http://webermerritt.com/news/ Weber Merritt, a Public Affairs Company based in Washington, DC, delivers strategic communications and integrated communications campaigns. en Copyright 2009 2009-08-11T15:34:08-05:00 http://webermerritt.com/news/article/weber-merritt-proudly-supports-i-served-stickers/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/weber-merritt-proudly-supports-i-served-stickers/#When:10:34:08Z OBX, BB and HH are just a few of the beach-town stickers you’ve seen on car bumpers.  And if Scott Kreger has his way, every veteran returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan will have free stickers bearing the abbreviation “IRQ” or “AFG” with the words “I Served” underneath. “I hope that people will approach our courageous veterans and thank them for their service when they see the sticker,” says Kreger, who created the concept.  “I also see these stickers as a way for fellow veterans to identify and talk with each other. These connections could lead to networking opportunities, jobs and support in tough times.” Weber Merritt is proud to support Kreger’s initiative with media relations counsel that so far has earned him news coverage in outlets such as NBC4, Fox 5, WTOP and the Washington Times. The first wave of 200,000 stickers shipped in early August and will appear in towns across all 50 states and the U.S. territories, as well as the coalition troop countries, including Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. The project is funded entirely by private donations.  Kreger has raised nearly $40,000 of the $100,000 he anticipates needing to cover printing and mailing for 1.5 million stickers to give to every soldier who has served or might serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.  For more information, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit http://www.iservedsticker.org. http://webermerritt.com/news/article/pr-week-article-tappan/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/pr-week-article-tappan/#When:10:50:51Z PR Week Article July 10, 2009 Weber Merritt President, Rob Tappan http://www.prweekus.com/The-salon-dinner-a-cautionary-tale/article/139852/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/adaptability-is-key/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/adaptability-is-key/#When:15:41:50Z PR Week Article Weber Merritt President, Rob Tappan http://www.prweekus.com/These-days-adaptability-is-key-in-Washington/article/137960/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/now-more-than-ever-an-article-by-weber-merritt-president-rob-tappan/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/now-more-than-ever-an-article-by-weber-merritt-president-rob-tappan/#When:14:00:20Z April_2009_Developments_Article.pdf http://webermerritt.com/news/article/rob-tappan-in-pr-week/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/rob-tappan-in-pr-week/#When:10:53:34Z http://www.prweekus.com/Investigation-vindicates-DoD-PA-program/article/126480/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/weber-merritt-in-politico/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/weber-merritt-in-politico/#When:12:24:45Z http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17181.html http://webermerritt.com/news/article/weber-merritt-wins-gold/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/weber-merritt-wins-gold/#When:14:06:51Z The League of American Communication Professionals (LACP) awarded Weber Merritt a Gold Magellan award in the category of corporate/organizational communications.  Weber Merritt earned the award – and the nod for one of the year’s top 50 overall best campaigns – for the final phase of its campaign “Pentagon Memorial Fund:  We Must Never Forget.” “The campaign for the Pentagon Memorial Fund represents the kind of work the PR team at Weber Merritt does best:  designing strategies that advance our client’s goals and deliver superior results,” says RobTappan, President of Weber Merritt.  “From campaign launch to final evaluation, Weber Merritt uses sound research and creative thinking to drive our work.” With the passage of time, commemoration of the attacks of September 11 had become a ritual, annual event.  General interest in a permanent structure waned as groups in New York and Pennsylvania grappled with a range of obstacles, and more pressing national issues overshadowed the desire to erect a monument remembering the victims of this tragedy.  The Pentagon Memorial Fund had simply become “another” worthy cause for donors to support and for the media to cover.  Weber Merritt’s multi-pronged strategy advanced three goals for the Pentagon Memorial Fund:  fundraising for construction and maintenance of the 9/11 memorial, building and sustaining the media and the public’s interest in the memorial outside of the 9/11 anniversaries, and securing and coordinating national and international coverage of the unveiling ceremony.  The firm’s effort generated a high return on investment, translating to a fraction of a penny spent per person reached by news placements and revenue of $30 in funds raised for every $1 spent. In their evaluation, LACP judges noted, “We’re impressed by how the needs of the target audience have been anticipated.  