PKPR News
LMCC Commemorates September 11th
September 09, 2011
To commemorate the ten-year anniversary of September 11th, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), a former World Trade Center tenant, launched InSite: Art + Commemoration, a series of free public arts events and a special multimedia website that reflect on a decade of recovery, visioning and change in Downtown New York.
Founded shortly after the World Trade Center’s opening in 1972, LMCC has brought art and culture to Downtown New York for nearly 40 years. On September 11, 2001, when the towers were destroyed, LMCC lost one of its artists-in-residence, Michael Richards, along with its offices, residency spaces, and cultural archives. Since then, LMCC has spearheaded efforts to rebuild the neighborhood through ambitious arts projects, including a $5 million Downtown Cultural Grants initiative, the River To River Festival, now in its tenth season, and the transformation of more than 300,000 square feet of vacant real estate into artist studios and exhibition spaces.
PKPR implemented a comprehensive strategy that included securing an in-depth feature on the history of LMCC’s work in the Wall Street Journal - “Arts Continue to Blossom in Post 9/11 Manhattan”—a segment on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show, and features in Newsday and The New York Daily News. LMCC’s initiative was also prominently included in round-ups of anniversary arts events, such as Associated Press, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, WNYC, WNET, Metropolis Magazine, Art in America, and ArtNet.
A Floating Poem on Governors Island
September 02, 2011
Hundreds of balloons featuring hand-written lines of poetry contributed by visitors created a floating poem at LMCC’s Building 110 on Governors Island. Created by The Cause Collective, the installation was covered by numerous outlets including WNYC, Tribeca Citizen, Village Voice, New York Observer, Bloomberg.com, ArtSlant, Gothamist, and NY Art Beat.
FashionPlaytes Back-To-School Campaign
August 26, 2011
With back-to-school the second biggest shopping season of the year, PKPR developed a comprehensive campaign positioning FashionPlaytes as a way for girls to ease the back-to-school jitters and gain confidence by designing their own outfit for the all-important first day of school.
PKPR’s strategy involved outreach to key national media, including securing a rave review from Parenting.com that hailed the site as “better back to school shopping for girls.” Another fun placement included a shout out on HerSay with Soleil Moon Frye.
We also placed articles in local outlets across the country featuring interviews with local moms and daughters - from Long Island Newsday and the Staten Island Advance to Boston Parent, Lowcountry Parent, and Arizona Family.
Finally, PKPR coordinated in-studio fashion shows with local customers in markets across the country, including Miami, Dallas, Columbus, San Diego, and Seattle. You can watch some of the local segments below.
Fox (Dallas)
NBC (Miami)
Retailers Ditching Automated Phone Menus?
August 25, 2011
A new study released today brings good news for consumers fed up with being forced into the abyss of automated phone menus.
According to the STELLAService study, 21 of the Internet’s top 100 retailers, including Amazon.com, Blue Nile, LL Bean, Nordstrom, and Neiman Marcus, connect callers directly to live representatives, enabling them to avoid the endless maze of music, machines, and menu prompts used by most retailers.
The study also reveals that consumers can count on these 21 retailers for significantly shorter hold times. Overall, retailers that force customers into automated phone menus or IVRs (Interactive Voice Response) keep shoppers on hold for an average of 1 minute and 51 seconds, a 117 percent increase over the average hold time (51 seconds) for retailers that do not use automated phone menus.
Coverage of the study ranged from Yahoo! Finance (garnering more than 1200 comments and 600 Facebook recommendations to date) and Internet Retailer to Time.com and The Consumerist.
Kingsolver Wins First Richard Holbrooke Literary Prize
August 05, 2011
Author Barbara Kingsolver will receive the first-ever Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award from the Dayton Literary Peace Prize at a gala ceremony in Dayton on November 13th.
The award, which was formerly known as the Lifetime Achievement Award, was renamed in honor of the late Richard C. Holbrooke, the celebrated U.S. diplomat who played an instrumental role in negotiating the historic 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia.The award will be presented to Kingsolver by journalist Kati Marton, Holbrooke�s widow. Holbrooke had been serving as special advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan under President Obama when he passed away in December 2010.
For the announcement, PKPR placed an exclusive with the Associated Press, including both a news story and Q&A with Kingsolver, which were published by more than 250 outlets around the world. Other coverage included USA Today, Los Angeles Times, CBC, MediaBistro, and Poets & Writers.
FashionPlaytes.com on The Today Show
August 02, 2011
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
FashionPlaytes.com was highlighted as one of “five fun, affordable buys for kids” on The Today Show this morning, resulting in the largest traffic spike to the site in the company’s three-year history. Watch the segment above (FashionPlaytes starts at about 1:15).
River To River Festival Splashed Across NY Times
July 16, 2011
Wow. That’s all we can say.
The entire top half of today’s New York Times arts section features a beautiful photo of STREB performing at the River To River Festival.
