Firms Geared Up
To Execute PR,
Marketing Projects
San Diego companies made recent headlines by winning major awards.
Big Bang Idea Engineering in Del Mar and Bob Hughes of adult favorites FM station KXST “Sets 102” won a prestigious Radio-Mercury Award for “Nose Bank,” a public service announcement they created for the San Diego Blood Bank.
Hughes, KXST’s general manager, produced the spot and the station’s production manager, Dale Gerlach, was the voice talent.
Another spot the group created for the blood bank, called “Ear Bank,” was a finalist.
Another collector of accolades was Downtown-based advertising firm Vitrorobertson. Its campaign for Yamaha WaterCraft won a silver Effie from the New York American Marketing Association.
The awards recognize marketing and sales results along with how the campaign was executed.
The month before, Vitrorobertson’s magazine campaign for Taylor Guitars in El Cajon was named one of the top 25 campaigns in the country by the Magazine Publishers Association.
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Status Chart: Berkman Communications in Downtown will be managing public relations for locally based Nielson Dillingham Builders, Inc. Jeff Anderson Consulting in San Diego will be test marketing Leap Wireless International’s Cricket Wireless Service. Anderson will also be doing customer studies for Alaris Medical Systems, Inc. in San Diego. The Gable Group will be handling public relations and marketing for SeminarSource.com, which has headquarters in San Diego. Gable also recently hired Karen Hinton-Looney, a former senior adviser and assistant secretary for public affairs with Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo. Hinton-Looney will be vice president of Gable’s public affairs division. Locally based Tyler Blik Design will be creating brand identity for Coaching.com in Escondido.
Sound Bites: Judy Bowen, who had been national sales manager at Midwest Television’s KFMB-AM and FM, a talk station and a pop favorites station, respectively, recently moved to Salem Communications’ local stations, Christian talk station KPRZ and conservative talk KCBQ, both on the AM dial. The Public Television Programmers Association recently awarded KPBS programming director Keith York a Golden Grid Award for programming excellence. It’s the second Grid for York (he won the first one in 1996), and the first time it’s been given to the same person twice, a station spokeswoman said. York won the group’s Programmer of the Year award in 1998.
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Silver Circles: For his contribution to local television, KPBS’ Tom Karlo was recently inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Silver Circle. Karlo is KPBS’ associate general manager for telecommunications and business development. Karlo is also a slow-motion film cameraman for NFL Films, having filmed 12 Super Bowl games. In 1992, Karlo won a national Emmy Award for sports cinematography.
The deadline for the next Media & Marketing column is July 13. Rodrigues can be reached at (858) 277-6359, ext. 107, or via E-mail at trodrigues@sdbj.com.
