Cohn and Wolfe Ltd
Cohn & Wolfe - a subsidiary of WPP - describes itself as a "strategic marketing public relations firm dedicated to creating, building and protecting the world's most prolific brands."[1] It has offices all over the world including UK, US, throughout Europe, Latin America, Middle East, and the Asia Pacific region.
It offers clients 'strategic partnerships' with other WPP companies, including Quinn Gillespie, a lobbying firm.
Contents
Dabbling with fake blogging
Fake blogs - a form of viral marketing in which PR or advertising agencies attempt to generate interest in their client's product by creating a fictional character on the internet - are drawing criticism from real bloggers. The Cohn & Wolfe PR firm had to apologize in 2005 after "using a fictional character to leave a series of thinly veiled advertisements on blogs and other websites. A number of websites were hit last week with messages from Barry Scott," a fictional spokesman for a British household cleaning product.
British blogger Tom Coates was especially outraged and called it "a new low for marketers" after he wrote an emotional account of his relationship with his father, and then received comment spam from "Barry Scott" disguised as condolences. Coates replied: "My view was that any right-thinking person would view trying to market your product on such a post as revolting, corrupt, cynical, disgusting, sick and dishonourable."[2][3][4]
Ghost-written journal articles
Cohn & Wolfe was at the centre of a scandal in which Eli Lilly officials ghost-wrote studies for medical journals. The articles plugged an Eli Lilly drug, the antipsychotic Zyprexa, and were published under the names of credentialed scientists.[5]
Lilly sought to make Zyprexa “the number one selling psychotropic in history,” Bloomberg.com reports. In order to make the drug attain its "sales goal", Eli Lilly hired ghost-writers to prepare the articles for publication in medical journals. Documents unsealed as a result of a lawsuit against Eli Lilly for overpricing its drugs reveal that Cohn & Wolfe played a PR role in this process.
Bloomberg.com reports:
- “The paper for the Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry supplement has been completed and sent to the journal for peer review,” Kerrie Mitchell, an employee of the public relations agency Cohn & Wolfe, wrote in a Feb. 23, 2001, e-mail to Michael Sale, a Lilly marketing official. The message was among the unsealed files.
- “We ‘ghost’ wrote this article and then worked with author Dr. Haddad to work up the final copy,” Mitchell said in the e- mail. Eric Litchfield, a spokesman for Cohn & Wolfe, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment... Peter Haddad, a researcher at Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust in the U.K., was listed as the article’s lead author. [6]
Rebranding shyness as national disease problem
According to a story by Martha Rosenberg on AlterNet, Cohn & Wolfe rebranded shyness as a disease that requires medication - by :
- Slick PR firm Cohn and Wolfe is credited with vaulting "shyness" to a national psychiatric problem, the answer for which is Paxil, and creating faux grassroots patient groups like Freedom From Fear to push their clients' drugs.[7]
Clients
As of June 2009 O'Dwyer's Directory of PR Firms lists Cohn & Wolfe clients as including:[8]
- 3M | ADP | American Foundation for Suicide Prevention | Chevron Texaco | Coca-Cola | Colgate-Palmolive | Danone | Diageo | DuPont | Eli Lilly & Co. | Epson | Hewlett-Packard | Hilton Hotels | Illycafe | Intel | M&M/Mars | McDonald's | Merck | Novartis | PGA | Pfizer | Seagram's (Absolut) | Sears | Smuckers | Sony | Taco Bell
Personnel
Senior Management Team
- Doug Buemi, Vice Chairman, Cohn & Wolfe Worldwide
- Sarah Descher, account manager, Cohn & Wolfe London
- Christiane Dirkes, Managing Director, Cohn & Wolfe Frankfurt
- Victoria Dix, Managing Director, Cohn & Wolfe Geneva
- Patricia Godefroy, EVP, General Manager, Cohn & Wolfe Los Angeles
- Franco Guzzi, Managing Director, Cohn & Wolfe Milan
- Donna Imperato, President and CEO, Cohn & Wolfe Worldwide
- Jean-François LeBrun, EVP, General Manager, Cohn & Wolfe Montreal
- Annie Longsworth, Managing Director, Cohn & Wolfe San Francisco
- Michael O'Brien, President, General Manager, Cohn & Wolfe New York
- Carol J. Panasiuk, EVP, General Manager, Cohn & Wolfe Toronto
- Rose de la Pascua, Managing Director, Cohn & Wolfe Madrid
- Tom Petrosini, CFO, Cohn & Wolfe Worldwide
- Jonathan Shore, Managing Director, Cohn & Wolfe London
Contact details
Cohn & Wolfe London
7-12 Tavistock Square
Lynton House
London, WC1H 9LT
292 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Phone: 212.798.9700
Resources
References
- ↑ Cohn & Wolfe website
- ↑ Tom Coates, On Cillit Bang and a new low for marketers...", Plasticbag.org, September 30, 2005.
- ↑ An apology from the Cillit Bang team...", Plasticbag.org, October 4, 2005
- ↑ Bobbie Johnson, "Cleaner caught playing dirty on the net", The Guardian (UK), October 6, 2005
- ↑ Elizabeth Lopatto, Jef Feeley and Margaret Cronin Fisk, "Eli Lilly "ghost-wrote" articles to market Zyprexa, files show", Bloomberg, 123 June 2009, accessed 23 June 2009
- ↑ Elizabeth Lopatto, Jef Feeley and Margaret Cronin Fisk, "Eli Lilly "ghost-wrote" articles to market Zyprexa, files show", Bloomberg, 123 June 2009, accessed 23 June 2009
- ↑ Martha Rosenberg, Are You One of Big Pharma's Lab Animals?, AlterNet, 7 December 2007, accessed June 23 2009
- ↑ Cohn & Wolfe, O'Dwyer's, accessed 17 June 2009
