any missteps along the way.

Envisioning the Future At a basic level, N6A wants to keep getting better for its employees and its customers every day. Improvement is the name of the game, and N6A will continue to focus relentlessly on making the work experience as warm and rewarding as possible for its employees, and as impactful as possible for the customers.

Specifically, the company will look to expand its footprint globally with an eye toward emerging geographic markets and enhancing its service suite in service categories that are complementary to its current core service offerings (PR/Media, Social, Design). Innovation will continue to be at the core of N6A’s plans in the years ahead it will continue to look to innovate and improve on programs that it has already created for its employees and customers.

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NRPR Group: Setting a Benchmark for Excellence

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‘‘

To achieve great results you have to work harder and go the extra mile to amass the best results in building relationships.

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—Nicole Rodrigues CEO & Founder

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RPR Group is a public relations agency based in Beverly Hills, California, with offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, Las Vegas, and soon, New York. NRPR offers unique services to clients to intertwine marketing functions with strategic PR efforts, all built around helping clients achieve their core business objectives and spark growth.

Launched in 2014, this PR powerhouse is a “strategic positioning agency”—the first one ever, based in Beverly Hills, California, NRPR takes an anticipatory approach to creating news rather than waiting for clients to have news. Proactive, trend-focused pitching with thought leadership building and traditional news announcement pitching keep clients in the news year-round. NRPR never has and never will blast pitches. Every person on the team has heart, passion and skill, and is accountable, responsible and responsive.

The Story of a Creative Marketing Pro Nicole Rodrigues is the Founder and CEO at NRPR Group, whose career path has followed her dreams every step of the way. Her passion has turned her professional journey into many successful outcomes for her clients. Her career path has molded her into a pillar of professionalism, strategic thinking, and strength.

Nicole’s first professional PR job was at an enterprise software company, Portal Software, in 2000, one year before graduating from college. In 2003 she took a leap of faith to briefly leave tech in order to pursue a job with the Oakland Raiders which led her to create balance on her resume and mold her more closely into the consumer-tech publicist she is now. In 2005, Nicole became the PR manager at MobiTV, the company responsible for the first live mobile video experience on mobile phones.

After MobiTV, Nicole worked as a Senior PR Manager at Voce Communications, with accounts such as Dolby, Yahoo!, Sony Playstation, and many others. She learned the beauty of incorporating social media efforts and sharpened her strategic media garnering strategies into all accounts. She was then recruited by Demand Media (now the Leaf Group) as director of consumer marketing, where Nicole gained the experience of consumer marketing and managing the marketing August 2018|

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strategies for their most popular properties, eHow and LIVESTRONG.COM. Nicole also served as a VP of digital entertainment at Bender/Helper Impact, where she led strategy for YouTube, Hulu, Hallmark, M-GO, and others.

continues to attract clients whose leaders, including CEOs and CMOs, understand and respect the art of strategic public relations.

Overwhelming Proactive Approach

Nicole has leveraged every position as an opportunity to build the expertise needed to succeed in the role of CEO, which she plays very well now. Her vision was to create relationships, build friendships, and foster a special human touch to benefit clients and media. Nicole was awarded with Gold for Public or Media Relations Professional of the Year in Bulldog Reporter’s Stars of PR 2017 Awards. She also took home the Silver award in 2017 and Stevie Awards for Women in Business in the Woman of the Year – Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations.

In 2017, Nicole launched her second company, Young Dreamers, an ongoing program which mentors and speaks with students about setting goals, building personal brands, and persevering through life’s downturns. Under Nicole’s leadership, NRPR Group has won numerous awards which include New Agency of the Year in 2015 and Small Agency of the Year in 2016. NRPR Group was also hand-selected in 2016 and 2017 for the ‘Beverly Hills Small Business Excellence Awards’ for Public Relations.

Strategic Public Relations of NRPR Group NRPR focuses on industries in which Nicole Rodrigues is well-versed. NRPR works with digital platforms including, mobile TV, gaming, consumer tech, digital video and more.

