MCLEAN, VA (October 1, 2001) - Image Media Services (IMS), a full-service, award-winning, international advertising agency, has been awarded a $300,000 advertising and marketing contract for a major recruitment campaign with the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). The recruitment goal is to hire approximately 700 patent examiners each year, for the next two to three years, from a diverse pool of resources.

"This is just one of several contracts which have been awarded to us since our successful completion of the Census 2000 Recruitment Campaign," stated Jennifer Ahn, President of IMS. "On the Census 2000 Recruitment Campaign, we came in on time, under budget, and exceeded the Census goal by 25 percent."

The USPTO is a non-commercial federal entity, and one of 14 bureaus in the Department of Commerce. The primary service is to process patents and trademarks. For over 200 years, the basic role of the USPTO has remained the same: to promote the progress of science and technology by securing, for limited times to inventors, the exclusive right to their respective discoveries.

IMS has appointed Michael Jameson as Project Manager to oversee the Campaign that will focus on establishing overall marketing and advertising materials, primarily targeting engineers, scientists, and college students. The Campaign will encompass Internet advertising, on-campus advertising, in-theater advertising, and enhance the current employee referral program efforts. The strategic marketing campaign will develop and sustain a broad awareness of the USPTO brand name designed to promote services, information about the corporate culture, work environment, benefits plans, and training programs. The Campaign will also focus on print media, including trade journals, newspapers, and magazines, as well as identifying other media sources that will aid in the recruitment of the candidate profile.

For the Census 2000 Recruitment Campaign, IMS strategically developed display ads for newspapers and magazines, classified ads, bus posters, billboards, postcards, and television and radio ads in six different languages. In addition to the general audience, the Campaign also targeted minority groups, including African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, American Indians and Pacific Islanders.

Image Media Services is a full-service advertising agency, working both domestically and internationally, specializing in advertising, media consulting, public relations, marketing, event promotions, strategic joint venture development, translation services and budgeting/planning for general and ethnic niche markets. IMS is 8(a) certified with the U.S. Small Business Administration.