Agency News

NEW YORKEarle Palmer Brown parent Panoramic Com munications acquired Odyssey Systems Corp. for an undisclosed amount. Philadelphia-based Odyssey is an integrated Internet-solutions agency that specializes in commerce, publishing and marketing. Pan o ramic combined the services of EPB interactive unit EPBi and Odyssey to create the new group known as Odyssey. Before the acquisition, EPBi had been subcontracting its Web site-development duties, said Jon Adams, Panoramic's senior managing partner. Preacquisition, EPBi and Odyssey had both worked on EPB accounts Novartis and Fiberlink. The new group will be headed by EPBi president Dave Haan, who was named president.Weiss Stagliano Partners is launching a new print campaign for Bain de Soleil sun tanning and sunscreen products in 15 women's magazines across the U.S. and Canada. The ads feature women in bikinis and summer attire basking in the sun. Postcard versions of the ads will appear as supplements in the publications. The work, which breaks in early April and will run through August, will appear in magazines such as InStyle and Marie Claire. Schering-Plough Corp. purchased the brand from Pfizer in 1999. The client spent about $2 million on ads both in 1999 and the first 11 months of 2000, per Competitive Media Reporting.Korey Kay & Partners in New York launched a new safety campaign for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that tries to make customers and MTA employees more conscious of the pitfalls of falling. The ads, which broke earlier this month, are running as platform posters in subway stations and on subways, buses and the LIRR. Each execution shows the copy, written in bold red letters, between yellow markings that signify the edges of platforms. One ad reads, "The cure for the common fall. (Use handrails when boarding the bus.)" Another declares, "Sticks and stones will break your bones. For that matter, so will running on the platform." A third: "Keep a firm grip on your valuables. (Please hold your child's hand on the subway platform.)" The work keeps the tagline, "Going your way."James Speros, national director of external communications at Ernst & Young, was named "Communicator of the Year" by the Business Marketing Association of New York at a ceremony held Feb. 21 at the St. Regis Hotel. The award recognizes one company's communications and marketing campaign. Speros was presented with the annual marketing-industry award for Ernst & Young's integrated marketing campaign, "From Thought to Finish*," which has been running for two years. Campaign elements include public relations outreach, advertising, spon sorships, events and online marketing. Among the communications agencies contributing to Ernst & Young's integrated marketing efforts are D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (advertising), Hill and Knowlton (public relations and public affairs), GlobalWorks (online) and Clarion Marketing (events and sponsorships).Robert Martin is launching a promo tional campaign this month for the Web offset-printing-press division of Muller Martini, a Swiss manufacturer and distributor of bindery equipment and Web printing presses. The campaign, to culminate at the Chicago Print 2001 Trade Show in September, will include trade-publication advertising, direct mail and sales collat eral literature. The client's U.S. headquarters is in Hauppauge; the agency is based there as well.Media Logic's branding campaign for St. Peter's Health Care Services was featured in the January/February issue of Profiles in Healthcare Marketing. The publication looked at the Albany-based strategic- marketing firm's efforts to create a strat egic branding initiative to reposition St. Peter's and to unify its more than 25 affiliated services that previously operated under different names and logos. In September 2000, the board of directors of Mercycare, the organization developed to oversee the numerous affiliates of St. Peter's Hospital, made a strategic decision to unify the entire healthcare system under the name St. Peter's Health Care Services. This decision followed a research and branding study by Media Logic of the national healthcare landscape and the available healthcare choices in upstate New York. To complement the launch of the client's new name, Media Logic cre ated a logo to unite the various entities and services, and communicate the heritage of the Religious Sisters of Mercy, who founded the hospital in 1869. The agency created a new tagline and unveiled the new brand to the community with newspaper, radio and TV advertising.Venacá, a new-media company that creates, manages and distributes interactive campaigns on the Internet using a proprietary Web-based technology platform, awarded a marketing assignment to Strategy Department, a company that provides strategic-marketing services to new ventures. Strategy Department, based in New York, will help the client, which has offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn, articulate a market position and develop a marketing strategy. BabyPressConference.com, an online hospital maternity service that allows parents to introduce their newborns to friends and family members via live, full-motion video on the Internet, hired New York-based Renegade Marketing Group to create an integrated branding campaign that will include print and online adver tising, direct response and guerrilla- marketing components. Branding efforts will focus on hospitals, obstetricians' and gynecologists' offices, and prenatal-education classes. The campaign is scheduled to launch late this month. Renegade Marketing Group is an affiliate of Dentsu USA, the U.S. subsidiary of Dentsu.Network Design and Communications is undertaking broad-based public relations activities for interior-landscaping business Madelyn Simon & Associates. Network will also promote the New York-based client's new consumer-based online division, plantsplants.com. The New York agency specializes in marketing, communications, public relations, advertising, graphic design and Web site development.International public relations firm Cohn & Wolfe, which is based in New York, recently opened its seventh European office in Geneva. The new office will colocate with Young & Rubicam Business Communications and will work closely with Young & Rub icam companies in Geneva, to develop business and client services. Cohn & Wolfe is part of the WPP Group. PENNSYLVANIABlue Bell-based MayoSeitz Media was tapped as the first media agency for new radio station 96.5 The Point.

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