Weber Shandwick Announces New Unit within Mediaco Focused on Technology Innovation for Brand Publishers

Launches "Mediaco Publish," a Custom Content Management System Tailored to the Unique Needs of Brands

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Oct 27, 2014, 11:20 ET

NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Weber Shandwick announced today the formation of a new unit focused on innovative technology solutions as part of the firm's award-winning content offering, Mediaco. In addition to the debut of the new unit and exemplary of its remit, the firm also launched Mediaco Publish, a custom content management system (CMS) that combines the best technology from the media publishing world with a user-friendly workflow experience designed specifically for brand content operations.

The new content technology unit, composed of creative technologists, user experience designers, and software engineers, is charged with the ongoing evaluation and deployment of existing and new solutions, and where needed, creating custom solutions to meet the needs of the fast-evolving discipline of brand publishing.

"Since the launch of Mediaco over a year ago we've built a truly global, transformative proposition with nearly 100 client engagements to date," said Jason Wellcome, global head of Mediaco, Weber Shandwick. "Our scale has given us deep visibility into how brand publishing is increasingly a unique discipline, differing from pure media operations due to often disparate stakeholder groups engaged in the process, complexity of IT environments, and ultimately a different emphasis on outcomes free of constraints found in an ad revenue model. The formation of this new unit and launch of Mediaco Publish recognize the core role technology and specialized talent have to play in advancing brand publishing through ongoing, managed exploration and deployment of highly-customized solutions."

"In our extensive work supporting client efforts, we've investigated and even worked with a number of content management systems powering top-tier digital media outlets today," said Eric Helgesen, executive vice president, Technical Product Development, who will lead the new unit. "It became clear there wasn't a CMS leveraging best-in-class technology from the media world that was also tuned to the unique needs of brand-centric content operations. We decided to address the gap ourselves by building Mediaco Publish."

Eric Weitner, senior vice president, Technology Platforms, serves as product lead for Mediaco Publish. He comes from Forbes where he served as Senior Manager of Editorial Development and architected the publication's multi-contributor publishing platform.

"Building on the benefits of an open source platform like WordPress, we created Mediaco Publish to be highly calibrated to the orchestration of sustained content efforts in environments that lack the organizational advantages of a media publisher," said Weitner. "Whether it's a tweet, long-form article, or multimedia content package, Mediaco Publish powers the stakeholder coordination, workflow, publishing and distribution of that content in a streamlined way."

Mediaco Publish joins the ranks of innovations developed by Weber Shandwick to support clients in the era of engagement, including: Go Live, the firm's real-time production and live-streaming capability that incorporates live storytelling, broadcast quality-production and social distribution, extending the reach and impact of client events; wpForGlass, the first ever WordPress plugin developed to allow Google Glass Explorers to publish directly to a self-hosted WordPress blog; and firebell, the firm's award-winning, proprietary application that allows clients to participate in real-time online crisis simulation drills in a secure, off the-internet environment.

About Weber Shandwick

Weber Shandwick is a leading global public relations firm with offices in 81 countries. The firm's diverse team of thinkers, strategists, analysts, producers, designers, developers and campaign activators has won the most prestigious awards in the world for innovative, creative approaches and impactful work, including being honored as a 2014 Ad Age A-List Agency, The Holmes Report's 2014 Global Agency of the Year, and winning 23 Cannes Lions together with its Prime unit since 2009. Weber Shandwick was also named PRWeek's International Consultancy of the Year and The Holmes Report's Best Healthcare Consultancy in the World in 2013, in addition to earning numerous best place to work accolades. The firm deploys deep expertise across sectors and specialty areas, including consumer marketing, corporate reputation, healthcare, technology, public affairs, financial services, corporate social responsibility, financial communications and crisis management, using proprietary social, digital and analytics methodologies. Weber Shandwick is part of the Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG). For more information, visit http://www.webershandwick.com.

Contact: Michelle Selesky
Company: Weber Shandwick
Phone: 212-445-8088
Email: [email protected]

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SOURCE Weber Shandwick