Full Court Press (Release): It’s almost become de rigueur for sports superstars to take a retirement victory lap: Announce you’re retiring the following year and spend your last season being showered with gifts and accolades from opposing teams when you visit their venues for the final time. It’s fine when you’re no longer at top form. It’s a different matter when you club a home run or sink a basket to defeat your opponent, which hours earlier presented you with a custom-built rocking chair and a Harley. 40-year-old David Ortiz has done that all season. His 22 home runs and league-leading 34 doubles have given the Dominican his best first half in Boston. Basketball star Tim Duncan, also 40, would have none of the swan song hoopla. The reason you’re reading about the Spurs’ center here is because of how he decided to retire July 11: via a 538-word press release. It was a quaint reminder of how news announcements were made 19 years ago, when Duncan began his pro career. It also was authentic to the taciturn Duncan, who preferred to let his prowess on the court speak for him. Not only that, at a time when pro athletes’ social media accounts often compete with their employers’ channels for attention, Duncan chose to forego Twitter, Facebook or special athlete blogs. Instead his sole employer, the San Antonio Spurs, posted the release on its site, along with video tributes. The release, like Duncan, was direct and devoid of superlatives. Its first line: “San Antonio Spurs forward Tim Duncan today announced that he will retire after 19 seasons with the organization.” The next sentence says it all: “Since drafting Duncan, the Spurs…had a.710 winning percentage… the best in all of” pro sports during “the last 19 years.”
M&A: MediaMiser purchased Agility from PR Newswire July 14. MediaMiser expects the acquisition will result in growth in Europe and N. America as it adds Agility’s global media contact database capabilities to its media monitoring, distribution and measurement solutions. Cision completed its acquisition of PR Newswire last month. – Grey Group acquired a majority stake in Easycom, an ePR and social media agency in China. Easycom’s client roster includes L’Oréal, Philips, Kiehl’s and China Merchants Bank. – Marketing agency Midnight Oil of Burbank, CA, entered a definitive agreement to have visual marketing communications firm Imagine! of Minneapolis acquire it. Midnight Oil will continue to operate independently. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2016. – Finn Partners said July 13 it acquired Greenfield Belser, a D.C.-based brand strategy and creative services firm. Co-founder Burkey Belser will become managing partner of Finn’s Greenfield Belser division.
News Bits: The famed Barcelona soccer team misread the social conversation. After its star and arguably the world’s best footballer, Lionel Messi, and his father were found guilty in Spain of evading $5 million in taxes, Barcelona sought to mount support with a #WeAreAllLeoMessi push. Not a good move. The Twittersphere erupted in anti-Messi messages. A #IAmNotLionelMessi campaign was started. “We are NOT Messi,” read one angry tweet. “We pay our taxes.” The charges against the Messi boys stemmed from revelations of shell companies in The Panama Papers. – It’s not a surprise that women dominate communications departments in corporate America. It’s less known that many of those departments have women leaders. A report from The Conference Board says 59% of manufacturing companies and 70% of financial services firms have women helming their communications departments. By contrast, women hold just 14% of the top five leadership positions at companies in the S&P 500, CNNMoney says. – You have to like the exposure The PR Council provided to interns recently at its 2016 InternFest, held on the rooftop of Havas PR in NY. More than 100 interns attended the indoor/outdoor barbeque. In addition to networking, they heard from Havas CEO Marian Salzman, Makovsky MD Denise Vitola and Jen McClellan, senior director, corporate communications & finance at Burson-Marsteller, among others. An added treat: a CEO raffle, with the six winners getting a chance to meet for 1 hour with a CEO, including: Matthew Harrington, Global COO, Edelman; Heidi Hovland, Global CEO, DeVries Global; Maureen Lippe, CEO, Lippe Taylor; Andy Polanksy, CEO, Weber Shandwick; Marian Salzman, CEO, Havas PR; and John Saunders, president/CEO, FleishmanHillard.
People: FleishmanHillard named Kris Balderston president, global public affairs and strategic engagement. Robert Hoopeswas tapped asGM, FH Washington, D.C. – Lewis said Stephen Corsi began heading its U.S. operations as EVP July 1. He replaces regional EVP Morgan McLintic, who is leaving Lewis after two decades. – Uproar PR of Orlando promoted Ashley Moore to VP. She joined Uproar three years ago.