The list of 48 independent PR firms shown below includes
36 that posted gains of more than 20% in 2006.
LEADING
GAINERS IN THE TOP 100 INDEPENDENT PR FIRMS |
Firms
in the top 10 |
|
Firm |
2006
Net Fees |
Empl. |
%
change
from
2006 |
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. |
Taylor,
New York
Qorvis Comms, D.C.
Edelman, New York
Schwartz Comms., Waltham, MA
Waggener Edstrom, Bellevue WA
APCO Worldwide, D.C. |
$18,006,000
23,900,000
324,488,483
26,601,999
92,303,000
81,844,117 |
84
85
2,259
172
629
470 |
+35.6
+31.0
+23.9
+22.6
+11.2
+11.0 |
Firms
ranked 11 through 25 |
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10. |
5W
Public Relations, NY
Integrated Corp. Relations, CT
S&S PR, Chicago
Capstrat, Raleigh
M Booth & Assocs., New York
Cooney/Waters Group, NY
Padilla Speer Beardsley, MN
RFBinder Partners, New York
French/West/Vaughan, Raleigh
Regan Communications, Boston |
$9,320,477
17,590,072
9,477,000
8,800,000
9,465,874
9,177,065
13,520,845
11,361,000
9,654,774
15,011,000 |
66
67
35
59
52
31
91
68
70
74 |
+85.0
+52.0
+28.0
+25.0
+17.3
+15.2
+15.2
+11.6
+11.0
+10.8 |
Firms
ranked 25 through 50 |
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15. |
Healthstar,
New York
Coyne PR, Parsippany, NJ
Cerrell Assocs., Los Angeles
Imre Communications, MD
Cubitt Jacobs & Prosek, NY
Davies, Santa Barbara, CA
Kaplow Communications, NY
Makovsky & Co., NY
Airfoil, Detroit
Vollmer PR, Houston
Rasky Baerlein, Boston
Hunter PR, NY
Ashton Partners, Chicago
Linden Alschuler & Kaplan
Bender/Helper Impact, LA |
$6,617,000
7,697,630
5,697,354
6,298,000
5,834,714
8,300,217
8,512,247
7,339,000
6,084,000
6,990,425
6,541,999
8,403,304
5,919,404
7,084,000
7,282,893 |
30
59
39
39
27
43
55
45
44
54
33
52
42
40
79 |
+65.0
+53.7
+37.8
+37.0
+33.7
+32.0
+30.0
+27.0
+26.7
+20.8
+20.0
+18.3
+18.0
+17.0
+15.8 |
Firms
ranked 50 through 100 |
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17. |
Lewis
PR, San Francisco
v-Fluence Inter. PR, San Diego
Ron Sachs Comms., Tallahassee
Wragg & Casas PR, Miami
Comms. Strategies, Madison, NJ
Development Counsellors, NY
Spring O'Brien & Co., New York
Pierpont Comms., Houston
Walek & Assocs., New York
Hope-Beckham, Atlanta
Merritt Group, Reston, VA
The Vandiver Group, St. Louis
Maloney & Fox, New York
Clifford PR, New York
Hager Sharp, D.C.
Bliss, Gouverneur & Assocs., NY
Jackson Spalding, Atlanta |
$4,724,726
2,057,379
4,142,085
3,603,618
4,396,682
5,555,339
4,050,734
4,543,426
2,363,000
2,683,000
4,725,000
2,596,060
4,076,043
2,022,881
4,190,628
4,600,000
5,288,941 |
39
21
22
22
13
36
18
32
12
23
28
16
22
20
31
29
44 |
+53.0
+50.0
+47.0
+38.0
+31.7
+31.4
+30.3
+28.0
+27.0
+26.6
+26.5
+26.4
+26.0
+23.2
+23.0
+23.0
+23.0 |
RANKINGS
OF PR UNITS OF ADVERTISING AGENCIES |
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11. |
Dorland
PR, Philadelphia
PainePR, Los Angeles
Vox Medica Healthcare, Phila.
