Widmeyer Communications

From SourceWatch

Widmeyer Communications is an independent public relations agency with offices in Washington DC and New York City, founded in the late 1980s. It identifies as its areas of expertise "public affairs, media relations, integrated research, marketing communications, risk and crisis communications, advertising and design." [1]

1 U.S. government PR contracts
2 PR work summary
3 Income and employee totals
4 Staff
5 Clients
6 Contact Info
7 Resources

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U.S. government PR contracts

Widmeyer's website states, "As one of Washington, D.C.'s largest independent public relations and advertising firms, we have been involved in some of the most creative, exciting, and effective state and federal government communications campaigns of the past 15 years." [2]

According to the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform Minority Office, Widmeyer received the following amounts per year, for federal PR contracts: [3]

$689,000 in 1997
$1,090,000 in 1998
$81,000 in 1999
$545,000 in 2000
$3,476,000 in 2001
$275,000 in 2002
$1.215.299 in 2004

According to the firm's website and Assistant Vice-President Scott Ward, Widmeyer's federal contracts have included work for the Selective Service System, on young men’s registration rates; Federal Trade Commission, on consumer rights issues; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, on their National Bullying Prevention Campaign; U.S. Department of Education, on family involvement in children’s math education; National Institute for Literacy; U.S. Department of Agriculture, for their Farm Service Agency; and U.S. Department of Defense, for their Deployment Health Clinical Center.

In February 2007, O'Dwyer's PR Daily reported that the U.S. "Environmental Protection Agency's radiation unit has moved to award a crisis PR contract to Widmeyer Communications without a competitive review. ... The firm has previously conducted focus groups with EPA emergency responders and communicators to develop responses in the event of such a disaster." [4]

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PR work summary

Media relations - "Our staff's close working relationships with leading reporters and editors have resulted in major print, broadcast and online media coverage for our clients", they do "scheduling radio and television talk show interviews; and handling media tours and editorial board meetings"
Media training - for speaking to the media
- Interactive exercises
- Training with a broadcast quality camera, audio, lights, video monitor for real-time playback and critique
- Detailed post-session analysis
- Review of progress and consultation
Public affairs - "we know how to influence public policies that can advance a client’s interests"
Design & advertising
Writing & editorial - "Widmeyer's pool of seasoned writers includes former editors and reporters; White House and congressional speechwriters; copywriters and corporate speechwriters. Our team creates ad and web site copy, develops speeches for C-suite executives, drafts interview talking points, and produces media-friendly materials". "Our writers have also written and placed op-eds on topics such as campaign tax reform, teacher tax breaks, pandemic flu, higher academics for athletes and the off-shoring of jobs. Such commentaries have run in publications like the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Rocky Mountain News"
Crisis communications
Search engine optimization - "allows clients to index and improve their rankings in key word search results. By adjusting a site’s structure and content, clients experience a dramatic improvement in driving audiences to their web site"
Blogs
E-cards, online banner ads - "these cost effective online tools provide a unique way of driving audiences to a web site for more information"
Interactive games - "these can be incorporated in most any kind of public education or campaign oriented web site. Games pages are often the most popular pages on a web site and because games can be designed so that the player must be familiar with the web site’s content in order to “win” the game, they help ensure that target audiences are reviewing key pages on a site"
Mobile communications – "utilizing mobile communications (such as cell phones, blackberries and PDAs) may provide the opportunity to incorporate text messages, ring tones, wallpaper images, short animation sequences and other tools in any communications campaign"^[1]

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Income and employee totals

O'Dwyer's PR lists Widmeyer as earning $9,244,000 in net fees in 2006, no change from the previous year. It notes the firm has 52 employees. ^[2]

PR Week ranked Widmeyer Communications as the thirty-ninth largest independent PR agency in the United States in 2008, with 2007 revenue of $9,000,000, a 3% decrease from the previous year's total revenue of $9,244,000. The ranking also notes its staff total of 41 (2006 total: 52), with $219,512 in revenue per employee.^[3]

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