PR

Don't let day-to-day dramas distract you from the bigger picture of reputation management.

Singapore - Word Of Mouth (WOM) has been appointed to handle the PR for this year's Singapore JewelFest, which runs in late October.

Hong Kong - Talent2 has chosen PR agency GolinHarris as the agency of record tasked to build awareness of the Australian-based human resources recruitment firm in the core markets of Hong Kong and Singapore.

Singapore - PR Communications has kept its hold on Boat Asia for another year while taking on a six-month retainer project on Asia Dive Expo (ADEX).

Regional - Skype has expanded Upstream Asia's responsibilities across the region to include the Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong markets.

Singapore - Nat Geo Adventure, who are the title sponsors for the Singapore and Hong Kong legs of global urban adventure series, City Chase, have begun a marketing offensive to promote the race.

Singapore - The Singapore Sports Council (SCC) has hired The Advocate Group (TAG) to handle PR for its Champions for Sport Award 2009.

Singapore - The Asian Publishing Convention (APC) has appointed Bang PR as its official PR agency for its second summit held in August.

Hong Kong - UK Trade & Investment has reappointed Hill & Knowlton to its Asia Pacific account.

Regional - Real-time travel search engine, Sprice.com, has appointed Lewis PR as its regional agency of record for APAC.

Singapore - Fleishman-Hillard's Karen Ho and Gavin Foo have teamed up to launch a specialist technology PR and digital communications agency called XPR.

Singapore - Vantage Automotive, distributors of Peugeot, Ford and Land Rover cars in Singapore, has hired Word Of Mouth (WOM) as its retainer PR agency for a six month period.

Too many communications professionals across Asia are selling short themselves and their work by focusing excessively on Advertising Value Equivalents (AVE) for measuring the effectiveness of public relations. This is not a rave about the ‘AVEs and the AVE nots' - it's a call for professionals whether working in-house or in consulting firms to go beyond advertising equivalency in measuring success.

Singapore - Pulse Group has launched a Singapore office, its third in the APAC region, which will act as a client development hub to service locally based regional market research buying centres.

Indonesia - Virgin Condoms has appointed TNBT's Crush Indonesia, in partnership with Alchemy Kreative Communications to launch the new Virgin - Manjakani Condoms in Indonesia.

Singapore - Knight Frank Shopping Centre Management has appointed PR Communications to undertake PR for The Verge, formerly known as Tekka Mall.

Singapore - Italian restaurant and wine bar Fabbrica has appointed Big Kid Productions & Communications as its PR agency.

Philippines - Asia Brewery has appointed Crush Philippines in June 2008 to handle advertising and communications for its brands ZeroCal, Absolute Water and 100 plus.

Singapore - Local PR agencies, The Advocate Group (TAG) and Markethink PR have merged to form the new PR arm for the latter agency's parent company, Group Eight.

Central, managed by PARCO, has appointed Word Of Mouth Communications as its retainer PR agency for six months.

Singapore- Omnicom Group's Ketchum has signed an exclusive affiliate agreement with Icon to form a strategic alliance in the Australia and Singapore markets.

Singapore - Independent PR shop Alchemy has bagged another luxury client, winning the LS Philosophy (LS) day spa account.

I was recently approached by a company wanting PR support. The RFP (which I assumed was the scope of work supported by the company's current agency) specified "...unlimited press releases for the duration of the contract."

Malaysia - GCI Worldwide Malaysia's head of corporate practice, Raymond Siva has been promoted to acting head following the departure of its MD Chong Wei-Hsiang earlier in the month.

Singapore - Lewis Public Relations (PR) has been named the PR agency for Singapore-based skincare retailer Sccube the Apothecary.

Singapore - Estee Lauder Cosmetics has appointed Media Flair Communications as its PR agency in Singapore.

Malaysia - The 19th National Real Estate Convention (NREC) 2008 in Malaysia has named Go Communications along with Nextdor Property Communications as its PR agencies.

Singapore - Carlson Hotels Worldwide has named Jay Krishnan to the newly created regional role of director, corporate communications for APAC.

Singapore - Blue Communications (Blue) has been appointed to work on corporate communications for the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group's Maersk Line in Asia.