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History

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 90 employees.

History

The company was founded by Ronn Torossian in 2003. It launched from a small office within a Manhattan based travel agency with only three clients and two employees. Under his leadership, the company's client list expanded to well over 100 and in under three years, the staff roster grew to 75

Clients

Listed among the firm's clients are Lifestyles Condoms, Anheuser-Busch, Evian Water, Microsoft, XM Radio, Vail Resorts, Wolfgang's Vault, Patina Restaurants, hotels, hip hop entertainers and musicians and an array of diverse public and private interests consisting of brick and mortar companies as well as tech and high-tech.

It has a faith-based and foreign government clientele also, consisting of organizations such as Zionist Organization of America, The American Bible Society, Benny Hinn ministries, Regent University, Pastor John Hagee and his Christians United for Israel organization and members of the Israeli Knesset.

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 .

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."

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

Growth

According to the O'Dwyers PR news website 5W Public Relations netted $9,320,477 in fees in 2006, an increase of 85% from 2005 figures .

O'Dwyers has ranked the company #22 in earnings among their top 135 ranked PR companies; and it has given it the 13th spot for top entertainment PR firms among its top 40 in that category. 5W Public Relations is considered by the Holmes Report as the “Fastest Growing public relations firm in the nation”, and appeared at #153 on the Inc. 500 2007 list.

Inc 500 posted the firm as number 153 in its 2007 Inc 500 list of fastest growing companies.

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."

Controversy

5W is mentioned on PR industry blogs for what some term, "self-promotional activity."

5W had been retained by an organization that advocates for independence for the province of Kosovo from Serbia, while only one year prior 5W was retained by a group representing Serbian President Boris Tadić, to help establish an image as a friendly democracy.

On November 5, 2007, following a controversial article written on the use of spam in the public relations field by Wired Magazine’s editor Chris Anderson, the NY Times followed up and referred to 5W as a “leading” public relations firm alongside Fleishman-Hillard, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide and Weber Shandwick.

In 2006, 5W bought variations of website domain names of several of its competitors and linked them all to its home site. As a result of that, a competitor secured the domain name ronntorossianpr.com and linked it to a hygiene product.

References

1. Brady, Diane (November 12, 2007). "The Bad Boy of Buzz and His PR Problem". Business Week. Retrieved 2007-11-18. Ronn Torossian's 5W represents rappers and evangelicals, but blue-chip clients are more elusive {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
2. "Brash P.R. Guy Grabs Clients, Ink". New York Times. February 20, 2005. Retrieved 2007-11-18. At 30, Mr. Torossian is the founder and president of his own agency, whose name was inspired by the five journalistic W's -- who, where, when, etc. He may be particularly busy this month with his client Lil' Kim, the rapper who is headed to trial on Feb. 28 on perjury charges stemming from a shootout outside a Manhattan radio station, but she is just one of a large and seemingly contradictory stable of customers. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
3. The Armenian Reporter, 06-26-2004
4. PR Watch/Israel Hasbara
5. The Jewish Week Article
6. PRWeek Reference
7. Salt Lake City Tribune
8. Adrants
9. O'Dwyers PR Report, February 2007
10. O'Dwyers Rankings
11. O'Dwyers Report, Entertainment PR
12. Holmes Report Agency ID
13. Netscape News
14. Inc 500 Web Page
15. Ronn Torossian's Most Important Client Is Ronn Torossian from Gawker. August 7, 2006.
16. Blic Online (Serbian Media's English Translation Pages)"In political fight for Kosovo, only lobbying agencies in USA are sure about profit - Yesterday for Serbia, today for independent Kosovo"
17. News about 5W and Tadic
18. Anderson’s Blog
19. New York Times, Things Turn Ugly in the 'Hacks vs. Flacks' War, By Andrew Adam Newman, November 5, 2007
20. Gawker
21. The New York Post, "Joke's On Him", Sept. 10, 2006

External links

• 5W Website
• SourceWatch 5W Page

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