Martin Waymire Advocacy Communications may have only had its door open for two years, but behind those doors are decades of issue management experience and a record of successful public relation and ballot proposal campaigns. President Roger Martin said the firm is a “full-service issue management firm, which means we specialize in media and policy relations, public policy, crisis communications and community relations.” They contract out many of the basic services, such as media production and public opinion surveys, but play a major part in developing the content and questions.

With 11 employees and an intern, Martin said they “don’t do politicians,” but do take on ballot proposals. In this election cycle, they’ve already scored what Martin believes is a significant victory by knocking Proposal 6 (the so-called Stop Over Spending initiative) off the ballot. Working with a coalition made up of more than 100 organizations, including “every public safety entity” in Michigan, Martin Waymire employed a company that scans or washes petition signatures to determine their authenticity. It’s a “process that is not inexpensive,” said Martin, “but if it works, and keeps [a bad proposal] off the ballot, it provides a good solution.”

The firm’s clients range from business and industry to casinos to telecommunications, healthcare and education. They include Marathon Oil, the Greektown Casinos, Waste Management and the Michigan Health and Hospital Association. Martin said that they work with clients that “we believe in, [because] we want always to win for our clients. I can’t recall a time when we haven’t put in more effort than the fee [that we were] paid. Our clients should expect nothing less.”

Martin said that occasionally a prospective client comes in and says, “Here’s what we’re trying to achieve.’ We’ll look at it and say, ‘We could spend all the money in the world, and it’s not going to help.’ We will not mislead folks just to win a contract. [We] live and die by our reputation. You don’t do anything just to make a buck.”

Asked what businesses should know about public relations, Martin replied that historically PR is one of the first line items in a company’s budget to go, when in fact, there’s “nothing more important than communicating with your audience—in good times and bad times.” He said that companies that fail to do this do so at their own peril. “It’s hard to put the bullet back in the chamber after it’s been fired.”

In the early 1990s, Dave Doyle, now the executive vice president and chief political consultant at MRG, served as chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, coordinating the campaigns of Gov. John Engler, U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham, and Secretary of State Candice Miller. He also worked for the GOP on the national and international stage. It’s no surprise then that a number of GOP candidates and elected officials come to MRG for guidance and assistance.

As a full-service communications firm, MRG provides public relations, marketing, advertising, political consulting and crisis managers to companies all across Michigan. From writing speeches and press releases to conducting public opinion polls, MRG is involved in “everything to do with communications,” Doyle said.

Currently, MRG is working with Michigan Supreme Court Justice Mora Koregon to assure her reelection to Michigan’s highest court. Eschewing a massive TV/radio/print buy, as is typical in a political campaign, MRG’s strategy for Justice Koregon includes “a lot of time traveling around the state,” Doyle said. “It’s nothing like the big [gubernatorial and U.S. Senate] races.” While the Internet comes into play on the higher profile races, Doyle said that a justice’s or congressional representative’s site is not “getting millions of hits,” which means that these websites are primarily used as a source of information about the person’s record and positions on various issues.

MRG stands firmly in the “no” camp of Proposal 5, a “legislative initiative to amend the State School Aid Act to ensure that the Legislature establish and appropriate minimum funding levels for Michigan’s public elementary and secondary schools, intermediate school districts, community colleges, public universities and independent nonprofit colleges or universities,” something MRG refers to as a “spending mandate.” Doyle said that “none of the money is guaranteed to go to classrooms,” while two-thirds could end up in teachers’ pension funds. To get its side of the story out, MRG is helping the coalition opposed to Prop. 5 draft press releases, coordinate editorial board visits, set up radio interviews and prepare its media campaign, one that involves radio and TV ads. Doyle said that 55 statewide organizations, including “all major law enforcement agencies, healthcare providers, township associations and taxpayer organizations” form the coalition.

Doyle said, “Many companies have the attitude that they don’t need public relations,” and that if they have a problem one press release will solve it. But good PR deals with “the anticipation of problems … dealing with them in advance so that if something does go wrong, the company will have a some ideas of what they should do.”

In April 2001, John Truscott, who had worked in the state Senate and House as director of communications and press secretary for Gov. Engler, formed The John Truscott Group, a Republican-leaning public relations firm focusing on government and political work. Although they don’t lobby, “we complement what a lobbyist would do,” Truscott explained, in addition to performing crisis management and government affairs work.

Truscott isn’t involved with any of the ballot proposals for the 2006 election, but he’s keeping busy doing work for the DeVos campaign. “What it’s meant for me,” he said, “is working two full-time jobs.” He said he believes that the race for governor is about “the future of Michigan. Are we going to turn around the economic decline, especially for businesspeople?” He’s worked closely with the campaign on its TV and radio advertisements, and sees his job as both getting the stories into the media in the first place, then, “making sure they’re accurate.” He attempts to be responsive, and answer any questions that arise “as completely and honestly as I can.”

According the Truscott, diversity of media, primarily the Internet, has made his job more difficult. For instance, during campaigns, “rogue websites” can spring up spewing forth dis- or misinformation. And while people will send e-mails notifying his firm of some of them, his firm also has software that performs search functions to track the sites down.

Away from the political arena, Truscott and his one other full-time employee, along with his two interns, and wife, Martha, keep busy with a number of businesses, associations and organizations. Truscott believes that it’s “not real prudent to think of PR only when you’re in a crisis.” He stressed the importance of building relationships with the media, and imparting to them a knowledge of your company “before you have a crisis,” and said that “long-term planning [with various media companies] can be very effective, not only in generating something positive, but that so if you have a crisis, you know with whom you’re dealing.”

Truscott considers one of his greatest accomplishments the work they did in 2005 with Michigan Wineries on the Free the Grapes campaign. It was a case of in-state wineries versus the beer-wine wholesalers, “a real 800-lb. gorilla.” After nine months of work that included “tons of great publicity and editorials, [we] got an agreement that everyone was happy with. Now,” he concluded, “you can order from up north or Napa Valley, and [the wine] can be shipped right to you.”

Sounds like a victory worth toasting.