Friday, January 11, 2008
ISLAMABAD: A contract signed by the Pakistan embassy in Washington with another American lobbying firm to improve Pakistan's image in the United States is initially valid for three months only.
According to information posted by the Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide on its website, the Pakistan embassy in the U.S. signed a three-month initial contract in December 2007 "to
provide media training, guidance, reporter outreach and write press materials for the embassy."
Among other countries, the firm has a large presence in neighbouring India and has offices in Bangalore, Chennai,
Hyderabad, Mumbai and New Delhi.
A Pakistani English daily reported that the Musharraf government had signed a $45,000 per month contract with the Ogilvy Public Relations
Worldwide to "polish Pakistan's image".
It said that also stood renewed was the Musharraf government's $55,000 per month contract last summer with Van Scoyoc Associates, raised from its previous figure of $40,000.
The firm has already received $240,000 for the first half of 2007, according to Justice Department records.
The website said that the Ogilvy Public Relations was a leading global marketing communications firm, with offices in more than 60 cities around the world.
For more than 25 years, the Ogilvy PR has provided strategic public relations counsel to a variety of clients across its consumer marketing, corporate, healthcare, technology, public affairs and social marketing practices.
It also has an entertainment practice that is led by its subsidiary B|W|R Public Relations and offers biotechnology and government affairs expertise through its subsidiaries Feinstein Kean Healthcare and Ogilvy Government Relations, respectively.
According to the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform Minority Office, the Ogilvy PR received the following amounts per year, for federal PR contracts: $621,000 in 1998; $3,381,897 in 2002; $6,401,671 in 2003; and $1,580,352 in 2004.
Ogilvy has also worked for the Office of Homeland Secur-
ity, to "provide real journ-
alists for its biennial mock terrorist exercise," called TOPOFF, since the first exercise in
2000.
Ogilvy's federal contracts have included work for the
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, on the "Fashionable Red Alert" campaign, using
red dresses to stress that heart disease is the most frequent cause of women's death in
the US; and Office of National Drug Control Policy, on their National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, organising and
carrying out "media buying," "supportive research," ensur-
ing "a coherent advertising strategy," and "day-to-day management".
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination on Dec 27 further marred Pakistan's image abroad, especially in the United States. The government wants to dispel the misconception about Pakistan by beefing up its lobbyists.
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