Tony Meehan Associates

Tony Meehan Associates was a Glasgow based PR firm which later changed its name to TMA Communications. It was created in 1976. A Scotland on Sunday profile in 2001 notes that Meehan was then 'probably Scotland's best-known PR man among the media'. In 1976, 'he had one client and wondered if he would be in business at the end of the year.' Beginning his career 'as a DJ with the pirate station Radio Scotland', Meehan 'then did six years as an advertising copywriter, before founding Tony Meehan Associates in Glasgow.'

Meehan jokes that his ambition is to "find a way to retire gracefully." Instead, he is diversifying from the longest-lasting independent PR firm in Scotland, marking the firm's silver anniversary this Thursday by creat-ing two complementary new companies .

Omni 20-10 will be the agency's new events management and conference organising arm, while Public Affairs (Scotland) has been set up to provide links to Scotland's new parliament and to give individuals and organisations information on European and Westminster legislation as it affects Scotland. The early days are remembered as a time of "steam faxes, couriers and electric typewriters", as well as clients who saw PR as the cheap alternative to advertising and a cheap thrill when they got their name or picture in the newspapers.

Meehan says: "PR is now recognised as a valuable business function, operating and supporting both corporate and marketing issues and programmes. Client understanding has improved tremendously. There's been a slow recognition of the value of PR in boardrooms across the country, a realisation that a good press will support the company's market position and share price." Meehan is serious about professional standards. He helped set and maintain them through his work with the big three industry bodies, the PRCA, IPRA and IPR. He was a member of the steering group which es-tablished an MSc course in PR at the University of Stirling and is visiting professor of consumer studies at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Recruiting from down south

According to PR Week, Burson-Marsteller Financial director Charles Laidlaw returned to Scotland when appointed at Tony Meehan Associates (TMA) in April 1990.

One of his first duties will be to start a Scottish investor relations agency with TMA chief Tony Meehan, an old friend. Laidlaw left B-M after 18 months to take up a board position at Edinburgh and Glasgow-based TMA. The corporate and financial expert will be 'an important shareholder' and oversee the firm's Glasgow office. Chairman Meehan and Laidlaw have known each other 'more years than they care to remember' and a job was always in the offing if Laidlaw decided to move back north. 'He is a wonderful coup,' says Meehan. 'It's good to have someone with major UK and overseas agency experience.' That experience will be useful for the investor relations agency. 'There is definitely a market for it in Scotland,' says Meehan. 'And there is much talented staff Charles could train.'

Emerging Scottish PR market

In 1993 PR week reported:

But There are good reasons for believing the Scotttish market is growing more than others. 'The Scottish market is very buoyant and has been for 15 months,' says Tony Meehan, managing direc-tor of the eponymously named Tony Meehan Associates. We are getting new business from two main areas - London firms which need Scottish representation and firms already in Scotland expanding their PR. The main players recognise that when dealing with national issues there is a Scottish dimension and they need help when dealing with it,' he says. Business is also coming in from clients which had put their marketing budgets on hold while waiting for the economic upturn, and now realise they cannot wait that long. The development of informal or even formal relationships between Scottish and London agencies is growing. Scottish and Westminster Communications, the Scottish lobbying arm of Citigate and Westminster Communications, is one example. But other agencies like TMA, which is currently working on three accounts with Brunswick and has worked with Square Mile and Buchanan, are exploiting the opportunities.

Clients

• Eurocopy Square Mile 'drafted in' Scottish subsidiary TMA 'to assist it in its press programme for Scotland'
• Until now Safeway has used Glasgow agency Tony Meehan Associates to deal with Scottish PR. Wickham said this relationship will continue.

contact

Website in existence from 1996 at http://www.tmac.co.uk

• Listing of archived version of the website on the Internet Archive between 1996 and 2008: http://www.tmac.co.uk/, accessed 1 November 2009.