NRPR Group also specializes in startups, large enterprise, and consumer clients. NRPR Group believes behind the creation of every company is a story, whether it’s the story of the CEO or the actual product, the history of the product or company’s development, or the momentum of the company and services, in general, which has successfully ripped dividends for its clients in the past.

As a strategic positioning agency, every person on the NRPR team has heart, passion, skill, and is accountable, responsible and responsive. The team at NRPR acts as a relationship builder for clients, media and their audiences, and they are very mindful of that. If something isn’t working, the team takes all measures to fix the issue immediately.

In 2014, Nicole Rodrigues set out to change the industry by creating the model for what an agency should be in order to keep the clients, media, and employees happy. The team that she generated during that time has focused on building the media relationships needed to gain the client’s trust and deliver what they need with the end result of benefitting both clients and media. It is always important to educate clients on what public relations can and cannot do and how it works.

NRPR measures success based on customer satisfaction.

The team compiles weekly client reports to remain accountable to clients as well as monthly, quarterly, and annual reports to help highlight initiatives throughout the year and how they tie back to the client’s success. They remain accountable all year long and love when they can see the results have positive effects on their client’s businesses.

NRPR Group creates new stories rather than waiting for clients to distract themselves from their core objectives.

Future Expansion NRPR Group is evolving alongside the changing PR and marketing industries, as agents of positive change while moving ahead of the times and setting a benchmark for everyone else in the industries, for years to come.

As NRPR continues to experience healthy growth as an agency, it will continue to expand and find better ways to serve its clients. This includes thinking strategically and planning ahead because its core foundation was built by a passionate dreamer who believes in staying ahead of the times. In line with its vision, NRPR is increasing its presence across the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New York.

The NRPR team has a passion that clients recognize and see in the results achieved. This is in opposition to a lackadaisical, almost entitled way of doing PR. The agency |August 2018

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Understanding Reformations

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nce there was a time when the question was “Will the media industry get digitally transformed?”, but the scenario has changed now. The question today is “How will the transformation take place?” and “How will the media companies respond to this change?” Seeing these opportunities presented by the digital video systems, new players are joining the market, hence, capturing consumer’s mind with new initiatives and grabbing their wallets. These changes are bringing in aggressive modification in the industry along with new business models, partnerships and also acquisitions.

Whether one is a movie freak or a mad TV watcher, it is quite known to them that the technology today is not what they have seen few years back. The media and entertainment industry has seen rapid changes and modification in the recent years. The most observing changes that the world of technology has witnessed are as follows: Multi-tasking and Multi-Channel Experiences Time has changed now. Those days are gone when people used to see the advertisement of a film on the road-side billboard or on their newspaper and then go to a movie hall to watch the movie. Today, people are multitasking and they are more into multi-channel experiencing. People now are not just into watching a movie or Television show with all their concentration. They are watching a movie, uploading status on their Facebook wall and tweeting about the movie, all at the same time. They are sharing their views and opinions about whatever they are watching on their social media platforms. It clearly indicates that marketing is no more a one-media thing; rather it’s an event of all channels.

An extensive research clearly proved that most people watch clips and user-generated content on their phones and simultaneously they prefer watching movies on a device with larger screen like computer or television set. This is something of which entertainment companies must take

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advantage of by prompting the viewers to use hashtag (#) and share using branded content to bring more traffic to their content. Those days are no more when the writers and marketers used to be focused about only the writing of the content, rather they are now focusing a lot on how their promotional content on social media platforms should look like and how they can gain more attraction.

Curated Content is more in demand The audience has changed a lot and so is their demand.

People are now demanding more curated content. And the trend is already growing at a very successful pace. It has been observed that media giants like Netflix and Amazon have already been effectively using the curated content for about four years. It is a procedure where the platform suggests what the audience would like to watch or subscribe. When these are used effectively, it can create new audiences instantly for the provider’s new shows and products. This is a better way to advertise products than other means of advertisements.

