Category:PR Industry

From Powerbase
Jump to: navigation, search

Corporations and other organisations forming the Public Relations industry including PR agencies, PR related business and PR related trade and networking organisations.

The PR industry is increasingly global. It is an increasingly concentrated industry owned by fewer and fewer Trans National Corporations.

In recent years significant earnings have come from outside the US and UK for the first time. The biggest global PR firms are hardly household names, but their parent companies are even less well known (See Table 1: Top ten PR firms by revenue). These are huge communication conglomerates. In 2001 the big three were numbered amongst the Fortune 500 biggest global corporations with market values of between $10-20 billion. For example Interpublic one of the big three has offices in more than 130 countries in five continents It made $6.7 billion in 2001, 43% of which came from outside the US. WPP, parent of the best known PR agencies Hill and Knowlton and Burson-Marsteller, numbers over 300 of the Fortune 500 amongst its clients and over half of the NASDAQ index of tech stocks. In the last decade there has been an unprecedented surge of concentration and conglomeration in the industry, bringing together advertising, marketing, market research, PR, lobbying and a host of other communications services. In 1991 22 of the 25 top global PR firms were independent. In 2001, there were only 6. The conglomeration and concentration of ownership has been so marked that in 2001, for the first time, the biggest four accounted for over half (54%) of the global advertising, marketing, PR and lobbying market. That is more concentration than in most other industries and significantly more than the television and media industries. (Source: [1])

Globalisation of PR and advertising

The advertising industry changed profoundly in the mid 1980's. While the PR industry in the US and UK was growing, the advertising sector was in decline. In 1986 the chairman of Ogilvy & Mather in the United States, announced 60 redundancies, commenting: 'The business has changed. Anybody who thinks it can go back to the way it was is smoking grass' (Feinberg and O'Kelly, 1986). At this time, the seeds of current industry conglomeration were sown. WPP became a communication services group in 1985 and Omnicom was created in 1986. The Interpublic Group was formed much earlier, in 1960, and floated on the stock exchange in 1970. However IPG also underwent considerable change in the late '80's as the communications services sector began to coalesce into ever-larger conglomerates.

Concentration of ownership

In 1991 22 of the 25 top PR firms were independent. In 2001, there are only 6 independents in top 25. The conglomeration and concentration of ownership has been so marked that the biggest four now control more than half the global advertising, marketing, PR and lobbying market:

WPP, Interpublic and Omnicom Group-the Big three ad organizations-became more dominant in 2001, claiming a collective 43.7% of the world's advertising and marketing services gross income of $39.28 billion, up nearly 6 share points from 38% in 2000. If Publicis Groupewere added to the group, the resulting top 4 could claim 54.6% of global ad and marketing services spending up from 48.6% a year ago. (Endicott, 2002, p. 1)


The biggest communication conglomerates

By revenue 2004

Source: [Advertising Age]

Other significant groups

PR industry organisations

UK

US

Table 1: Top 25 global PR firms by revenue

In 2001, the largest Global PR firms by revenue in US$:
Ranking PR firm Global income US$ Parent company
1 Weber Shandwick Worldwide 426,572,018   Interpublic
2 Fleishman-Hillard Inc. 345,098,241   Omnicom
3 Hill and Knowlton, Inc. 325,119,000   WPP
4 Incepta (Citigate) 266,018,371   (from 2004) Huntsworth
5 Burson-Marsteller 259,112,000   WPP
6 Edelman Public Relations Worldwide 223,708,535   Edelman
7 Ketchum, Inc. 185,221,000   Omnicom
8 Porter Novelli 179,294,000   Omnicom
9 GCI Group/APCO Worldwide 151,081,645   Grey Global Group WPP
10 Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide 145,949,285   WPP
11 Euro RSCG Corporate Communications 124,158,504   Havas
12 Manning Selvage and Lee Ltd 116,019,465   Publicis Groupe
13 Golin/Harris International 113,247,644   Interpublic
14 Cordiant Communications Group 90,655,000   WPP from 2003
15 Chime Communications 85,482,720   WPP 29%
16 Ruder Finn 80,348,000   Independent
17 Brodeur Worldwide 70,001,900   Omnicom
18 Waggener Edstrom 59,890,800   Independent
19 Cohn & Wolfe 57,779,000   WPP
20 Rowland Comms Worldwide 42,666,000   Publicis Groupe
21 Text 100 PR 33,676,739   Next Fifteen Communications Group plc
22 Kreab 29,555,280   Independent
23 Grayling Group 19,514,937   Huntsworth
24 Chandler Chicco Agency 17,903,408   Independent
25 PR21 15,714,232   Edelman
Sources: Council of PR Firms (US), PRWeek UK and European Rankings, PRWeek Asia APAC rankings
Notes: Global PR agencies are defined as having offices in two or more continents. European income converted at the average rate over 2001: GBP/USD at £=$1.44. Average rate over 2000: GBP/USD at £=$1.51. Company notes: Incepta income incorporates PR-related research, design commissions, events and other communication activities.

