Internet-based ad agency Spot Runner blasted out of the gates as a tech startup in 2006 with a game-changing model for TV advertising. The idea is simple: Advertisers come to the site (www.spotrunner.com) where they can choose from a library of professionally produced ads that can be viewed, bought and customized online. The upshot: A Spot Runner ad costs as little as $500 and takes just weeks to place...

In 2002, Omni Hotels inked a brand-building deal with culinary master Robert Gadsby to open Noé, a restaurant in the Omni Los Angeles Hotel. From a PR perspective, this was an appetite-whetting opportunity for Omni's food and beverage practice, says Jill Sandin , president of JS² Communications , the firm handling PR

By Frank Zeccola

Whether it's News Corp-MySpace, Google-YouTube, Dow Jones-News Corp. or XM-Sirius, merger and acquisition deals are red hot. Last year, a record $3.7 trillion in deals was announced. This year, the number could be even larger.

Big money deals like these obviously garner huge media attention. In fact, The Wall Street Journal recently started an entire online "Deal Journal" section—which is often updated more than five times per day.

It was in this media environment that a relatively small hedge fund and an ambitious PR firm were able to attract monstrous media attention for the fund and its manager through a strategic thought-leadership campaign.

Here's the deal: Havens deals in deals

Havens Advisors is a New York-based hedge fund with assets of about $200 million in 2005. Led by manager Nancy Havens, the team specializes in M&A arbitrage and follows deals in sectors like financials, energy and industrials.

It works like this: Once a deal is announced and is to her liking, Havens jumps on it within the hour, buying shares of the company or companies about to be acquired. This means Havens will rake in the difference between the stock's bid-up post-announcement price and ...

By Frank Zeccola

It's bigger than the NCAA championships and Spring Break combined. And it probably ranks second only to alcohol as the biggest thing on college kids' minds: College debt.

It's so prevalent that recent estimates range as high $18,000 in debt—for the average graduating college student. Some students graduate with $40,000 or more...

Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett has set more than 100 world records in everything from air ballooning to sailing to gliding to airplane flights and more. He has circled the globe many times over and even completed premier endurance sports...

Capstrat creative director Todd Coats knew he needed an original idea to boost creative brainstorming at the Raleigh, NC-based PR agency. What he didn't know at the time was that the idea would spark an innovative PR campaign leveraging groundbreaking new media tactics—and ultimately lead to his appearance on "The Late Show with David Letterman."

"I wanted to show our team that a lot can be done with a little," Coats says. "The idea was to use creativity to inspire us and demonstrate that you don't need a giant budget...

Former Microsoft executive Richard Fade is the father of an autistic child. He noticed that children with autism often do not receive adequate medical treatment—even though it affects more children than leukemia, diabetes and cancer combined. Fade was angered to learn firsthand that a child who lives in one city might receive top-quality care, while a child living somewhere else could receive significantly lower quality care.

In an environment of such uncertainty and self-dependence, investing in our individual futures is critical. Company pension plans are dwindling—and government programs could be wiped out in as little as 20 years. The message is clear: We’re on our own to invest our money wisely for the future.

Yet billions of dollars are squandered annually in the hands of investors who make careless mistakes. A barrage of recent academic and corporate research shows that ...

Raising media awareness for a non-profit cause or organization may be one of the most rewarding endeavors in all of public relations. But because of small budgets and other factors, it is also one of the most challenging undertakings in the business.

PR powerhouse MWW Group found itself ensconced in the non-profit arena in 2005 after signing on with the American Society of Hand Therapists (ASHT). Hand therapy is a little-known specialty of the medical world, and due to such a low profile, ASHT's 3,000 members faced consumer obstacles and reimbursement challenges with insurance companies who failed to recognize the benefits of hand therapy...