Getting more creative with Artificial Intelligence It sounds crazy to hear that the projected amount of spending for AI (Artificial Intelligence) for 2025 is $30 billion which was earlier observed to be $300-350 million in the year 2015. But the main reason behind such a huge projection is that AI is changing the way completely in which creativity was expressed earlier. There are already various companies which are using the AI technology to create interesting movie plot points based on the performance of box office results.

Recent reports informed that McCann Erickson in Japan owns an AI creative director which can actually analyze briefings from clients before pitching a story. From image recognition and language processing to speech recognition and deep learning, AI is analyzing everything to create new levels of impactful pitches through creative process in the entertainment and media industry.

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Wireless media is the new upcoming trend Gone are those days when people had to pay for all 300 channels which their satellite or cable TV channel providers used to give though the viewer actually watches only four to five channels. Now the definition of the entire media and entertainment industry has changed. The companies like Netflix and Hulu has brought in the new generation of wireless entertainment. The new users are going online. From YouTube, Netflix, Hulu to Amazon and even the cable companies are going to wireless and replacing traditional offerings with special and customized packages to attract more consumers.

Smarter Advertisements is the future The present day technological advancements have brought an analytical approach in machine learning and have opened doors to combine AI and reality. This is which is making advertisements much smarter. The pundits say traditional product placement will be soon replaced by the just a click on the dress of one’s favorite actor or actress, that too just when it appears.

Experts mentioned that marketing agencies with the help of big data, will be soon able to switch out specific product placement to the one the viewer will most likely buy. The advertisement is soon going to be another mode of entertainment.

After the new digital transformations taking place, certain changes are observed in the media and entertainment industry.

Traditional revenue models are decreasing in their growth as the new models are emerging. Digital enterprises are gaining much prominence as their ability to deliver multi-channel experience and individual business models are replaced by the modern day complex ecosystem of the new comers including new startups and super-platforms. The concept of generalization is fading away and the personalized content is taking stand.

|August 2018

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Pietryla PR & Marketing: Scaling Businesses Digitally

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very business wants to communicate their brand message in a sophisticated way that resonates with the target audience. Innovation plays a vital role in crafting the right message at the right time for the right market. One agency that excels at all three is Pietryla PR & Marketing.

‘‘

We are the one point of contact accountable to our client’s senior leadership team.

‘‘

—Christine Wetzler Founder

Pietryla PR & Marketing is a boutique PR firm in Chicago. It works with clients that are managing a watershed moment, be it launching a new product, seeking funding, going through a branding shift, or implementing a new automation strategy. It serves the energy, materials, and professional services sectors.

Diverse Range of Services Pietryla PR specializes in media relations, marketing automation, crisis communications, communication content development, and corporate strategy. It also offers copywriting, digital marketing, and online reputation management services.

In addition to those core services, its broad range of solutions also includes: Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

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SEO strategy and execution Blog writing Press release, case study and article copywriting Feature story writing Surveys and marketing data Website and blog development Social media strategy Event planning and management Project management Investor relations

August 2018|

10PR The

Most Creative

Agencies in 2018

An Experienced Leader It is not easy to find a PR and marketing person who is also well-versed in running a successful business. Christine Wetzler, Founder of Pietryla PR & Marketing, does possess that unique confluence of skills.

Over close to 20 years of practice, Christine has assisted clients throughout significant Mergers &Acquisitions (M&A), funding announcements, product launches, and strategic thought leadership programs as well as directed policy-changing public affairs campaigns.

Throughout her career, she has worked with high-profile clients as like Dow Chemicals, 3M, Rexam Beverage Can Americas, International Truck and Engine Corporation, and the Hyster Company as well as for startup companies like KidKlass.com and Oval Brand Fire Products. Since 2002, Christine has been in private practice. For most clients, she typically serves as an interim CMO or department lead.

