Innovative Social Media Startup With Two Venture For America Fellows At The Helm Now Launched In Providence's Social Media Corridor

NEW YORK, Aug. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The award-winning agency Havas PR, winner of some of the marketing industry's top innovations honors for its Sisterhood product—a SoMe venture by, for and about teenage girls—has launched its first bona fide social media startup. Based in Providence, R.I., it is called SocialProvidence.

Providence is a hotbed for startups, having already hatched dozens and serving as home base for the esteemed Betaspring startup accelerator program.

SocialProvidence will run as a standalone operation, reporting to Havas PR EVP Renee Harper, and will have an advisory board consisting of Harper, North American CEO Marian Salzman, and two other top agency executives: Chicago-based Ana Nennig and Boston-based Julie Hall.

The new social startup will build future-forward SoMe concepts for clients and continually monitor the social properties it creates to make meaningful gains in paid, earned and owned media. Two high-achieving recent college graduates are leading SocialProvidence as its local general managers: Mike Cunningham (University of Pittsburgh '13) and Giuseppe Crosti (Duke University '13).

Havas Worldwide, the parent company of Havas PR and one of the world's largest integrated marketing and communications agencies, partnered with the two managers through Venture for America (VFA), where they are both fellows. The nonprofit grooms top graduates into entrepreneurs to revitalize U.S. cities and generate job growth.

"Entrepreneurial spirit is at the very heart of Havas," said Harper. "So we knew that Giuseppe's and Mike's keen intellects coupled with the forward-thinking startup culture in Providence would be the ideal match for a Venture for America success story."

Crosti and Cunningham are eager to take on their entrepreneurial roles and bring VFA's mission to life. Both have a passion for entrepreneurship and hold strong to their goal of making positive change for their community. And both have caught the startup bug.

"I look forward to carrying out the Venture for America mission of creating value and contributing to the common good in our community through smart collaboration and responsible business practices," said Cunningham, who studied bioengineering and was at the forefront of starting Pitt's Music Engineering Laboratory.

"Providence drew me in because of its fast-paced and fast-growing startup ecosystem," said Crosti, who studied biology and political science and has worked in a developmental biology laboratory and at an Internet startup in New York. "I'm moving to Providence aspiring to be a game changer in my new community."

Havas PR's chief strategic officer, Karina Meckel, a 2011 PRWeek "40 Under 40," joined the company after her sophomore year at Providence's Brown University, also the alma mater of Salzman, who has been an adviser for Venture for America for more than two years.

Havas PR has a long history of empowering youth, including developing The Sisterhood, which put teens at the core of the agency's first social media laboratory. It was a finalist for PRWeek's PR Innovation of the Year and won silver in the same category in the Bulldog Reporter Media Relations competition; The Sisterhood also won honors for branding and its blog from PR News and the Holmes Report, among others.

In addition, two Havas executives started the multiple-award-winning One Young World (OYW) three years ago, an annual leadership summit for global leaders in their 20s. OYW is Havas' corporate program for global citizenship and social change, yet another example of youth power.

Said Salzman: "We know that our best ideas and solutions come from those who don't know 'Why not?"

The agency has earned much recognition in the social space as well, including dozens of marketing industry awards in the past three years. Among its most notable are two Bees (for social media marketing theory and online crisis management), six Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR awards (for use of digital/social in public affairs, consumer tech campaigns, entertainment campaigns and pitching media, among others), four PR News Digital PR awards (for public affairs campaigns, influencer communications and blogging), and various agency and individual awards for tweeting and blogging.

About SocialProvidence

Built on the belief that social is the manifestation of all things possible in marketing today, SocialProvidence grows future-forward social concepts for clients that are rooted in strategy, built with measurement in mind and aimed at a global-local mix to make some noise and be the news. We offer our clients guardianship and care for the social programs we create, knowing that they must span paid, earned and owned media and, in the end, show results that matter.

Contact:
Chaz Ross
Senior Vice President, Media
Havas PR North America
+1 917-414-2242
[email protected]

SOURCE Havas PR