Crisis struck Hutch-Tech High School administrators and officials in early 2005 when imperative renovations forced the school to close its doors. Students discovered that they would continue their Hutch-Tech education at Kensington High School—located in a high-crime district of Buffalo, New York. Additionally, Kensington, which had closed down several years before, was plagued by memories of poor test scores, gang violence and other serious problems.

As Hutch-Tech is known as one of the best public high schools in Buffalo and western New York, parents, students and teachers were enraged by the decision to move to Kensington...

There are thousands of computer worms and viruses in existence throughout the world at any particular moment in time. If your computer has ever been infected, you know the amount of frustration and stress a virus can cause—especially if it happens at work. Strange message boxes appear on your screen. Programs and files disappear. Friends and colleagues receive emails from you that you did not send.

Crisis strikes Microsoft: The Zotob virus causes an 'Internet meltdown.'

These are just some of the symptoms of popular computer viruses. On August 9, 2005, a worm called Zotob was released, and it began attacking computers running on old versions of Microsoft's operating system, such as Windows 2000. Since more than 95 percent of the world's computers run on Microsoft Windows, countless people were hit—including entire businesses, offices on Capitol Hill...

Chinatown in New York City is the largest Chinatown in the U.S., and it's one of Manhattan's oldest neighborhoods. The two-square-mile area boasts more than 100,000 residents and hundreds of restaurants offering culinary samples, styles and tastes from all of China's provinces. Asian art, antiques, jewelry and fashions fill authentic Hong Kong-style malls and shops, and each year hundreds of cultural events, festivals and celebrations ring out in Chinatown's buildings and streets.

But you wouldn't have known any of that shortly after 9/11, when the area was devastated and tourist information was non-existent. Business revenues in Chinatown fell 60 to 100 percent after 9/11...

The space-age fantasy of taking your TiVo anywhere you want became a reality when the TiVoToGo launch was announced at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Finally, you could bring your TiVo shows with you and watch them in the car, at the bank, at the office—anywhere—by downloading them onto a Windows-based Portable Media Center (PMC).

The challenge: TiVoToGo falls flat at the launch. How can the brands bounce back to compete with the video iPod?

Because the launch involved the partnership of two huge media darlings—Microsoft and TiVo—and the hot trend of portable, micro-entertainment systems, it was certain to make noise in the mainstream media and cripple the likes of competitors like the video iPod ...

With global warming dominating media headlines, many other important environmental concerns have been pushed aside. No longer de rigueur, these problems, like acid rain, smog and marine invasion, seem like yesterday's issues. But they remain at large, and are no less real, pervasive or important than global warming—and further neglect could spell irreversible damage to the planet.

Acid rain, for example, has long plagued the 50 rivers along the Atlantic coast of Canada's Province of Nova Scotia.

The challenge: Raise awareness of the current implications of acid rain throughout North America ...

When it comes to reaching and engaging hot mainstream consumer demographics like kids ages 13 to 18, or young adults ages 18 to 34, classical music doesn't generally top the list of must-haves for your PR and marketing plans. Rock music, maybe. Rap music, better. Skateboarding videogames with loud, blaring, punk rock—definitely.

But what about a quiet activity like listening to classical music? You might think that selling the mainstream media on a new classical group is pointless. You won't grab any teenage attention spans with those soft, stuffy classical tunes, you say ...

ArcLight Cinemas opened in Hollywood in 2002 with a unique business model: Instead of waiting in long theater lines for hot tickets, ArcLight moviegoers pay a small premium of $14 per ticket and book assigned seats in advance. Tickets are printable from home, and there's no need to rush to the theater to get good seats an hour or more before the movie starts.

ArcLight enjoyed modest success during its first few years, but in 2005 it was handed what seemed like a gift from the gods—the Star Wars gods, that is. George Lucas's Lucasfilm chose ArcLight to premiere the final installment of the Star Wars franchise ...

When the national media becomes obsessed with a negative story about "Your Health," it can zoom to the front of every paper, magazine and TV news program in the country faster than a speeding ambulance.

