About Allison

Allison is a former news writer with NBC Television in New York, where she worked on the TODAY Show and NBC News at Sunrise. She’s also written extensively for regional magazines.

Pivoting from news to public relations, Allison has managed programs for clients like General Foods and its brands Tang, Sanka and Maxwell House. She handled the public relations program for the 40-city Marlboro Country Music Tour, starring Dolly Parton, Alabama, The Judds, George Strait and Randy Travis. During her years at Porter Novelli, an Omnicom company, she worked on Marlboro Racing Team Penske.

As vice president in New York’s top public relations firm, Howard Rubenstein Associates, Allison generated impressive, long-lasting results for her clients, including The New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation, The School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center, The Alzheimer’s Association, Team Pontiac, and Slim Fast Foods.

Allison’s high-profile assignments continued after she formed The Ward Group in 1994. She helped showcase Volkswagen‘s launch of the new “Beetle,” the concept car of the decade, and much-heralded “Drivers Wanted” advertising campaign. Allison and her team were instrumental in the success of Taco Bell’s April Fool’s “Joke on America” regarding the company’s “purchase” of the Liberty Bell, resulting in page-one coverage around the world.

She launched the South Beach retail boutique for designer Nicole Miller and featured Ms. Miller’s designs in the Hotel Delano’s first fundraising event, “Creek Chic,” a benefit for Actor Paul Newman’s Boggy Creek Gang Camp for chronically ill children. The event was sold out and raised nearly $1 million on behalf of the charity.

Now providing national reach while based in Sarasota, Florida, Allison’s recent clients include:

Sarasota Architectural Foundation (nonprofit)
Ringling College Library Association Town Hall Lecture Series (nonprofit)
Sage (restaurant) Downtown Sarasota
Harmar (manufacturing/healthcare)
Swim Across America (national nonprofit)
US Masters Swimming (national nonprofit)
Matrix Home Care (healthcare)
Alive Sciences (technology/healthcare)
The Oaks Club (real estate)
Library Foundation for Sarasota County
James S. McDonnell Foundation (national nonprofit)
Cancer Support Community
TEDx Sarasota – launch year

Campaigns & Moore

Allison’s other notable campaigns range from providing PR for a Disney production movie tie-in with Burger King Corporation and managing media relations for Ruth Fertel, founder of Ruth’s Chris Steak House and restaurant openings in Palm Beach, Winter Park and Coral Gables, Florida, to acting as traveling team-leader on the award-winning national program titled “Alertness Matters,” sponsored by Cephalon, the international biopharmaceutical company. Alertness Matters is an educational campaign that toured select U.S. cities raising awareness and teaching the public the importance of being alert. There’s moore: