5W Public Relations

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5W Public Relations is an American public relations firm with two offices in New York City and Los Angeles. Since its founding in 2003, it has grown to more than 70 employees as of January 2007.

O'Dwyers has ranked the company #22 in earnings among their top 135 ranked PR companies^[1]; and it has given it the 13th spot for top entertainment PR firms among its top 40 in that category^[2]. 5W Public Relations is considered by the Holmes Report as the “Fastest Growing public relations firm in the nation”^[3]

1 History
2 Clients
- 2.1 Among Additional Clients
- 2.2 Eclectic Client Base
3 Controversy
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

Founded by Ronn Torossian in 2003, the company launched from a small office within a Manhattan based travel agency with only three client and two employees^[4]. Under his leadership, the company's client list expanded to well over 100 and in under three years, the staff roster grew to 75^[5]

[edit] Clients

The firm's client list includes Anheuser-Busch, Evian Water, American Bible Society, Wolfgang’s Vault, Benny Hinn ministries, and an array of diverse public and private interests.

In December 2006, the Foreign Ministry of Israel worked with 5W and Elias Buchwald (one of the founders of Burson-Marsteller) to train Israel's top spokespersons on western media and communications methods ^[6]^[7].

In March 2005 PR Week reported that The Lebanese American Council for Democracy, the "group that played a key role in the passage of the Syrian Accountability Act," retained 5W Public Relations for "strategic counsel and media relations." The group's goal is "to gain support from U.S. political leaders and United Nations officials to pressure Syria to withdraw its troops." The group is reportedly "closely aligned with Michel Aoun, the former Prime Minister who was ousted by the Syrians" in 1990. The 5W firm was "preparing daily briefing sheets for the media to respond to current events." The Syrian Accountability Act, passed in 2003, "imposed sanctions on Syria for occupying Lebanon." ^[8]

[edit] Among Additional Clients

[edit] Eclectic Client Base

The diverse and odd nature of 5W's clientele bring right-wing Jewish and Christian groups and international issue-based government and policy groups under the same roof as some of the most well know rap and hip-hop artists and online gaming clients.

At the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, 5W created the "5W Sundance Escape Mansion, and held four days and nights of clublike atmospheres for the stars attending the festival^[9]^[10].

[edit] Controversy

The NY Post has called its CEO a "publicity guru", and Fox News a "high-powered PR CEO", CNN as "a leading PR expert". CBS National News said that "Ronn Torossian knows spin," and a 2005 NY Times feature story on Torossian referred to him as "The consummate hard-driving, scrappy NY publicist."

Yet, Torossian had been mentioned on on PR industry blogs for what some had termed, "self-promotional activity" ^[11].

in 2006, 5W bought variations of websites domain names of several of its competitors and linked them all to its home site ^[12].

In a more recent controversy, 5W was retained by an organization that is advocating for independence for the province of Kosovo^[13] from Serbia, while a year earlier, 5W was retained by a group representing Serbian President Boris Tadic^[14], to help establish an image as a friendly democracy.