If you Google the words "PR agency" or "PR firm," the top results belong to 5WPR, whose owner and CEO, Ronn Torossian, enjoys the reputation of being the most intense, in-your-face PR man in New York.
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The New York Times once called him “brash and aggressively outspoken." BusinessWeek described him as "The Bad Boy of Buzz."
Gawker has an entire section of its site devoted to negative stories about Torossian, including the time he sued a competitor who bought the URL "rontorossian.com" and pointed it to the Summer's Eve website.
The reality is that Torossian's 90-employee shop is best-known for the sheer volume of media pitching it does, mostly for consumer products. It is not unusual for writers in the business press to receive three emails or calls a day from 5W staffers. When they're launching products, 5W execs can send up to 60 pitches a day to different media outlets. "Everyone here pitches media, from myself to my most junior employee," Torossian told B.I. "We are very intense."
Torossian gained fame for representing celebrities in early 2000s. Sean "Diddy" Combs' Bad Boy Entertainment was his first client. He's also represented Pamela Anderson, Snoop Dogg and Lil' Kim.
More recently, 5W has worked for blue-chip brands such as Barnes & Noble, Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Evian, and Microsoft. It also promotes Hint water, Cold-Eeze and Gray Line New York sightseeing, plus off-beat products such as LifeStyles condoms, "sexy lifestyle brand" Booty Parlor, and the Shake Weight. In fact, every employee gets a Shake Weight to use at their desk when they're hired. "Shake Weight works," Torossian told us. He's also authored a new book on his craft, "For Immediate Release."
This week, Torossian told Business Insider why he works the way he does. He let us spend some time interviewing his staffers and allowed us to take photos inside 5W. Torossian even offered to show us his agency's tax returns. We got an unusual level of access -- the marketing business generally doesn't like "behind the scenes" coverage -- which says something admirable about the agency's transparency. Torossiann isn't afraid of scrutiny. Most everyone else is.
The result is a rare look at what it's like inside one of the U.S.'s busiest, most effective PR shops. If you don't like working from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., or being constantly rejected by reporters, then this is a tour through your personal workplace hell.
On the other hand, if you want to see how an agency that isn't afraid to "get its hands dirty" (as Torossian describes it) in the media sausage factory, and is enormously successful at doing so, then this is for you.
This is what new clients see first.
This is 5W's reception desk. The waiting area is fully stocked with TVs, magazines and other choice media. 5W wears its priorities on its sleeve.
Torossian formed his own agency to get away from the 'old people.'
Ronn Torossian formed 5WPR in 2003 with just himself and an intern. He was just 28 years old. (He's now 37.) The company has moved offices five times in the last nine years to accommodate its growth. Before 2003, Torossian worked in the New York office of MWW Group, a New Jersey-based PR agency.
Born in Brooklyn and raised in the Bronx, Torossian went to New York public schools. His first name -- those two n's are the correct spelling -- is not a nickname. "My mother hated the name 'Ronald.' Ronn is my name," he says. "Don't ask me why."
In person, Torossian is completely unlike his media persona -- he's calm, personable, and not the caricature the media has made him out to be.
5WPR's HQ is on the 12th floor of this skyscraper.
The agency is currently located at 888 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. It's opposite Carnegie Hall.
Most of the other tenants in the building are hedge funds or private equity groups, such as Soros Fund Management, George Soros' company. Torossian isn't interested in being on Madison Avenue or somewhere more trendy like Chelsea, Soho or the West Village, where a lot of PR shops can be found. He wants to be seen with the serious players, in the heart of Midtown's high-rises.
Clients tend to spend between $100,000 and $500,000 a year for 5W's services. Most large firms try to offer clients "strategic advice" -- they want to become "big picture" corporate strategy partners to their clients. Torossian, however, doesn't believe that's the primary role PR firms should have. "They're doing two-year research reports. I don't think a PR firm should be doing that."
Companies want PR because they want the media exposure that drives sales. "Many large firms don't like to get their hands dirty" with media, he says. "I have a hard time charging clients $150,000 a month" and not doing media.
In 2011, 5W's business was up 20 percent over 2010, and the company will book in excess of $12 million in revenues, Torossian says.
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