WASHINGTON: Strauss Radio Strategies is rebranding as Strauss Media Strategies as it expands beyond radio tours into ground and satellite media tours and social media.
The 17-year-old firm has spent the last year and a half expanding and honing its additional offerings. In that time, it booked 400 interviews on national and local TV outlets for clients such as Facebook, the Consumer Products Commission, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Clients have appeared on outlets such as Fox News Edge, NBC News, CBS News Path, and CNN's American Morning. The firm has also placed clients on ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates in virtually every local market, including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
That meant a name change was necessary, said Richard Strauss, president and founder of the eponymous firm.
“It was just a matter of time, and now felt like the right time to say that we are doing much more than radio,” he said.
Still, Strauss stressed that radio will remain integral to the firm's offerings. He said the medium remains as viable as ever, and thanks to satellite radio and the internet, it's being experienced in new ways.
“Radio and I have always been thick and thin like blood, and that's not going to change,” Strauss added. “Radio blood is thick.”
Strauss's firm regularly works as a subcontractor with PR agencies like APCO Worldwide, Burson-Marsteller, and Edelman. He said the expansion is not an attempt to become more of a straight-forward PR agency or a bid to be more attractive to potential buyers.
Before having his own firm, Strauss worked as the radio director for President Bill Clinton.
Edelman turned to Strauss in an expedited situation this past fall. “It was a challenging and complex government project with very little lead time, complicated by coming on the heels of the Labor Day weekend,” said Craig Brownstein, a VP at Edelman.
Strauss' team booked a solid two-hour block of major market interviews, Brownstein said. Ultimately, a third hour was added for a total of 22 bookings completed in a window of less than three hours.
