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Home > Blogs > The Cycle
The Cycle

AIG’s PR firms in the news again

Posted April 13, 2009

Criticism of AIG’s hiring of PR firms just won’t die. Rachel Maddow and Breakingviews recently took critical looks at the company’s agency roster given its federal funding. This time, it comes in the form of an article from Time: “Is AIG spending too much on public relations?” The author points to recent comments from members of Congress that question “the firm’s p.r. payroll,” as well as a lawyer of former AIG chairman Hank Greenberg. AIG’s SVP of comms, Nick Ashooh - who made PRWeek’s people with the “toughest jobs in PR” 2008 list - broke down the responsibilities of its PR firms to Time.

AIG retained only one full-time p.r. firm when it ruled the insurance world. Today’s four firms, said Ashooh, have different missions: Sard Verbinnen & Co. helps to structure statements on the bailout, Kekst & Co. focuses on sales of assets to pay back federal loans, Burson-Marsteller handles controversial issues and Hill & Knowlton fields inquiries from Capitol Hill and prepares congressional testimony for company officials. “If the criticism was we were running image-advertising or doing sponsorships to make ourselves look better, I could see that,” Ashooh said. “But we’re doing a lot of information-processing. It’s really been just responding to inquiries” from Congress and the media.

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Filed under: Agency-client relationship, Consumer, Crisis Communications, Financial/IR, Politics, Public Affairs, Public Relations

Tags:AIG, Hank Greenberg, Nicholas Ashooh, Rachel Maddow, Time

AIG-Kekst relationship not new

Posted March 6, 2009

American International Group (AIG) declined to comment to PRWeek on the buzz earlier this week concerning its relationships with a number of PR firms, including Kekst & Company.

After the blog item posted, PRWeek spoke with Christina Pretto, AIG’s VP of corporate media relations, who clarified the company’s partnership with Kekst, saying the relationship isn’t new, that “AIG has worked with Kekst for years on M&A transactions.” Pretto declined to comment further.

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Filed under: Agency-client relationship, Corporate Communications, Corporate Reputation, Financial/IR, New Media, Public Relations, Web sites

Tags:AIG, American International Group, Kekst & Company

AIG’s PR help becomes news

Posted March 4, 2009

The Web has been abuzz with news that ailing insurer American International Group (AIG) has added Kekst & Company to its list of PR firm representation. AIG is also working with Sard Verbinnen, Hill & Knowlton, and Burson-Marsteller. AIG declined to comment on the PR firms with which they’re working .

AIG has received $150 billion in government funds since September, when the federal government also took an 80% stake in the company. AIG reported fourth quarter net losses totaling $61.7 billion on March 2nd. The company also came under fire during from both members of the Senate Budget Committee and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who said that “AIG exploited a huge gap in the regulatory system.” AIG may receive a fourth round of bailout funding to stay afloat.

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Filed under: Agency-client relationship, Crisis Communications, Financial/IR, New Media

Tags:AIG, Burson-Marsteller, Hill & Knowlton, Kekst & Company, Sard Verbinnen

AIG and Daily Kos - the novel?

Posted November 20, 2008

Perturbed by the numerous stories about AIG spending money on after receiving additional government funds, SusanG, aka Susan Gardner, executive editor of liberal blog Daily Kos, took the Web site with her thoughts.

An interesting thing happened after that… AIG responded directly. Since then, the insurer (and recent addition to the Burson roster) has been engaging in a dialogue with SusanG and the Daily Kos readers. An AIG corporate PR manager, Peter Tulupman, took a few questions from among the dozens that were submitted to the site and sent a reply, which was posted on Saturday.

“We’re dealing with a toxic media environment with inaccurate reporting and erroneous stories,” Tulupman said to PRWeek. “Engaging with blogs allows us to speak directly to citizens without the filter or biases of a reporter or editor. It’s different from PR that we’ve been doing with the press. We’re trying to engage in a dialogue.”

Tulupman went on to say that “engaging with blogs is part of the PR plan.” The posts have generated literally hundreds of comments and, since SusanG calls this first set of questions “Chapter 1″, certainly there are many people eager to read Chapter 2.

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Filed under: Blogs, Corporate Communications, Financial/IR, Journalism 2.0, New Media, Social Media, Web sites

Tags:AIG, blogger outreach, Blogs, Daily Kos, engagement, media outreach

Cuomo to investigate AIG’s spending since 2007

Posted October 20, 2008

As a follow-up to our piece on AIG and its spending during this financial crisis, ABC News is reporting that Attorney General of New York Andrew Cuomo plans to “review, rescind, and recover all past unreasonable expenditures” from AIG since January 2007.

“We believe these expenditures and payments, made in the absence of fair consideration, violated New York law,” Cuomo said in a letter to the AIG board of directors.

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Tags:AIG, Andrew Cuomo, economy

Is the Fed sending the right message?

Posted September 18, 2008

The Federal government’s latest bailout - , in case you’ve been under a rock for the last few days - has many questioning the message the Treasury is sending to Wall Street. A New York Times article calls it the “investor of last resort,” while a Financial Times article says “enough is enough.” Although some say the takeover, like the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ones, was , but many wonder why AIG and not Lehman? And when will the government allow the market to correct the past excess and bad decisions, asks the . Some in Congress appear poised to demand action beyond bailouts, though most agree that any significant regulation changes won’t happen until a new administration is in place.

As investors continue to run scared, causing the massive drops in the stock markets over the last few days, The Economist writes, “Like many nightmares, this one feels as if it might never end.”

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Tags:AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman

Financial crisis shows public perception is key

Posted September 15, 2008

The perception that the public and investors have of a particular company can be a contributing factor to a downward spiral. More than ever, business strategies have to include long-term communications strategies that are clear about an organization’s overall health. The key phrase is “reality check.”

“Part of our job should always be to provide the reality check and do our best to control what it is we can control,” said Steve Frankel, partner at Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher.

Moreover, where there are problems, spin won’t work for the long-haul.

“A financial communicator who truly has a seat at the table, his or her role today is to serve as a reality check and to [ask] ‘Are we certain that the statement we’re going to issue today can definitely be true tomorrow?’” adds Eric Starkman, president of Starkman & Associates.

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Tags:AIG, Lehman, Merrill Lynch

IR comms pros should have message ready, says Koeneman

Posted September 15, 2008

While many were taken by surprise by this weekend’s double blow to the US financial markets delivered by Lehman and Merrill (triple blow if you count the problems insurer AIG is ), the economic tumult caused by the credit crisis didn’t happen totally without warning. More than a year ago, the subprime mortgage and enormous write-down were cropping up. According to Claire Koeneman, co-president of the Financial Relations Board, communicators on the IR side of things should be ready to talk about the impact that the financial crisis has on an individual company at this point.

“A good financial communications practitioner has been having this conversation for months,” she said. “People should’ve been prepared, talking about this situation a little bit more in advance.”

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Tags:AIG, Claire Koeneman, Financial Relations Board, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch

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For both journalists and communicators, the news cycle never ends. At The Cycle, PRWeek’s editorial team offers commentary and viewpoints on how the latest marketing, business, political, and cultural news impact the PR industry.

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