Leveraging Challenges as Opportunities Pietryla PR has been in business since 2002 but was founded almost by accident. Christine was an account director at a downtown agency, where she personally managed close to $1 million in billings. When the agency closed, many of her clients simply asked to continue working with Christine.

Christine took a brief hiatus from her business to serve as SVP at a Chicago tech agency. This was terrific for her in terms of broadening her portfolio and leadership skills, but ultimately only confirmed to her that she preferred managing her own firm.

Started as a means to an end, Pietryla PR turned into an excellent proposition for small and medium-sized businesses that needed the strength of a major agency’s expertise but didn’t want to pay the associated high fees.

As success followed success, the firm’s reputation grew and the number of clients grew even faster.

A Wider Perspective The recession of 2009 and the gig economy forced change upon what had been working for Christine for almost 10 years. In 2011, she went back into public practice in executive positions to broaden her experience, waited for the recession to pass, and learn a bit more about the overall PR ecosystem.

When she returned in 2014, a new and improved consultancy hung out its shingle. This time, Pietryla PR & Marketing decided not to focus purely on media relations but offer an integrated approach.

Many agencies are still isolated. As a result, they offer disjointed results, which can incapacitate smaller clients that do not have the budget to absorb mistakes. Having one point of strategic thinking will smooth over the rough spots in a quick-reaction communications plan. This is what Pietryla PR & marketing now offers.

It is a single point of contact to its clients’ senior leadership team for smart results. This breaks the silos that stall creativity and innovative thinking. Sometimes, it works as just the brain, like an interim CMO. At other times, it is the brain as well as the hands, like an entire marketing department.

Distinguished Versatility Pietryla PR prides itself on its versatile range of capabilities. One of their strengths is the ability to scale at short notice in response to a client’s needs. The company utilizes technology and a vetted on-demand team to meet the requirements of every project and in any place, geographically or online.

Christine and her team have helped two companies to manage their Initial Public Offering (IPO) while she has served as director of communications for three clients, written and produced 12 annual reports, and has had two key pieces of legislation introduced. |August 2018

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TrizCom PR: Delivering Tailor-made Solutions and Building Unwavering Trust

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‘‘

Every single brand has a story to

tell that can raise awareness, generate leads, change behaviors and build reputations.

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—Jo Trizila Founder & CEO

arketing agencies around the world have come up with range of innovative concepts like creative and branding services, digital, media planning and buying, public relations, and market research over the years. However, the companies with the most groundbreaking approaches and strategies have dominated the long run, and TrizCom PR is one of them.

Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, TrizCom PR is dedicated to providing clients with unified and best-in-class teams and has evolved as a mid-size, boutique PR agency. By combining best practices with innovative approaches, it empowers communications with bigger, bolder ideas that can break through clutter and achieve results.

A Resourceful Leader and Trailblazer

Jo Trizila is the Founder and CEO of TrizCom PR. She is also a multitalented, high-caliber public and media relations marketing professional. Jo holds over 25 years of experience in building and leading, integrated and strategic public relations operations for globally renowned companies. She has an in-depth background in crisis communications, publicity, expert positioning, promotions, influencer marketing, investor relations and legislative affairs.

For Jo, creating a public relations agency from scratch was a natural progression. Although the journey has not been a cakewalk, Jo has significantly managed to make her mark in a highly competitive industry. Her team’s work has been recognized by the Public Relations Society of America where she earned the prestigious Best of Show and three Pegasus Awards. Her firm is also a certified woman-owned business as established by the National Women Business Owners Corporation.

As a former PR expert at the Dallas Regional Chamber, City of Irving and for a variety of nonprofits, storytelling is her linchpin. Currently, Jo serves as a City of Dallas Cultural Affairs Commissioner and is very active on nonprofit boards; she contributes as a Vice-President of the Board of Directors for

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August 2018|

10PR The

Most Creative

Agencies in 2018

Heroes for Children, a Texas based charity that ensures no family fights childhood cancer alone.