Excellent planning.” “Our belief is that the measurable results of this campaign are excellent, demonstrating the success of this project in connecting with the right people and delivering a highly applicable and persuasive message,” says Christine Kennedy, LACP Managing Director.  For the 2008 Magellan Awards, LACP received more than 400 entries from eight countries.  Judges ranked Weber Merritt’s campaign as 20th best out of all the submitted campaigns.  http://webermerritt.com/news/article/weber-merritt-adds-new-pr-clients1/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/weber-merritt-adds-new-pr-clients1/#When:10:49:32Z WEBER MERRITT ADDS NEW CLIENTS TO PR PORTFOLIO Trade Associations, Fortune 500 Companies Among Client Base December 2, 2008 – Washington, DC – Weber Merritt announced today the addition of two clients who have retained the firm for PR counsel and services:  The American Resort Development Association (ARDA) and the Alliance for Polyethylene (PE) Pipe. “Over the last several years, our client portfolio has expanded to include a diverse array of corporations, trade associations and non-profit entities,” said Jim Weber, co-founder.  “We credit our integrated approach to client service led by a team of senior strategists who collaborate with each other to offer very creative and effective campaigns for our clients.” Weber Merritt is managing a PR initiative for the professional association representing the vacation ownership and resort development industries, ARDA, aimed at educating consumers and the media about the importance of vacations as well as dispelling some of the common misconceptions about the timeshare industry.  Most recently, Weber Merritt helped the trade association launch a new online initiative called VacationBetter.org.  The website will serve as a resource to the media and as a communications tool to the public about the benefits of investing in luxury vacation products. Weber Merritt was also retained to help build a coalition called the Alliance for PE Pipe to position high density polyethylene pipe (HDPE) as a superior product for municipal water systems.  Weber Merritt work includes coalition development and management as well as overseeing all marketing and PR efforts for the Alliance. “After 20 years in this business, we’ve seen the result of the synergy between bringing grassroots mobilization together with traditional public relations,” said Bernie Merritt.  “Our client needs and our business growth proves the model works.” Other Weber Merritt clients include Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, eBay, Merchants Payments Coalition, Pentagon Memorial Fund and Sweetener Users Association. About Weber Merritt Co-founders Jim Weber and Bernie Merritt began their business 15 years ago and have grown it into a full-service public affairs firm. Weber Merritt designs integrated communications campaigns to help clients succeed in the public arena. Relying heavily on senior-level multidisciplinary strategists, Weber Merritt represents clients from public relations and corporate positioning to legislative advocacy and grassroots mobilization. ### http://webermerritt.com/news/article/politico-suite-talk-weber-merritt-grabs-bragale/ http://webermerritt.com/news/article/politico-suite-talk-weber-merritt-grabs-bragale/#When:12:00:46Z http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15216.html http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/pentagon-memorial-fund/ http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/pentagon-memorial-fund/#When:16:15:20Z Winter Gold Award, 2008 Magellan Awards Top 50 Campaigns of 2008 Weber Merritt is proud to have designed and executed an award-winning, multi-year, multi-pronged campaign on behalf of the Pentagon Memorial Fund, which culminated with the unveiling of the first memorial honoring the victims of the September 11 terror attacks in 2008. As we prepared for the campaign’s final phase in summer 2007, our research indicated that with the passage of time, 9/11 commemorations had become a ritual, annual event.  General interest in a permanent structure waned as groups in New York and Pennsylvania grappled with a range of obstacles. More pressing national issues overshadowed the desire to erect a monument remembering the victims of this tragedy and cluttered every news cycle.  The Pentagon Memorial Fund had simply become “another” worthy cause for donors to support and for the media to cover.  Weber Merritt’s multi-pronged strategy advanced three goals for the Pentagon Memorial Fund:  fundraising for construction and maintenance of the 9/11 memorial, building and sustaining the media and the public’s interest in the memorial outside of the 9/11 anniversaries, and securing and coordinating national and international coverage of the unveiling ceremony.  The firm’s effort generated a high return on investment, translating to a fraction of a penny spent per person reached by news placements and revenue of $30 in funds raised for every $1 spent.  