Fleishman-Hillard
Contents
Background
Fleishman-Hillard [1] is one of the biggest PR companies in the world with over 80 offices worldwide. Its parent company is the Omnicom group Inc [2], which is a huge conglomerate that describes itself as a "global leader in Marketing and Global Communications". It has absorbed the group of firms formerly trading under the name GPC International
Global operation
Fleishman-Hillard operates around the globe through a variety of networks:
UK activities
In April 2005 Kevin Maguire wrote of F-H distributing a glossy brochure to their clients sketching the likely changes that could be expected under a Labour government led by Gordon Brown. "Warning multinational bosses that the next Labour premier's philosophy is built on - wait for it - equity, the booklet predicts Brown will centralise power around himself," Maguire wrote. [3]
In June 2005, Kevin Bell from the UK arm of Fleishman-Hillard spoke at a one-day conference in London called ID Cards: Towards Procurement and Implementation. The title of his talk was "Achieving public acceptance". [4]
Scottish operation
The Fleishman-Hillard office in Edinburgh was originally set up as GPC in 1996 ahead of the establishment of a Scottish Parliament in 1999.
They boast that "Within Scotland, we are unrivalled in the depth and breadth of our knowledge on the detail of devolution and how the Scottish Parliament really operates in practice". They go on to say:
- "We pride ourselves on our understanding of how the Scottish political, policy, and media agendas impacts the rest of the United Kingdom and companies and organisations and their businesses. We can make a difference to our clients' business objectives by combining the right resources, people, and skills with a clear perspective and an innovative approach to any communications challenge".
They conclude by stating:
- "Our team is drawn from a range of career backgrounds, bringing together political experience, policy development insight, strategic communications, event management, and research skills. The common factors among the team are our commitment to our clients and assurance that we will keep their needs at the top of our agenda".
And finally: "To make ourselves as valuable to our clients as they are to us." [5]
One service they provide for their clients is to attend Scottish parliament cross-party group meetings that may affect their clients. For example, the cross-party Food group was attended by two employees, Jenni Wilkie and Ben Bosely Walker, in February of 2005. This may have something to do with Tesco being a client of theirs.
See ((http://www.appc.org.uk/registers/APPC_register_Dec04-May05.pdf))
Another client is Pfizer and therefore it comes as no surprise that Rachel Roberston (see below) is on the Cross Party Group for Diabetes, altohugh she is listed as working for GPC, rather than Fleishman-Hillard.
An employee of GPC, Ben Collins is also listed as being a member of the Oil group, with still no update ackowledging the change of name and ownership to Fleishman-Hillard. While finally Jenni Wilkie is listed as being a member of the Tackling Debt group, but yet again as being an employee of GPC and not of Fleishman Hillard.
Nuclear spin activity
Rachel Robertson used to be on the Cross Party Group on the Civil Nuclear Industry. She was listed as being from the Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive, Nirex, and not as an employee from Fleishman-Hillard. Robertson has been replaced by Ian Price who is also listed as being from Nirex. Coincidentally there is also an Ian Price listed as working at Fleishman-Hillard's Edinburgh office. [6]
