Leveraging Your Brand

Dear Members and Friends:

The holy grail of all marketing, advertising and public relations throughout our entire careers, collectively, has always been to better measure the impact of strategic initiatives on sales, brand value, reputation - and when a company is publicly traded - on share price.

Communications Consulting Worldwide (CCW), a division of Fleishman-Hillard worldwide, has orchestrated a way to do just that.

Peter Verrengia, President and Senior Partner of Communications Consulting Worldwide, presented to a full house of Luxury Marketing Council members at the '21' club on Tuesday, September 25th. The substance of CCW's approach was so forceful that I felt compelled to invite council members to another presentation at Fleishman Hilliard on Wednesday, November 14th from 8 – 9.30 a.m.

This will be an eye-opener and, for any serious marketer, a relief to know that in our area of discipline there are finally metrics that one can take to top management and top financial folks to justify continuing strategic investment in reaching key target audiences.

If you missed the first event PLEASE do not miss this one. I'm certain you will thank me for pushing you to attend.

Warmest Regards,

Gregory J. Furman
Founder & Chairman
The Luxury Marketing Council (Since 1994)
www.luxurycouncil.com

The Luxury Marketing Council -
For Your Consideration Breakfast

Leveraging Your Brand:

How Reputation Value Measurement can help you reach your brand's full potential

How does reputation affect your brand’s value? What communications activities create the most sales? What marketing messages have the most potential to drive revenue and customer loyalty? What should you say, to whom, and when—through news coverage, advertising and promotions, events, or word of mouth, online or off?

Join us for breakfast on Wednesday, November 14th from 8 – 9.30 a.m when Communications Consulting Worldwide (CCW) will show you a new way to answer those questions and more--as covered in BusinessWeek's July 9 & 16, 2007 article, "What Price Reputation?" (to view the article click here or follow the this link: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042050.htm?chan=search )

Marketers of luxury brands and their organizations can benefit from one of the newest and most effective approaches to communications management. Hear specific cases that show how leading companies in other sectors have found a potential competitive advantage using a new way to look at reputation and communications.

CCW guides its clients to maximize the impact of reputation on their most critical business outcomes—such as sales volume, revenue growth, earnings, customer loyalty, brand value, and stock price. CCW generates unique, customized insights—based on statistical modeling of intangibles—that help leading brands achieve their business goals. They also offer strategic consulting services that help marketers and their organizations measure, grow, and protect the true value of their brands and reputations—by streamlining their communications organizations, integrating marketing and corporate communications, positioning their leaders for maximum credibility, and defending the reputation of brands and organizations during crises.

Reputation has always been important in the luxury category. Using CCW’s unique approach, exclusive brands can now discover new opportunities to use reputation to increase their value. Find out how this new approach can make a difference for you.

About Peter Verrengia

Peter Verrengia serves as President and Senior Partner of Communications Consulting Worldwide (CCW), the multidisciplinary global consulting business within Fleishman-Hillard. He is also a member of Fleishman-Hillard's Office of the Chairman.

Mr. Verrengia co-founded CCW in 2004 to answer clients' questions about the value created by communications and to identify better ways to address the risks and opportunities that all organizations face in managing their reputations. CCW's approach was developed through a two-year investment by Fleishman-Hillard, with guidance from a leading professor at a top-ranked business school and experts in statistical modeling and intangibles valuation.

During his 20 years with Fleishman-Hillard much of his work has focused on the communications priorities of senior management teams that need to explain how their strategies and actions create value. Throughout his career Mr. Verrengia has been extensively involved in improving the public perception of organizations that are misunderstood or less well-known than their business plans require. He also counsels management of visible organizations facing significant organizational changes, new competitive threats, or transactions.

For clients ranging from global Fortune 50 enterprises to startups, professional services firms and not-for-profit organizations, Mr. Verrengia consults on corporate, reputation and financial communications, positioning and message development, crisis response, litigation support, and issues programs. His experience includes work with management teams and communications leaders at Ernst & Young, Visa, SK Group, DuPont, Abbott Laboratories, and Putnam Investments. He led the worldwide Fleishman-Hillard team that supported ExxonMobil in its merger communications and provided communications advice to both sides of the JPMorgan Chase combination.

Prior to leading the firm's global consulting business, Mr. Verrengia was regional president for the firm's Eastern region, including its New York and Boston offices, from 2001 through 2006, and previously was general manager of the New York office, and head of its management communications and financial communications group.

From 1985 through April 1987, Mr. Verrengia was a vice president in the special situations group at Hill & Knowlton, providing communications counseling in mergers, acquisitions, and corporate crises. During 1983 and 1984, he was with Peat Marwick (now KPMG) as supervisor of specialized industries communications. Mr. Verrengia initially joined Hill & Knowlton's financial relations division in 1978 after attending the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

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For Your Consideration Breakfast - This “For Your Consideration" format gives members, and outside purveyors of luxury, the opportunity to share a unique perspective with interested members and friends. For Your Consideration presentations highlight "out of the box" innovative products, services, or opportunities with a compelling marketing, business, or promotional premise which will be of interest to members and friends on a self-selecting basis. These events have more of a sales focus than our general Council events, but with no obligation to those attending.