An Adept Team of Professionals TrizCom PR believes that personal relationships are at the core of any successful public relations campaign.

This is a human-capital business that relies on the value of storytelling as well as story selling for their clients.

The unique factors that TrizCom PR brings to a client include nimble and scalable campaigns that are designed to fit their specific objectives with measurable results.

It’s a tailor-made approach in raising a brand’s awareness and consideration of both products and services for B2B and B2C companies. While they use the same tools, and perform much of the same work as the large global firms, TrizCom PR is able to keep their billable hourly rates and retainers much lower with white glove service. Led by analytics and measurable results, their clients have access to the lift public relations provides in the way of website traffic, conversions and other bottom lines.

While collaboration is often a word one hears from the agency side, TrizCom PR employs this tactic as a strategy to achieve success and is an integral part of their culture. TrizCom PR, includes team members from interns up to senior account supervisors, who collectively collaborate across accounts to realize their client’s successes. TrizCom PR believes that their collaborative style is one of the advantages of working with a mid-sized agency and one of the prime reasons that their account retention level beats industry expectations.

Unfolding the Story of Inception

in their own work, they produce unique customer experiences for every single client. There hasn’t been a magical formula or any type of a magic pill, but the team has collectively created an agency that is collaborative, innovative and proactive that consistently produces client ROI. Internally, TrizCom PR is an agency that is fun, cheerful and dedicated. Together, they celebrate team and client victories. TrizCom PR steadfastly believes that everyone needs to stop and smell the roses--and then share them with others. Every member of the team has the workhard, play-hard mentality and celebrates disruptions with their proactive and crazy creativity.

Jo says, “The admiration I have for every single TrizCom PR team member can’t be expressed with words. They have taught me that in unity, there is strength enough to construct a colossus. From the foundation to the ridgepole, the parts reinforce and support one another to create a cathedral that echoes with sounds of success. TrizCom PR is a success because of the synergism our team, individually and collectively, provides in building solidarity.”

Promising Future TrizCom PR has been successful in partnering with some of the world’s leading organizations. Most recently, it created an alliance with Stryker-Munley Group to extend its national offerings. Stryker-Munley Group is the only national integrated public relations and marketing communications firm of its kind, with all offices being independently owned and run by seasoned professionals who are leaders in their respective markets. TrizCom PR aims to build more subsequent relations and envisions adding value to its services through such developments.

TrizCom PR began ten years ago in a spare room of Jo Trizila’s home, as a one-person operation that has grown in size and structure. Beginning with a staff of independent contractors, she later added salaried employees. Their client roster began to grow as well, from startups to nonprofits to iconic brands. They have chosen their clients and partners very carefully, making sure that they are a good fit for the agency ensuring their relationships can work on both sides of the equation.

TrizCom PR credits its team’s competitive spirit and integrity for its astonishing success. While taking pride |August 2018

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Sports Insider

No More Staying Home: 3 Ways We Get Our Customers to Come Out & Play

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et’s assume you have the right ball and a pair of sneakers. At that point, it takes two to play catch. Two to pass a soccer ball. And sure, you can go shoot hoops by yourself, but that’s just practice. If you want to get a game of one-on-one going, it’s a pretty simple math.

Most people think about sports as a way to stay fit, active, and healthy. We love those things. They are universally positive, fun, and help us get a sense of competition. But there’s something even bigger. Sports bring people together in real life—on the field, court, or for a post-game drink—in a

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way that very few things do anymore.

And that’s what we’re fighting for.

Haven’t you heard? Young adults are increasingly staying at home to Netflix & Chill. They’re not getting their drivers licenses. They’re overstaying their welcome, living with their parents, way longer than in previous decades. And in the most boring, depressing news ever, staying in is the new going out.