The campaign garnered a 2008 Gold Magellan Award from the League of American Communication Professionals. http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/coalition-mobilization/ http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/coalition-mobilization/#When:18:21:59Z Weber Merritt successfully developed and implemented a national grassroots coalition campaign for a financial services group in an effort to build broad support for a regulatory rules change with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Weber Merritt identified and mobilized a wide spectrum of third party groups and individuals to provide public comment to the SEC and targeted Members of Congress on the proposed rule changes. Using our extensive network of state political operatives, Weber Merritt targeted state and municipal finance and pension management officials, elected officials, organized labor, business leaders, financial services professionals and key political activists. Our efforts generated over 300 top-tier SEC contacts and recruited over 100 opinion leaders to endorse a full-page coalition ad in The Wall Street Journal that demonstrated broad and bi-partisan support for the changes to the rule. That effort was then augmented with an aggressive earned media campaign that generated nearly 100 op-ed and letter-to-the-editor submissions. http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/integrated-campaign/ http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/integrated-campaign/#When:18:14:59Z Weber Merritt was hired by a national business organization to manage a coordinated effort to help achieve legal reform legislation in specific states. Weber Merritt has designed a program that combines earned media, paid media and grassroots activities in two states that rank high for frivolous lawsuit abuse. Activities were developed to educate the public on the need for legal reforms including outreach to print and broadcast media; the identification of legal reform champions; and advocacy mobilization. Weber Merritt has orchestrated over a dozen town hall meetings in both states, placed dozens of guest editorials and letters-to-the-editor in targeted newspapers, generated hundreds of positive media impressions and motivated thousands of grassroots activists to contact policymakers in support of legislative change. In part due to Weber Merritt’s leadership, the legislatures in each state passed substantial legal reform legislation in 2005. http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/issue-advocacy/ http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/issue-advocacy/#When:18:14:00Z A national medical doctor association turned to Weber Merritt to facilitate a comprehensive public education campaign in one state to reach both the public at large and policymakers on a key differentiator between two distinct medical professions and their ability to practice medicine. The multifaceted campaign included earned and paid media, direct mail and grassroots advocacy designed to affect legislative change. The campaign resulted in wide coverage of the issue on drive-time radio talk shows, prompted two investigative television reports, two favorable editorials and over one dozen positive print news stories around the state. http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/grassroots-campaign/ http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/grassroots-campaign/#When:18:07:00Z A coalition representing the automobile industry retained Weber Merritt to help in its efforts to oppose congressional efforts to raise corporate average fuel economy standards and advocate that the regulatory body maintain oversight to raise the standards. Utilizing our extensive national network of political field operatives, we developed and implemented an opinion leader letter-writing campaign utilizing constituents in the home districts of relevant Congressional Members to influence their legislator. Over a three-month period, Weber Merritt activated a constituency network and generated over 300 letters from prominent local opinion makers to targeted Congressional Members. http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/crisis-communications/ http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/crisis-communications/#When:17:52:00Z The political controversy surrounding the proposed sale of U.S. port operations to a foreign buyer required strategic crisis communication and political outreach. The seller, a British maritime seafaring company, retained Weber Merritt in the middle of the political storm to respond to criticism and to present the facts to Congress, the media and the public. A rapid-response war room was developed to disseminate the facts to the national and local media in the port cities and respond to negative articles and comments by detractors. In the six U.S. markets where port operations are managed by the British company, Weber Merritt also assembled a local political team to begin meeting with local elected officials, community leaders and the media to explain that port operations and its management team would not change under new ownership and that U.S. ports would remain secure. We facilitated port tours for the media to demonstrate port operations with a first hand view of how the ports and security protocols work. Our local efforts were aimed at educating local authorities and solidifying relationships previously forged by the company’s port operations in each locale. When the foreign buyer announced that it would divest the North American port operations to a U.S.