All is Platinum

Iris Dorbian

PR News kicked off the fall season by presenting the Platinum PR Awards at Manhattan’s Grand Hyatt on October 16. The awards, whose categories ran the gamut from Branding and Event Marketing to Multicultural Campaign and Satellite Media Tours, were a triumph for a number of established companies, such as Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which won for its Screening Save Lives campaign in the category of Public Service Announcement as well as Weber Shandwick and KFC, which nabbed a trophy in the category of Global PR Campaign for its KFC Face From Space campaign. Yet even firms not as renowned scored acclaim, such as the 11-year PR firm Warschawski, which took a top honor in the category of Small PR firm

Hosted by VP/Group Publisher Diane Schwartz and PR News Editor Courtney Barnes, the gala, which ran fluidly for an hour and a half, featured a memorable keynote speech from Mark Stevens, president of MSCO and digital PR blogger for PR News. Stevens, who has authored books boasting such colorful titles as “Your Marketing Sucks” and “God is a Salesman” told the crowd of over 200 PR professionals that “PR is not a sideshow or a puppet show…You’re more important than any CFO.” In recapping the infamous 1982 Tylenol poisoning case and how the drug company rebounded from this debacle due to consummate PR, Stevens, while bemoaning how PR was “not respected enough by senior quarters” confidently assured the rapt audience that “PR is the process of making and shaping news.” And they were all catalysts in that regard.

Another highlight of the ceremony were the raffle prizes given to lucky winners throughout. Gifts included an IPod, a digital camera and a $100 American Express gift certificate. At one point, a sponsor received the raffle prize! Oops...Sponsors for the event were Burrelles Luce, ckpr, Commcore Consulting Group, D S Simon Production Inc (which ran a running blog on the show during the course of it), Medialink, MWW Group and NAPS.

For a complete list of winners, check out the link at http://www.prnewsonline.com/awards/platinumpr/event_info.html.

Iris Dorbian

October 16, 2007