More news of holding company slow-downs: Publicis Groupe does not intend to make “major acquisitions in the months to come,” CEO Maurice Levy told CNBC, last week, in response to a question about the company’s strength in emerging markets.

The company is currently in negotiations for future acquisitions in markets, such as China and India, but these businesses would be “comparatively limited” and added “just to strengthen our current operations,” Levy said.

Also, Levy noted that emerging markets are still on the rise by approximately 7 or 8 % and digital is “still [in]double digit growth.”  The growth in these two areas, according to Levy, will help bolster the company against the downward spiral of traditional media and “mature economies.”

This report aligns with Levy’s previously cautious predictions for difficulties in early 2009, reported by PRWeek.

Dell’s December 31 announcement that CMO Mark Jarvis will step down from his position during this fiscal quarter will have little effect on the PC maker’s PR practice, according to Andy Lark, VP of global marketing, communities, and conversations at Dell.

The personnel move, announced in conjunction with the retirement of Mike Cannon, president of global operations, is part of a of three major business units and will have little effect on the company’s communications structure or its relationship with WPP integrated marketing agency Enfatico, he told PRWeek. Jarvis will be replaced by Erin Nelson, former VP of marketing for Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Lark added that Enfatico’s PR work with Dell is “going great.” Kelly McGinnis, who leads Enfatico’s PR function, referred requests for comment to Dell.

Viacom/MTV Networks and Time Warner Cable are in the midst of a , and Viacom has launched a marketing campaign against Time Warner. If the dispute isn’t settled, MTV Networks, including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, will go off of the air for Time Warner Cable subscribers as of 12:01am January 1, the company has threatened.

Viacom has introduced ads (after the jump) that show characters including Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants crying, asking “Why is SpongeBob crying?” The ads also encourage consumers to call Time Warner and ask to keep the networks. Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily reports that previous disputes like this have lasted only hours.

“We find it a shame that Time Warner Cable remains unreasonable at this time,” Viacom said in a statement. “We hope its leadership will have a change of heart and will seek to negotiate a fair renewal agreement.” The statement also outlined Viacom’s requests for renewal: an increase in profits of less than 25 cents per month, per subscriber.

Time Warner’s statement highlights that the company has successfully negotiated hundreds of programming agreements and that much of Viacom’s programming is available for free online.

“MTV Networks wants our customers to pay millions more,” Time Warner’s statement said. “They are currently demanding price increases that are nearly triple the rate of increase under our current agreement. These increases would be excessive even in a strong economy, but given the current conditions, it’s simply not fair to our customers.”

UPDATE: Time Warner Cable’s president and CEO, Glenn Britt, released another about the situation: “Christmas is over, but Viacom is still playing Scrooge, threatening to pull its MTV Networks off of Time Warner Cable at midnight tonight unless we ask our customers to pay exorbitant price increases. Viacom claims their demands equate to ‘pennies,’ but that is misleading and insulting to our customers, from whom Viacom is trying to extort another $39 million annually – on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars our customers already pay to Viacom each year. That doesn’t sound like pennies to us.”

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Cisco Systems is planning to carve out a greater name for itself in the consumer electronics category with the of new technologies at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January.

The product line, set to debut at CES, is currently under embargo, but Jim Brady, senior manager of PR for Cisco, hinted that “what we’re showcasing at CES are new technologies that leverage [an] Internet-based network as the platform of a new age of connecting consumers. . . The consumer electronics landscape [is] very much a device centric environment, what Cisco’s aim is to enable a new connected life, by more visual and social [components].”

Brady emphasized the importance of CES as a way for media, analysts, and key influencers to “experience” these products and discuss Cisco’s plans for the consumer electronics space.

Currently, the company’s consumer-facing business is less than 10%, according to Brady, but the company has plans for expansion.

“Before the greater part of the 1990s, Cisco established itself and really transformed the enterprise sector. And, over the course of the last seven or eight years, [the company began] the same thing within the telecommunications service provider market. We, too, believe that talking about [these] products will begin the same transformation in the consumer space,” said Brady.

Leading up to CES, Cisco’s PR tactics have included media outreach and briefings with analysts. For PR, Cisco currently works with Text 100.

Tribune Co. stressed a message of continuity in the wake of its Chapter 11 filing on December 8. Yet two questions went unanswered: When did the media company hire Edelman for bankruptcy-related PR and how much it was paying for the agency’s services?

The Chicago Tribune reported today that parent company Tribune Co. hired Edelman in November, paying the firm two retainer fees totaling $110,000. The agency applied $98,000 of that for incurred fees and expenses by December 14, according to the Tribune.

The days between Christmas and New Year’s Day are of course notoriously slow news days. The Washington Times, though, found a way to fill that void: It follows a recent Texas college graduate in Chicago on her quest for that elusive but all important first job. This grad wants a PR or advertising job in particular, or even an internship, but it seems no one is hiring.

So far, it has meant taking office temp jobs and lining up baby-sitting gigs while she networks, sends applications and schedules the occasional interview. She’s looking for a job in advertising and public relations, a field that is usually bustling in Chicago.

But many agencies, she’s finding, aren’t even taking interns right now.

“They always say, ‘Check back, check back. We don’t have anything right now. Check back,’” says Miss Bratton, 22.

As expected the Corporation for National and Community Service, which includes AmeriCorps, has officially issued RFPs for both strategic communications help and creative and marketing services. A presolicitation was released in early December.

A variety of media outlets are reporting that Isreal has launched an international PR campaign to justify the goal of its military in Gaza that began on Saturday and its position against Hamas.

According to the Guardian , on Saturday Isreali foreign minister Tzipi Livni briefed two buses of up to 80 international representatives and opened a multilingual media centre to brief foreign journalists in Sderot which is on Gaza’s northern perimeter.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the Foreign Ministry “has been preparing for the offensive by sending its representatives background material on Hamas, talking points, and instructions to return from holiday vacations.”

As part of a local communicatory effort with citizens, David Saranga, Consul of Media and Public Affairs in New York, is holding a citizens’ press conference on Twitter on the situation in Israel and Gaza. Citizens have also joined the effort with grassroots support online.

How are companies responding to revelations that the husband of a Brunswick Group partner has been charged with insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors?

Alcoa, for one, is reiterating its policies to employees and making communications and legal personnel available to answer questions, Kevin Lowery, director of corporate communications, told PRWeek. He added that employees take ethics and compliance training sessions multiple times a year.

“We have a very, very rigid system here, and our employees know it full well,” he said.

Alcoa was once a Brunswick client, but that relationship ended well before federal prosecutors charged Matthew Devlin, Lowery said.

In this week’s story on the endurance of cause marketing during this rough economic period, PRWeek mentioned Subaru and Starbucks as two corporations that have kicked off, or added to, cause campaigns since the beginning of November.

Here are a few other examples:

• Macy’s has launched the “Believe” holiday campaign, which benefits the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The effort includes reprints of the infamous “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” editorial, the www.macys.com/believe microsite, and in-store letter-writing stations. The department store will give up to $1 for every letter to Santa to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, up to $1 million.
• Sears Holdings announced this month that it will give $100 in merchandise to each of the more than 30,000 registrants on its “Heroes at Home” Wish Registry, which goes to benefit members of the US Armed Forces.
• American Eagle Outfitters and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America teamed up to create a PSA featuring R&B star Nick Cannon. The two organizations filmed the ads, which will appear in American Eagle retail locations in mid-January, in late November.
• Dogpile.com, a search Web site that compiles the results of other search engines, announced November 12 that it would begin donating a portion of revenues from searches to the ASPCA, with a goal of raising $1 million by the end of next year.