YOOX, a Milan-based Internet retail platform for a number of luxury fashion brands, as well as its own e-retailer Yoox.com, is launching a green initiative on – wait for it… – Earth Day. The “Yooxygen” campaign includes a microsite featured on Yoox.com which will sell limited edition eco-friendly fashion, design, jewelry, and music, including products by influential fashion icons via Leny, an eco-brand that aims to fund Al Gore’s eco association, The Climate Project.

What’s unique about this initiative is a) the name Yooxygen, b) eco-friendly shipping, and c) the overarching green corporate initiative which aims to position YOOX as an eco-friendly company. The company, working with C&M Media, is promoting the internal effort via traditional media relations in conjunction with the Yooxygen consumer initiative. Corporate activities include educating employees on the separation of waste and recycling; introducing a car share program; and adopting renewable energy at the Milan-based office.

So while the green movement may be dying on the consumer front, there may still be effective ways to leverage the trend as part of a corporate comms strategy.

Sears launched a new tag line - “Sears. Life. Well spent.” - that will more strategically align the company’s branding efforts with consumers’ increased interest in quality of life and thoughtful consumption. The new tag line reflects consumers’ changing ideas about the American dream and how Sears’ products fit in with these values, said Tom Aiello, division VP of PR for Sears Holdings. Euro RSCG Worldwide PR will provide PR support.  “As we move ahead, you’ll see strategies and tactics come out that really bring the tag line to life,” Aiello said. One example is the Heroes at Home program, which provides support to service members and their families. Sears will be expanding the scope of this program’s reach to include other “everyday heroes,” such as teachers, police officers, and fireman. Projected to begin this expansion in the fall, these changes will “bring focus into local communities,” says Aiello.

EW Scripps executives told Rocky Mountain News employees in person today that the company is closing the newspaper, which had been in print since 1859 and in tabloid format since 1942. The four-time Pulitzer Prize winner publishes its last issue on February 27.

Scripps spokeswoman Lee Rose told PRWeek that Scripps officials were conducting a press conference on February 26. The company has not hired an agency for the announcement, she said.

Hearst said this week that The San Francisco Chronicle if its unions do not make concessions.

A year-long investigation conducted by The Associated Press found that the Pentagon increased PR spending by 63% in five years and that an audit, from December 2008, shows that the public affairs office “may have crossed the line into propaganda.”

According to the February 6 story:

“As it fights two wars, the Pentagon is steadily and dramatically increasing the money it spends to win what it calls ‘the human terrain’ of world public opinion.

… Yet the money spent on media and outreach still comes to only 1 percent of the Pentagon budget, and the military argues it is well-spent on recruitment and the education of foreign and American audiences.”

The full AP report focuses on the DoDs growing communications tactics in recent years.

Other key points include:

- An audit showed that the “America Supports You” program was conducted in a questionable manner.

- The Joint Hometown News Service, a Pentagon media entity, said it plans to put out 5,400 press releases, 3,000 television releases, and 1,600 radio interviews, doubling its work since 2007.

- $1.6 billion of funding goes into recruitment and advertising, $547 million into public affairs, and $489 million into what’s know as “psychological operations, which targets foreign audiences.”

- In 2009, the Pentagon will employ 27,000 people for recruitment, advertising, and PR. The US Department of State employs 30,000 people.

PRWeek covered the Department of Defense’s reoganization in October 2008.

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.

On Tuesday, PRWeek’s editor-in-chief Keith O’Brien moderated a mediabistro.com panel, “The Customer is the Company: How Social Media is Changing Business”. Among the seven panelists were Craig Newmark, Craigslist founder and customer service rep; Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos; and Jeff Howe, contributing editor at Wired and “crowdsourcing” expert.

The panel touched upon your typical social media issues - why/how/when to use, when to separate corporate and personal blogs and Twitter accounts, ROI, etc. - but the techy talk seemed to fall flat next to Hsieh’s passion for customer service and a discussion about Zappos’ internal comms and hiring strategy (and Keith’s jokes about robots, of course). At the end of the first week of the four-week long new employee orientation, which includes customer service training, Zappos offers employees $2,000 to quit to weed out those who aren’t completely dedicated to the concept of service and the brand– seriously!

While Hsieh focused less on social media than on how Zappos’ corporate culture - customer service and a positive staff energy - contributes to its success, it’s well known that the company served as a social media pioneer, using Twitter for customer interaction. So Zappos serves as a model that success in the digital age can also be rooted in Stone Age values.

What else goes into bankruptcy-related PR aside from reassuring employees, advertisers, and other key groups? For one, making sure that people know the lights are staying on.

Among its duties counseling Tribune Co. after its December 8 Chapter 11 , Edelman is engaging stakeholders about real-estate matters, according to Jeff Zilka, EVP at the agency.

“People managing the facilities need to know [if the company is] continuing to pay the rent, the utilities,” he said.

Zilka added that engaging an employee base comprised mostly of cynical journalists has its challenges, as well.

“What makes Tribune such an interesting engagement is that is a national news organization, and many of the journalists are pretty cynical, so how you communicate with a high degree of honesty and transparency is important,” he told PRWeek. “You know that every communication will immediately be put on the Web.”

It’s no surprise that Coca-Cola, as a long-time sponsor of the Olympics, created a massive PR, advertising, and marketing campaign when the Games made a much-watched journey to China this summer.

However, Petro Kacur, senior manager of marketing communications for Coke, noted that this is the first year the soft drink company sent a group of employees there to blog. Speaking to PRWeek, Kacur said 30 Coke employees, nominated by their peers, were sent to Beijing to enjoy the Games, and to relate their experiences back to co-workers via an internal blog.

“They’re blogging about their experiences internally to share with other employees,” Kacur said.

PETA, long known for its tough PR tactics, also puts pressure on companies to stop animal rights abuses by becoming a shareholder and submitting shareholder resolutions with graphic and potentially embarrassing anecdotes, that will then be mailed to every investor. “No company wants to show that to their investors,” said Matt Prescott, director of corporate affairs for PETA.

 

“We’ve been doing this since the mid-80s, and in the past few months, we’ve made more recent purchases [including California Pizza Kitchen and Papa John’s],” said Prescott. “Recent stock purchases are the result of a company’s unresponsiveness.”

 

PETA presently owns stock in more than 80 companies, and has submitted resolutions to companies, including Denny’s, GE, Tyson Foods, Wal-Mart, and Yum!Brands.

 

Two years ago, in exchange for withdrawing shareholder resolutions, Safeway created an animal welfare advisory counsel and also agreed to encourage poultry suppliers to use more humane slaughter methods.

 

Prescott said, “Most companies are willing to engage in dialogue, when that fails we have to purchase stock, take it to the public, and adopt a PR strategy for getting the word out.”

 

It’s supposed to get up to 90 degrees today in New York, and up to 93 degrees in Salt Lake City, Utah, home of Richter7, an advertising and PR agency.  The 40-person agency issued a “No Pants Policy” for the 30 days between July 15 and Aug. 15, encouraging employees to wear shorts, capris, skorts, kilts, or anything but long pants, even in meetings with clients. Offenders will be fined a quarter for wearing long pants.

“We see this as a fun way to beat the heat,” said Dave Newbold, president of Richter7. “I don’t know of any other company that has actually insisted that all employees not wear long pants to cool down, but it’s in keeping with our motto to disrupt the status quo.” Additionally, the company is buying one pair of shorts for each employee, and will provide frozen snacks if the temperature tops 100 degrees.