-based entity, thus ending the immediate political controversy, Weber Merritt arranged a teleconference call for the seller’s executives to make the announcement. In one afternoon, more than 110 press calls were fielded by Weber Merritt’s media team resulting in more than 20 print stories and mentions on CNN, MSNBC and Fox National as well as interviews with National Public Radio and Voice of America. Weber Merritt remains PR counsel to the British seller throughout the remainder of the company’s sale of its North American port operations. http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/strategic-communications/ http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/strategic-communications/#When:17:47:00Z Weber Merritt serves as strategic communications counsel to a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve America’s healthcare through consensus-based national standards. Weber Merritt has developed and executed an aggressive media relations effort for more than two years to help elevate the organization’s brand as leading the healthcare debate among the media, the public and policymakers. To help accomplish its goals, Weber Merritt designed a multifaceted program to highlight the organization’s Commission and Public Testimony through reporter briefings with legislative and industry reporters on a regular basis. In addition, Weber Merritt executed an executive visibility program around the hiring of a new Executive Director resulting in a profile piece in Knight Ridder newspapers around the country. http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/public-relations-counsel/ http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/public-relations-counsel/#When:17:45:00Z Weber Merritt serves as “agency of record” for the leading trade group for companies that sell goods and services to the public via television, radio and Internet. Weber Merritt provides the association with a wide scope of public relations and strategic communications support in addition to press outreach around annual conferences and company announcements. Ongoing, proactive efforts have included developing media hooks for its self-regulatory program, drafting and submitting opinion-editorials and developing a nationwide contest in partnership with a youth business organization to encourage entrepreneurialism. Most recently, Weber Merritt’s media outreach surrounding the contest generated coverage in online and trade publications; a Knight Ridder article that ran in 20 daily newspapers; three articles in the hometown papers of several of the young entrepreneurs; and, five stories that aired on Washington radio and television stations. http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/public-affairs/ http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/public-affairs/#When:17:30:01Z Weber Merritt is a key player in helping one of the world’s leading online marketplaces advocate its public affairs agenda on behalf of the company’s million-plus users. For more than two years, Weber Merritt has provided strategic communications support and initiatives around legislative and regulatory issues affecting the company and its selling community including an annual “power seller” day when users fly into Washington for meetings with Congressional Members and targeted reporters on e-commerce public policy matters. Weber Merritt established and executed a “town hall meeting” initiative to enlist advocates in targeted states and congressional districts who have been active constituents during legislative battles at both the state and federal level. In addition, Weber Merritt designed a national editorial board outreach effort designed to help educate reporters on the company’s position about online sales taxes. More than 50 daily newspapers were targeted resulting in more than ten reporter briefings. http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/executive-visibility-campaign/ http://webermerritt.com/case-studies/article/executive-visibility-campaign/#When:17:10:00Z A trade association representing the medical device and medical information systems industry asked Weber Merritt to help raise the profile of the association among key audiences and brand the trade association as a leader in advancing global healthcare. Weber Merritt utilized the association’s hiring of its new president to make the introduction to key reporters and editors in Washington, DC about the advancements in medical technology and the long-term benefits that innovation has on cost pressures in our healthcare system. We created a comprehensive packet of information and distributed it to nearly 80 reporters, which resulted in ten reporter briefings. Over the next several months, frequent communication with the media about the association’s position on relevant healthcare policy generated a large attendance from reporters at a Roundtable Discussion hosted by the association.