It’s an actual crisis. Not just for our company, or for sports, but for the society at-large. Retail sales are in a massive decline, and brick-and-mortar

stores and malls can hardly keep their doors open. In 2017, movie attendance hit a 25-year low. And restaurants are in their worst slump since the 2009 recession.

So are we just going to sit back and watch as our communities turn increasingly sedentary, secluded, and lonely? Heck no.

As the largest social sport community in the nation, we are fired up about this.

Here are the 3 things we remind ourselves every single day in the fight against Stay Homerism.

1. Give customers what they truly need, even if they don’t know they need it Plenty of our players come to us thinking that what they really want is to play soccer, plain and simple.

They’ve played the beautiful game their whole lives, and just need a weekly fix.

But if you look at the statistics, many of them join our leagues when they first move to one of our markets.

They’re looking for a chance to play the game they love. They’re looking for an opportunity meet new teammates.

After all these years in the business, what we know is that our players are not just looking for a game. On a deeper emotional level, what they want is a sense of community. They want real personal connections, friendships, and real-life interactions.

So that’s what we offer. It’s not just about the product or the service your company provides, it’s how it serves some deeper, emotional need for your customers. We constantly remind ourselves of the bigger picture—and how we play a crucial role in delivering something our players don’t even know they need. It’s deeply validating, it gives us purpose, and it’s the reason our business keeps growing, despite the momentum against us.

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2. Meet your customers where they are You know what should make us nervous? The fact that our prospective customers are spending more and more time snapping, scrolling, and sharing through social media and less time out of the house.

But instead, we see it as an opportunity and a challenge. Now that the player and the game have changed, we can’t keep doing the same thing we did in 2002 and expect it to work now; we’ve got to keep up.

If we want to reach our target market, we have to meet them where they are.

We have to embrace Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat as dynamic tools, platforms to help us amplify our message, purpose, and worldview. We can’t run away from social media—we have to make ourselves relevant in the new media landscape. There’s really no alternative solution. We have to lean into it.

To be honest, we haven’t quite nailed our strategy or execution yet. It’s a work in progress, and things are constantly changing. But we’re excited about where we’re heading.

We’re beginning to share content that lets our players and prospective players truly feel what a ZogSports experience is all about. We need to convey our opinion on the world—that life is better with real personal connections, caring communities and a sense of play.

And if people don’t buy that? Well, no sense wasting time trying to convince them. Life’s too short to spend it with boring people who don’t like fun.

3. Take it personally So often, we hear people say “It’s not personal; it’s just business.” Well, let’s agree to disagree. If we’re going to spend a third of our lives working, we

|August 2018

Robert Herzog Founder & CEO ZogSports

better be personally invested. If not, what’s even the point of showing up every day?

That’s not to say we don’t analyze our data, pay attention to the numbers, or care about delivering hard truths when necessary. It’s just that there’s something much bigger than just making cold, calculated decisions.

There’s a purpose. A sense of WHY we do what we do.

We believe that life is better with real personal connections, caring communities, and a sense of play.

At ZogSports, we have a very clear understanding of our WHY. We talk about it at every all-hands meeting, in every interaction between our staff and their managers, and in every management meeting.

We can use that WHY to pressure test some of our ideas or priorities. If we want to test out a new league or customer experience enhancement, for example, we just need to ask ourselves, does this idea fit into our WHY? If it

does, it’s worth trying. But if it doesn’t, then we move on.

When we set that WHY as our true north, it became a lot easier to navigate all the complex business challenges we might face. Our WHY gives us a framework and a purpose, so we can be flexible in our approach to any problem.

We can tack around obstacles or change our products, marketing strategy, or organizational structure if we have to. So long as we keep our vessel pointed oriented toward our WHY, we know we’ll get to the promised land.

The truth is that it’s not easy to succeed in our business. But it’s not easy to succeed in any business. You really need to be committed. You need to remind yourself of these things every single day. But if you live your WHY and stay the course, think of all the great things your business can do.

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