The top PR firms in the UK 2004

Top PR firms in the UK
  Group name Company Name Year end Gross income Turnover Staff costs Employees
1 Hill & Knowlton Hill & Knowlton [1] Dec. 2003 22,306,000 33,557,000 12,200,000 262
2 Weber Shandwick Weber Shandwick Dec. 2003 15,335,000 26,178,000 11,126,000 255
    Acclaro International [5] Dec. 2003 21,000 32,000 - -
    Weber Shandwick Technology [6] Dec. 2003 2,912,127 4,140,175 1,629,812 30
  Total     18,268,127 30,350,175 12,755,812 285
3 Financial Dynamics Financial Dynamics* Dec. 2003 18,637,000 21,078,000 12,157,000 132
    FD International Dec. 2003 - - 454,000 5
  Total     18,637,000 21,078,000 12,611,000 137
4 Ketchum Ketchum Dec. 2003 12,777,036 23,498,142 6,517,755 132
    The Maitland Consultancy [1] Dec. 2003 5,860,304 6,740,274 2,912,680 34
    CGI Brandsense Dec. 2003 2,895,541 4,300,008 1,504,173 33
  Total     14,070,203 19,820,107 7,285,660 134
5 Fishburn Hedges Fishburn Hedges Boys Williams Dec. 2003 11,365,927 15,243,875 6,632,948 97
6 GCI/APCO GCI London Sept 2003 5,434,902 8,962,446 3,173,188 80
    GCI Financial Group [4] Sept 2003 303,345 440,121 241,223 3
    GCI Healthcare Sept 2003 1,159,807 1,733,142 565,828 15
    APCO UK Sept 2003 3,164,719 4,028,949 1,955,725 36
  Total     10,062,773 15,164,658 5,935,964 134
7 Porter Novelli [8] Porter Novelli Limited [8] Dec. 2003 11,447,519 14,631,686 7,069,599 137
8 Euro RSCG Biss Lancaster Euro RSCG Biss Lancaster Dec. 2003 5,314,358 8,779,825 2,868,807 67
9 The Shire Health Group Shire Health Group [2] Dec. 2003 412,100 - - 0
    Shire Health London Dec. 2003 2,116,346 2,707,159 1,715,350 44
    Shire Health International Dec. 2003 3,562,722 5,365,197 1,066,425 28
  Total     6,091,168 8,072,356 2,781,775 72
10 The Band and Brown Group The Band and Brown Group July 2004 5,531,380 6,940,486 3,030,599 77
11 Golin Harris International Golin Harris International formerly Weber Europe Dec. 2003 2,768,000 4,742,000 1,347,000 34
    Weber Europe formerly Golin/Harris International [3] Dec. 2003 1,686,000 1,946,000 881,000 19
  Total     4,454,000 6,688,000 2,228,000 53
  Harrison Cowley Harrison Cowley [1] Dec. 2003 5,114,325 5,830,311 2,973,333 89
12 Buchanan Communications Buchanan Communications Dec. 2003 5,067,481 5,772,065 2,720,717 34
  Staniforth Communications Staniforth formerly TCG Dec. 2003 3,460,982 5,615,733 1,820,639 51
13 Pleon UK [7] Pleon UK Dec. 2003 2,431,205 3,807,572 1,870,260 30
*1 The figures include turnover and gross income from outside the UK, which is not usually included in the PR Week figures
*2 This is a holding company
*3 On 1 January 2004,all of the assets and liabilities of Weber Europe formerly known as Golin Harris International, another group company, were transferred to the company at net book value
*4 The company ceased to trade with effect from 30 April 2003
*5 The company lost its only contract at the beginning of the year and thereafter ceased to trade. Fleishman-Hillard is not included owing to a change in year end. All the figures have been obtained from the latest accounts filed at Companies House. The staff costs are total staff costs per the accounts, including pension and social security costs. We have only included the trading companies in the table.
*6 Formerly Miller/Shandwick Technologies
*7 Formerly Brodeur Worldwide
*8 Formerly Countrywide Porter Novelli


Top 150 2007

RESTATED TOP 150 FIGURES (NEW ESTIMATES) Company Fee income (pounds) estimate Staff

                                   06             05    % change     06

Burson Marsteller 18,646,075 15,750,000 + 18 175 Fleishman Hillard 13,212,076 12,075,000 +9 124 Cohn & Wolfe 11,187,645 10,500,000 +7 105 MS&L 10, 654,900 9,450,000 + 13 100 Ogilvy 7, 458,430 7,350,000 +1 70 Sarbanes Oxley affected agencies without Companies House entry

Subcategories

This category has the following 3 subcategories, out of 3 total.

Pages in category "PR Industry"

The following 91 pages are in this category, out of 91 total.