- Say Cheese No More: Sometimes brands respond to an issue with a statement. Other times a good response is to monitor the situation and work behind the scenes. For most brands, it’s barely noticeable when Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers decides to eschew milk and cheese to gain strength, reduce inflammation in his joints, lose weight and extend his career. If you’re a Packers fan, who affectionately dons a cheese headpiece on fall Sundays, such intolerance for lactose is a concern. Should you happen to be from top U.S. cheese maker Wisconsin, whose license plates declare it the Dairy State, well, the 32-year-old’s oath could be tantamount to an affront to good manners. After all, for years Sargento, the family-owned, Wisconsin-based cheese maker, has been kicking in $1,500 after every Packers touchdown to charities feeding the needy. The official cheese of the Packers, Sargento has sent nearly $1 million to help feed the state’s needy as a result of touchdowns thrown by Rodgers, the team’s biggest cheese. “As some of the world’s greatest Packer fans, the dairy farm families of Wisconsin are, of course, disappointed by this news,” the state’s Milk Marketing Board uttered. “While we trust and respect Aaron Rodgers and his nutrition team, we stick by the USDA recommendation of three servings of dairy per day for anyone age 9 and older.” It also
refused to kowtow to the inflammation piece. “The National Institutes of Health says there is no proof dairy causes inflammation in muscles and joints,” its statement said. Sargento decided to monitor the conversation, resisting the urge to whey in publicly, an official told us. It quietly milked its Packers contacts, including urging the team’s dietician to rethink his counsel to Rodgers. As of press time, the story had cheesed it out of the news cycle. - News Bits: Sometimes a quick, transparent response takes a brand only so far. In March tennis star Maria Sharapova told the media she’d failed a drug test due to her taking Mildronate, a heart medication whose active ingredient meldonium had been placed on the sport’s prohibited list Jan 1 (PRN, March 14). Sharapova claimed she hadn’t known meldonium was proscribed. In May, the International Tennis Federation agreed that her violation was unintentional, yet June 8 it slapped Sharapova with a two-year suspension from tennis. It said her prompt admission of guilt reduced the penalty from four years. The 29-year-old will appeal. “I cannot accept an unfairly harsh two-year suspension,” Sharapova wrote on her Facebook page.
- Bye-bye Buy Buttons? A concept we heard often during the PR News Digital PR Conference June 6-8 in Miami Beach was that communicators should pay attention to the entire customer journey, not just the purchase decision. A report from GlobalWebIndex bears that out. It says millennials are forgoing social’s buy buttons, yet they’re avidly researching brands on social prior to purchase. Globally, 40% of consumers 16 to 24 use social media to research products; 30% of the general population use social to research before purchasing. Just 1% of all e-commerce orders in 2015 were tied directly to social media, e-commerce software maker Custora says.
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DeVries Global COO Ivette Sanz Osso 
APCO’s house warming People: Aetna named Kathryn Metcalfe CCO, replacing Tom Sanford, who’d left the company. Metcalfe was Deloitte’s CCO since Nov 2011 and was with Pfizer and Novartis Pharmaceuticals previously. The former Cohn & Wolfe CEO joins Aetna during its $37 billion acquisition of Humana. – Qorvis MSLGROUP lured Edelman and Ogilvy vet Joshua Gardner to strengthen its sustainability and social purpose team. The new VP also will focus on corporate communications. – DeVries Global promoted 10-year veteran Ivette Sanz Osso to COO from EVP, global practices. – Mark Kern is rejoining Crown Media in the newly created role of SVP, corporate communications & media relations, charged with publicizing the Hallmark cable TV channels. Previously he’d been with Discovery and Fox Broadcasting. – We’re sad Shareablee CMO Tracy David stepped down June 7. She helped the social measurement firm from startup to today’s 200+ employees. We know she’ll be back soon. – The Connect Group named food PR pro Gennifer Horowitz to lead its brand strategy and consulting practice. Horowitz joins from Porter Novelli. Connect also promoted culinary expert Cassandre Pallas to VP, talent management. – Good food and drink, plus live jazz made for a fun evening June 8 as APCO Worldwide debuted its swanky, new, high-tech HQ on Pennsylvania Ave. in D.C., a stone’s throw from the White House. – Executive search firm PR Talent named former Weber Shandwick exec Dan Lee as VP to launch its Seattle office. PRT says PR salaries in Seattle are on par with those in Chicago, and slightly lower than NY and San Fran. See its salary survey at: http://prtalent.com/seattle-pr-salaries/