If your product happens to be a suspect in one of these media feeding frenzies—if you are "The Story"—you may have a crisis on your hands . . .

A positive article in a top consumer magazine, or a spot on a high-profile TV news program will skyrocket visibility for your cause—and help bring excitement to a boil.

In late 2004, The Division of Neurosurgery at UCLA Medical Center was planning its first “Visionary Ball 2005”—a fundraising gala to be held in October of 2005. Dan Page, assistant director for UCLA Health Sciences Media Relations, wanted to make a splash in the national media to ensure ...

The Challenge: Launch a contemporary translation of the Bible in a hostile media environment—and reach the 18- to 34-year-old demographic. Ninety percent of media coverage, in fact, was negative, says Tara Powers, managing director of Lambert, Edwards and Associates (LEandA). “Some very vocal groups spoke out publicly against the TNIV translation methodology,” she says.

Powers and the team at LEandA—who were not involved with the New Testament launch—were called in to raise awareness for Zondervan’s 2005 launch of the full Bible TNIV, featuring both the Old and New Testaments. The goal was not only to steer clear of repeating the New Testament debacle, but also to court and engage TNIV’s target readership—the elusive 18- to 34-year-old demographic.

“Because the New Testament was launched three years prior to so much negative backlash of such a controversial nature, our goal was to minimize the negative reaction when Zondervan launched the whole Bible,” Powers says. “But at the same time, we wanted to position TNIV as ...

Likewise, there are currently no national standards regulating the number and types of tests a newborn receives upon birth. So while a child born in New York or Mississippi will be screened for more than 20 different disorders, a newborn in Kansas will be tested for less than five. 

The challenge: Escalate the issue of newborn screening to the forefront of the American public, media and government. Since the 1960’s, March of Dimes has advocated and funded newborn screening efforts as a significant part of their mission to prevent birth defects and infant mortality, says the non-profit’s director of media relations Michele Kling.

But when March of Dimes collected alarming data in 2002 suggesting that 70 percent of babies born in the U.S. are born in states that fail to provide the necessary screening tests, they vowed to advance legislation and influence ...

The very last public structure in the U.S. to reopen after the September 11th terrorist attacks was perhaps the most poignant and meaningful—the Statue of Liberty. The Statue had been closed for almost three years when the National Park Service (NPS) pegged August 3, 2004, as the date to return our nation's enduring symbol of freedom to the public.

The reopening of such a renowned attraction was sure to bring media attention from around the world. But the NPS and the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation (SOLEIF) wanted to elevate press coverage to a higher level—one that would illustrate the true power behind the symbol and the deeper meaning it has taken on since 9/11. They tapped Fleishman-Hillard to embark on a campaign to officially reopen the Statue of Liberty in the post-9/11 world.

"It was a huge privilege to be asked to open such an important and historic event," says Stacey Kerans, vice president for Fleishman-Hillard.

The challenge: Reopen the Statue of Liberty in a post-9/11 world of terror alerts, saboteurs and tricky logistics. But if you think it's a walk in the park to reopen the Statue of Liberty and get boatloads of media journalists onto Ellis Island to cover the event and then get them to explore the deeper angles behind the symbol—in today's sound bite culture, nonetheless—you're in for a rude ...

A tiger of a challenge: But relocating 24 tigers is not an easy feat. The coordination alone between various government groups, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders and the national media would certainly be a challenge. But worse, in the months prior to the scheduled removal in November of 2003, two unrelated major news events involving tigers threatened to turn IFAW’s story into a ho-hum event in the eyes of editors.

“In October of 2003, Roy Horn [of Siegfried and Roy fame] was attacked by a tiger,” recalls Chris Cutter, communications manager for IFAW. “And then, on the same exact day, a guy in Harlem was attacked by a tiger in his apartment ...

Crisis Strikes: When Wine Spectator put a call in to a representative from Hazell, everything went wrong. "In the editor's first probe call, Hanzell blundered," explains