Let’s start this post-Halloween edition of the much-anticipated Chatter with …

One call, that's all.

If you were downtown last Thursday, you probably noticed the nice tour bus that was triple-parked on 12th Street.

There was a professional film crew working out of that bus. Were they filming a new whitewater series?

Nope.

What about a mini-film on downtown's rebirth?

Nope, again.

It was a commercial, folks.

Turns out Atlanta personal injury attorney Ken Nugent was filming his new commercials targeted at Columbus.

There was even a Nugent -- Ken, not Ted -- sighting during the filming. Or at least it was someone who looked like Ken Nugent.

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We didn't see the Aflac duck filming downtown last week, but we probably should have.

In the age of dog-eat-dog -- or lawyer-eat-lawyer -- advertising, chalk one up for the duck.

That's because a recent CMO Influence Study by the research firm Appinions has ranked Michael Zuna, an executive vice president with Columbus-based Aflac, the 28th most influential chief marketing officer in the world.

The list of what Appinions called "marketing visionaries" includes some heavy hitters, headed by executives from Apple, Ford Motor Co., EMC Corp., Best Buy and Verizon Wireless.

"Michael's nimble stewardship of the Aflac duck campaign, his extensive background in integrated marketing, and his strong business insights illustrate why he is a major influencer on the world stage," Paul Amos II, Aflac U.S. president and chief operating officer, said in a statement.

Zuna joined Aflac in 2009 as a marketing vice president and was named the top marketing executive of the company in June. Most notably, he led the delicate search for a new duck voice in 2011 after the firing of comedian Gilbert Gottfried because of insensitive remarks he made just after a deadly earthquake and tsunami in Japan. He also rebranded Continental American Insurance Co. to Aflac Group after its acquisition by the Columbus company, leading to a spike in new supplemental premium sales.

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Congratulations to Valerie Fuller, director of communications for the Muscogee County School District. She won the 2012 Gold Award of Excellence for Electronic Media from the Georgia Schools Public Relations Association for her employee recruiting video.

She also did a good job telling us about it. The announcement came via her email.