Difference between revisions of "Category:PR Industry"

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

• 1. Omnicom ($9.7bn)
• 2. WPP ($9.4bn)
• 3. Interpublic ($6.2bn)
• 4. Publicis Groupe ($4.8bn)
• 5. Dentsu ($2.9bn)
• 6. Havas ($1.9bn)
• 7. Aegis Group ($1.4bn)
• 8. Hakuhodo DY ($1.4bn)
• 9. Asatsu-DK ($473m)
• 10. Carlson Marketing Group ($347m)
• 11. MDC Partners ($317m)
• 12. Incepta Huntsworth ($280m)
• 13. Monster Worldwide ($252m)
• 14. Digitas ($252m)
• 15. HealthStar Communications ($203m)
• 16. Alloy ($194m)
• 17. Cheil Communications ($186m)
• 18. Aspen Marketing Services ($180m)
• 19. G2R2 ($180m)
• 20. Tokyu Agency ($176m)
• 21. George P Johnson Company ($173m)
• 22. aQantive ($158m)
• 23. Doner ($156m)
• 24. LB Icon ($83m)
• 25. Clemenger Communications ($147m)
• 26. Select Communications ($145m)
• 27. Epsilon ($144m)
• 28. Cossette Communications ($140m)
• 29. Richards Group ($134m)
• 30. Bartle Bogle Hegarty ($116m)
• 31. M&C Saatchi ($114m)

Source: [Advertising Age]

Other significant groups

• Chime Communications
• Cordiant
• Grey Global

PR industry organisations

UK

• PR Business
• PR Week
• Public Relations Consultants Association

US

• Public Relations Society of America

Table 1: Top 25 global PR firms by revenue

The top PR firms in the UK 2004

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