On Land and Sea, Henry V Draws Crowds
July 15, 2011
In a summer filled with Shakespeare productions in New York City, PKPR helped New York Classical Theatre’s production of Henry V stand out from the crowd. It didn’t hurt that the production, part of The River To River Festival, was performed on both land and sea, with the audience and actors alike taking a ferry to Governors Island for the play’s famous battle scenes.
Highlights included a glowing review and photo gallery in the New York Times, two segments on WNYC, and features in the Wall Street Journal, New York Observer, New York Magazine, New York Post, and the New York Daily News.
Travelers tap into zozi.com for summer vacations
July 15, 2011
PKPR took advantage of the summer travel season to position zozi.com as an indispensable tool for anyone looking for discounts on cool vacation experiences, whether traveling to another city or planning a weekend adventure or getaway. Coverage has included Associated Press, Redbook, Family Circle, National Geographic Traveler, Outdoors Magazine, Bankrate, and Fox Business News.
Jules Feiffer Celebrated at World Financial Center
July 08, 2011
Jules Feiffer’s beloved modern Dancer, whose cartoon figure ran for 40 years in The Village Voice, was celebrated by Arts World Financial Center in a series of special events during River To River Festival.
The centerpiece was the NY premiere of The Dancer Films, a collection of six very short films directed by Judy Dennis and featuring Andrea Weber of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as the iconic character. Taking the experience further, Arts World Financial Center presented an exhibition of Feiffer’s original Dancer drawings alongside new works in A Dance To Spring: The Drawings of Jules Feiffer.
PKPR was thrilled to secure an in depth, front page Arts section feature on The Dancer Films, showcasing interviews with Feiffer, Dennis, Weber, and the film’s choreographers Susan Marshall and Larry Keigwin. Other highlights included features in The Village Voice and a segment on WNET’s Sunday Arts.
Friendfactor helps win marriage equality in NY
June 28, 2011
PKPR was proud to play a role in the historic passage of same-sex marriage in New York State through our work with Friendfactor, a new non-profit that makes it easy for friends and family to support their gay loved ones. Friendfactor is one of the many organizations that came together under one united strategy to campaign for marriage equality in New York.
Through Friendfactor, more than 1,100 people set up their own personal campaign pages where friends could call their State Senator with just the click-of-a-mouse. After entering their zip code and phone number, friends automatically received a phone call connecting them directly to their State Senator’s office.
The list of people using Friendfactor to inspire their friends and family to make calls includes:
• Christine Quinn
• Cynthia Nixon
• Ron Zacchi, executive director of Marriage Equality New York
• Lance Bass
• Andy Towle
• Chelsea Handler
• Kirstin Gillibrand
• Sarah Silverman
PKPR secured coverage of Friendfactor’s innovative campaign in outlets including The New York Times (Want to Call Your Senator? Advocates Make It Easy), CBS News, New York Daily News, and New York Observer.
STELLAService Survey Makes Headlines
June 17, 2011
STELLAService on Bloomberg TV’s ‘Street Smarts’ from The STELLA Team on Vimeo.
OfficeDepot.com and SierraTradingPost.com do not like to make their customers wait, according to a major new study of online retailers released this week by STELLAService, the first independent provider of customer service ratings for online companies.
In a survey of the Internet’s top 100 retailers by annual revenue, SierraTradingPost.com ranked first when it comes to the shortest average amount of time that customers have to wait on hold before talking to a live customer service representative (6 seconds), while OfficeDepot.com earned first place for responding to customer emails fastest (48 minutes).
PKPR rolled out the announcement by placing an exclusive story with Reuters, which was picked up around the Web - from MSNBC.com to Yahoo! News to FoxNews.com.
PKPR also secured segments on business TV networks like Bloomberg Television and NY1, as well as dozens of top online outlets, including Smart Money, CBS’s BNET, AOL Daily Finance, Consumerist, AOL’s WalletPop, Time.com, PC World, The Street, PCMag.com, dealnews.com, Portfolio.com, and Marketing Pilgrim.
Time Inc. Names 10 NYC Startups to Watch
June 17, 2011
Time Inc. tapped PKPR to handle publicity for Ten NYC Startups to Watch, its flagship event during Internet Week New York 2011.
PKPR worked closely with the Time Inc. team on the project, including developing the concept for the event, announcing the startups recognized by Time Inc, and managing media at the sold-out party.
Coverage ranged from Adweek and Yahoo! Scene (check out the awesome video segment above) to the New York Daily News to Portfolio, NYConvergence, and New York Observer’s BetaBeat. Reporters from more than 20 outlets attended the event, including the Wall Street Journal, ABC News, Crain’s New York, and PaidContent.
“Can You Draw The Internet?” Wows at Internet Week
June 16, 2011
One of the highlights of Internet Week New York was Can You Draw The Internet, a competition that challenged artists, graphic designers, and New York City school children to capture the Internet’s billions of websites, videos, and photos in just one image. The results were funny, surprising, and often beautiful.
Outlets charmed by the exhibition ranged from TechCrunch (retweeted more than 500 times) and Huffington Post to Babble.com and The Next Web.
