Ogilvy Public Relations and Activate Direct to Launch Digital Public Affairs Offering

Strategic partnership will give clients innovative digital reach

SACRAMENTO, Calif., May 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (Ogilvy) and Activate Direct today announced the formation of a new digital public affairs offering in the Western US and strategic alliance between the two firms that will help clients address challenges and promote their agendas in the rapidly expanding digital space.

This new offering will allow Ogilvy and Activate Direct to expand an already robust public affairs offering in issues management, messaging for complex political issues, legislative and regulatory affairs, crisis communications, ballot initiatives and coalition building. A special focus will include environment and land use issues.

The offering will be led by Bryan Merica, CEO of Activate Direct and Michael Law, President of OgilvyWest. It will build on Ogilvy's award-winning digital influence offering and expand the solutions available to clients for online campaigns.

"We could not be happier about forming this new practice with Activate Direct," said Law. "Combining our companies' strengths will give clients unprecedented access to new and innovative ways to get their message out. Activate Direct is best in its class for online political innovation, and we are proud to launch this new venture with them."

Activate Direct brings a heavy technology emphasis with dozens of web tools and social media apps specifically built for the world of public affairs, while Ogilvy has led many of California's most successful public affairs campaigns.

"This new offering just makes a lot of sense," Merica said. "It will combine the best public affairs thinking with our proprietary technology platform so clients get a complete solution on every campaign."

Activate Direct's Creative Director, Matthew Eagan, agreed. "We've already been partnering with Ogilvy on a number of projects and found the combination to be a great fit for Ogilvy and ourselves, but even more importantly for our clients."

For more information on digital public affairs please contact Amy Thoma at 916-231-7736 at Ogilvy and Jonathan Bolivar at Activate Direct at 808-489-7989.  

About Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (Ogilvy PR) is a global, multi-disciplinary communications leader operating in more than 80 markets. Named Large Agency of the Year by The Holmes Report and PRNews, Ogilvy PR blends proven PR methodologies with cutting edge digital innovations to craft strategic programs that give clients winning and measurable results. Celebrating its 30th anniversary in business, Ogilvy PR provides strategic public relations counsel to a variety of clients across its social marketing, public affairs, healthcare, consumer marketing, 360-degree digital influence, corporate, and technology practices. Through its subsidiary, Feinstein Kean Healthcare, the agency also offers specialized expertise in molecular medicine, advanced biomedical research, leading life science and healthcare technologies and treatments.  Ogilvy PR is a unit of Ogilvy & Mather, a WPP company (NASDAQ: WPPGY), one of the world's largest communications services groups.  For more information, visit our Web site at www.ogilvypr.com.

About Activate Direct

Activate Direct was founded on the one powerful idea that social technologies are fundamentally changing the way politics and advocacy gets done. Since its inception in 2004, Activate Direct has served hundreds of political and public affairs campaigns on the Activate Direct platform, providing a full set of tools for persuasion, grassroots, fundraising and data intelligence. Activate Direct brings together a diverse team of professionals working in our Oakland, Sacramento and New York offices. Our team members are political/public affairs strategists, software engineers and graphic designers. For more information, visit our Web site at www.activatedirect.com.

SOURCE Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide