Darren Shuster, Strategic Advisor
Darren enjoys the creative aspects of publicity. He has experience running publicity projects for companies like Vivendi Universal, Starbucks' 'Brain Games', Paradigm Shift Worldwide, Backstage Creations, Screensavers.com, Bondsonline.com, 8e6 Technologies, PersonalsTrainer.com, UCLA School of Public Policy, State of Pennsylvania and many more.
With a unique combination of eleven years academic experience in media studies, with two M.A. degrees from UCLA and the Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C., Darren enjoys competitive publicity analysis, writing and media pitching.
As former Editor and Publisher of The West Coast PR Newsletter, he spent four years testing and comparing PR services. This has led directly to 'best-of-breed' use of third party vendors from media data suppliers to clipping services to online newsrooms.
Darren founded 3rd Planet PR, guiding the agency through many successful years and even more successful client campaigns, culminating in the agency's acquisition by international public relations firm DIME PR in November, 2010.
Darren continues to serve as a strategic advisor to the agency.
Mark Harai, Business Development Director
For the past 20 years Mark has provided professional consulting services to private and public companies. His ultimate goal is to build the market value of any business by assessing the total management infrastructure, people environment and directing them towards profitability.
Early in Marks career, he raised millions of dollars in private equity capital for start-up cable television operators when nobody believed people would pay for T.V. and cellular service providers when everyone believed cell phones were only for doctors and celebrities.
He continued providing consulting services for several communications clients in the wireless, wireline, cable television and CLEC sectors. His main focus was building national distribution channels and securing market share for major brands including Jones Intercable, TCI, Cellular One, Qwest, AT&T, Nextel, Verizon, Sprint, Atlantic Bell and several others. Throughout his career, he has assisted start-up and emerging market companies increase revenues and build market value.
“I love to build and expand companies and am currently providing consulting services to several long term clients while living in paradise with my family. Today’s technology environment has allowed me to continue to do what I love to do and experience other cultures at the same time. It’s a very rewarding and enriching lifestyle.”
Mark’s primary function with 3rd Planet PR is to recruit and train key personnel, implement management controls, align people and maximize productivity to ensure attainment of company mission and profit objectives.
Mark’s Blog can be found on the web at MarkHarai.com.
What Journalists say
about 3rd Planet...
"(3rd Planet PR) is very aware of new media and pop culture issues. I recommend them."
Courtney Friel,
FOX News Channel
Our clients demand attention from top tier media, and they get it. Front page of The Wall Street Journal . Article in BusinessWeek . Mention in People Magazine and US Weekly . Live interviews on CNN, Good Morning America and local TV shows including ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates. We help you to share your story with influential traditional and new media.
3rd Planet PR specializes in communicating to consumers via mass media -- broadcast, print and Web. Our firm has a concentrated base of influential media contacts that are interested in hearing about our latest client stories.
We prefer campaigns that have the potential to generate between 5-20 million impressions per campaign. Product launches. International media outreach. Internet publicity. National print and broadcast appearances.
We specialize in bringing editors, producers, bloggers and clients together to talk about products, services, people and trends.
The complex environmental and social science -- combined with the personal stake each of us has in the future of the planet -- makes media communications that much more challenging and important.
So, what's the story you want to tell?
Timothy Williams, Chief Executive Officer
From launching his first tech startup with $500,000 in angel investment at the age of 21, to later being hired as the Marketing Director for one of the world’s first online betting sites (relocating to the Central American paradise of Costa Rica in the process), to later taking over as a Brand Manager for the world’s largest publicly traded online gambling company, with a market cap of $3 billion USD and an 8-figure annual marketing budget; Mr. Williams has a depth of experience in high-stakes, high-adrenaline marketing and communications roles – a level of real world education that money could never buy.
After the passage of legislation in the United States aimed at curtailing the growth of the online betting industry there, Williams departed the gaming industry, accepting a role as Managing Director for one of the Los Angeles area’s top PR agencies, Pop Culture PR – an award-winning consumer and lifestyle public relations agency. During his tenure at Pop Culture PR, the agency was heralded by the press and clients alike – “Top 10 Marketing Campaigns of All Time,” said Entrepreneur Magazine. “Artful Marketers” is what the New York Times coined the agency.
Williams later founded DIME PR in 2008, believing that the PR agency model of the past would begin to fail to meet modern communications demands. ”I wanted to combine my experience in traditional PR with what I saw as a coming wave of ‘digital PR’. I’m not only talking about ’social media’ which seems to be the latest agency pitch these days; I’m talking about a fundamental difference in the way that people find the media they consume; the way they interact with it; the actions it triggers; the ways in which they share that information with others, how these mediums interact with each other, and how they can all be used together – including so-called traditional or mainstream media – to deliver our clients’ message,” Williams says.
Williams led DIME PR's acquisition of 3rd Planet PR in November of 2010.