Digital Archaeology Exhibit on NPR
June 10, 2011
The first-ever archaeological dig of the Internet, Digital Archaeology, brought some of the Internet’s earliest and most influential websites back to life in an interactive exhibition that made its U.S. debut at Internet Week New York. The exhibit was created by ad agency Story Worldwide in partnership with Google.
Visitors had the opportunity to surf 28 bygone sites on the vintage hardware and software corresponding to the period of each site’s launch. The centerpiece of the exhibit was a display of The Project (1991), which reunited the first-ever website created by World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, with the pioneering NeXT Cube and the Nexus browser. Other highlights included leading lights from New York City’s early digital scene such as Word.com (1995), one of the Web’s first e-zines, and The Blue Dot (1995), an art and design playground by pioneering online agency Razorfish. The exhibit also featured experimental browser The Web Stalker (1997) and the self-destructing website for the film Requiem for a Dream (2000).
NPR’s On The Media produced an in depth segment that brought the exhibit to listeners nationwide in the way that only NPR can do (listen for yourself below). Other coverage highlights included CNN, Fast Company, Time.com, CBC, Adweek, MSNBC.com, The Next Web, Yahoo!, The New Jersey Star Ledger, ReadWriteWeb, PSFK, and New York Observer’s Betabeat.
Webby Awards Turn 15
June 07, 2011
PKPR has represented The Webby Awards since they began in San Francisco in 1997. To celebrate the 15th Annual Webby Awards, we placed a byline and slideshow today by Webby executive director David-Michel Davies at The Business Insider highlighting his favorite winners from each of the past 15 years.
Big Apple gears up for Internet Week NY 2011
June 05, 2011
Nearly 250 crowd-sourced events, including panels, exhibits, meetups, conferences, and parties, will bring the Internet to life across New York City during Internet Week New York 2011 from June 6 -13.
Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirstin Gillibrand, Will.i.am, Rachel Ray, Jane Pratt, Kevin Jonas, Tyra Banks, Isabella Rossellini, Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, New York City’s Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, Tumblr founder David Karp, and Pandora founder Tim Westergren are just a few of the thought leaders participating in events throughout the week.
Many outlets previewed Internet Week New York this week, using the citywide festival as a news peg to survey the state of New York’s growing technology sector. Advance features included The Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, The New York Post, The Next Web, and Xconomy.
To kick off the festival, PKPR organized a Press Preview Breakfast on June 6, where the more than 150 journalists will have an opportunity to preview exhibits at the festival’s headquarters, as well as meet the organizers of events being held throughout the city.
zozi in Techcrunch, WSJ All Things D
June 03, 2011
Strengthening its position as the leader in truly unique local activities and travel experiences, zozi announced this week that it raised $7 million in funding, bringing the company’s lifetime financing to $10 million. The announcement made headlines around the Web, including Techcrunch (we loved the headline: zozi raises $7 million to let you swim with sharks…at a discount.), WSJ’s All Things D, PaidContent (which named zozi one of the “next big players in the daily deals space”), Xconomy, Tnooz, San Francisco Business Times, and Silicon Valley Wire.
River To River Festival Unveils Lineup
June 01, 2011
Putting a spotlight on artists whose work is synonymous with New York City, The 10th Annual River To River® Festival unveiled a stellar line-up of completely free events that includes Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Laurie Anderson, STREB, Sean Lennon and a tribute to The Bottom Line.
As it marks its tenth season, the festival is evolving from a summer-long series of diverse events to a more ambitious, densely packed, month-long festival showcasing a curated roster of New York icons as well as world-class artists. Reflecting this vision, this summer will see the debut of several new flagship events including: Extraordinary Moves, a weeklong celebration of dance at the World Financial Center; a production of Shakespeare’s Henry V performed in Battery Park and on Governor’s Island; and Come Out and Play, a series of participatory games that will activate the streets of Lower Manhattan.
Preview coverage of the festival included the New York Times, Rolling Stone, New York Post, PaperMag, WNYC, Pitchfork, Paste Magazine, Village Voice, BrooklynVegan, New York Press, and NBC New York.
Satire with Teeth: The Final Edition Launches
May 28, 2011
The Last Timescast from The Final Edition on Vimeo.
PKPR handled publicity for the launch of TheFinalEdition.com, a new satire with teeth that promises to be “an intelligent, in-the-know antidote to the cat and fratboy humor that dominates the Internet.
Led by editor in chief Tony Hendra, celebrated for his work on The National Lampoon, SPY Magazine, and the cult film “This Is Spinal Tap”, TheFinalEdition.com boast contributions by a who’s who of comic geniuses - from Terry Jones, Peter Sagal (NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!) and Mike Myers to rising stars like Alex Blagg and writers from Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, The Onion, and Real Time with Bill Maher.
Feature stories on the launch included Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Salon, Wired, Gawker, Politico, CNBC.com, New York Observer, Flavorwire, Time.com, Splitsider, ComedySmack, and ShinyShiny.