Since then, Michael has been the co-executive producer (along with partner Benjamin Melnicker) of the Batman franchise of films, including the recent blockbusters Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. He has also been involved in other films, such as Constantine, National Treasure and upcoming film versions of The Shadow and Shazam.

Yet, few people know Michael’s name. So we set out to change that. We started in July 2009, with more than 70 radio interviews and a solo panel at Comic Con International, arranged by EMSI. That panel drew 1,000 people, despite being scheduled at the same time as the panel which would show the first footage from James Cameron’s future hit Avatar.

Our goal is to make Michael the go-to guy for top tier media when it comes to topics or stories concerning movies or popular culture, and make him recognizable as not only the initiator of the Batman movie franchise, but also as an entertainment guru with industry knowledge and experience that’s helpful and interesting to consumers, as well as those in Hollywood. Towards that end, EMSI has steadily booked Michael in electronic media such as Fox Business News, CNBC, Bloomberg TV and BBC Worldwide, as well as print articles including The New York Times, Forbes, The Christian Science Monitor, USA Today and many others.

He has turned what anyone else would have called a one-trick pony into a media dynasty. Known around the country as The Bad Breath Doctor, Dr. Katz is a dentist who helped develop a product line called TheraBreath, an anti-bacterial bad breath cure. It is sold in its many forms (breath spray, chewing gum, etc.) in major big-box stores and chain pharmacies around the country. He fuels his sales primarily with media appearances in which he advises people on how to keep their breath fresh.

One of the tools of his trade is a device of his own creation, the Hali-Meter, which assigns a numerical measure to the amount of sulphur in a person’s mouth. Sulphur is the element most responsible for bad breath, so by using the device he can actually rate someone’s bad breath numerically. He uses his advice and the Hali-Meter to promote his message about bad breath, skillfully weaving in references to his product line or his Web site, in such a way that he doesn’t sound like an infomercial. As a result, he is a popular guest on television and radio shows around the country. Over the last few years, we’ve booked Dr. Katz on more than 300 radio shows and dozens of television appearances. His command of how to work well with the media has made his PR campaign the bread and butter of his company’s product marketing.

Keep in mind, there are over 400,000 new books published each year, and every one of those authors is clamoring to get air time and ink to push their books, as well.

One of the reasons Darlene chose the retail fashion industry as a setting for her book was because she was once a senior executive at the Bullocks Wilshire chain of department stores in Illinois. It was her experience there, and her friendships with top executives there and at Macy’s, that gave her a deep knowledge of what went on behind closed doors.

That gave us a strategy we knew would work.

Here was a woman who knew the inner workings of the retail industry at a time when major chain stores were filing for bankruptcy and stores were closing by the thousands all over the country because of the recession. In addition, because she was now an author instead of a retail executive, she could be completely candid about what was going on in retail, without fear of recrimination. Our team knew what to do.

EMSI began booking her for interviews on radio, on TV and in print as an expert commentator about the recession as it was affecting the consumer retail business. So far, Darlene has had more than 100 radio interviews and several national TV interviews. In addition, she has had placements in a variety of traditional and online publications with a combined circulation and visitors per month of more than 100 million. This national media exposure has accomplished two key goals: 1) it positioned her as an expert on the inner workings of the retail industry, and 2) at the same time afforded her the opportunity to promote her book.

For more than 30 years, he has been publishing his newsletter, The Ruff Times, to advise his nearly 600,000 subscribers on where the financial markets are headed. He is the author of one of the best-selling financial books of all time, How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years in the 21st Century, and he has been a guest of most every financial television and radio show you can imagine. The problem was, he took a break.

For the years prior to contacting EMSI, Ruff had been absent from the airwaves, and was looking to get back in the game. The challenge was that he wasn’t a blow-dried flavor-of-the-month pundit. He was a little older than he was when he started, and he shot more from the hip than most of the more careful pundits in the media today. Instead of doing what many media firms would have done – making Howard polish up his act so he could compete with the younger, more polished hair-do economists – EMSI took a different tact. Our concept was to market the man as he was – a veteran, maverick voice in the financial community, who spoke plainly, fiercely and passionately about where he believed the market was going.

By heading in the opposite direction, we wound up hitting a home run for Ruff, booking more than 130 radio interviews since January of 2009, and scoring him 11 TV interviews, 10 of them on nationally televised shows and three of them on CNBC’s Squawk Box, a perfect fit for Howard’s tell-it-like-it-is style.