Crosby Marketing Comms, MD
The Zimmerman Agency, FL
Charleston/Orwig, Hartland, WI
Travers, Collins & Co., Buffalo
Off Madison Ave., Tempe, AZ
M/C/C, Dallas
Levenson & Brinker PR, Dallas
Luckie Strategic PR, Birmingham |
$11,167,000
11,086,290
6,920,410
6,746,663
4,800,000
4,547,692
2,558,792
1,900,000
1,400,000
1,352,145
1,054,205 |
46
61
30
44
32
36
17
12
10
10
5 |
+3.9
-3.0
+49.3
+12.8
+26.3
-1.0
+27.4
even
+7.7
+8.6
+18.9 |
The U.S. PR counseling industry, unlike the U.S. advertising
industry, did not sell out to the Big Five ad agencies--WPP,
Omnicom, Interpublic, Publicis and Havas.
Many PR firms did sell but that era is over. The Five ran
up longterm debt of $13.5 billion in their buying binge
and dont have the cash or stock they once had to overpay
for acquisitions.
The biggest debt is $4.82 billion, carried by WPP, according
to current postings on finance/yahoo.
OMC is second with $3.07B in debt; Publicis, with $2.84B;
IPG, with $2.33B, and Havas with net debt of
$511M. Net debt is a concept not usually used
in the U.S. Cash on hand is subtracted from debt to arrive
at that figure. Actual debt is being sought from Havas.
The five have a high ratio of debt to assets. At WPP debt
is 64% of assets; OMC, 79%; IPG, 120%, and Publicis, 101%.
Havas ratio was not available.
Current ratio, including short-term debt, payables and
receivables, is 86% for WPP; 93% for OMC; 1.08% for IPG
and 105% for Publicis.
Its no longer
accurate to refer to the Five as holding companies,
suggesting they are made up of financial executives
in ivory towers aloof from the operations of their components.
Omnicom CEO John Wren and WPP CEO Martin Sorrell lead their
empires in pitches against other agencies. Their media buying
units buy for their entire systems, driving down media prices.
The Five found that while PR firms can pay the salaries
of owners and staff, few can throw off 25% in profits yearly
without stringent measures that may impact morale. PR pros
prize their independence and dont like every step
being measured by an overseer from the parent.
The Council of PR
Firms says it is re-evaluating its advertising
and doesnt have a nickel to spend on any more ads
in 2007. It may even cancel some remaining ads in PR Week/U.S.
Poor, poverty-stricken CPRF! It only had net assets of
$592,501 and cash of $623,924 on Dec. 31, 2006!
Its paid president, Kathy Cripps, only makes $285,000 a
year or nearly one-third of dues income of $837,571. She
supervises two other CPRF staffers. Cathy Bolton, former
COO of PRSA, got the same amount for supervising 55 staffers
and a $10M budget.
CPRF is one of the richer PR groups with net assets equaling
61% of expenses of $962,834. Also, member PR firms of WPP
and OMC do $2.2 billion in PR fees so its not as though
the leading members of CPRF are poverty-stricken, either.
At the lower end of the scale are the Intl Assn.
of Business Communicators, with net assets at the end of
2006 of $500,516, equaling 8.6% of revenues (its still
recovering from the TalkingBusinessNow website disaster),
and PRSA, whose net assets of $2.8M as of 12/31/06 were
23% of expenses (this includes abut $2M of unearned dues
booked as cash). Other assets to expense ratios are NIRI,
90%; Arthur W. Page Society, 74%, and Institute for PR,
45%.
The ad/PR policy of
CPRF is the same as that of its biggest donors, the
five giant ad agencies. The Five have 15 PR firms in CPRF
including 10 that pay the maximum dues of $40K. About 60%
of the dues of $837K come from the 15. These units advertise
almost exclusively in PR Week/U.S. and that is the policy
of CPRF. The Five have limited relations with the press,
never holding press conferences and never discussing their
financial reports. They have blocked disclosure of revenues/staff
of their many hundreds of ad agencies and PR firms for five
years. OMCs Wren is infamous for being tight-lipped
even with analysts, which is one reason OMC is only $103,
still below its high of $107 on Dec. 17, 1999.
Wren, who has given
four powder-puff interviews in 4.5 years, is up to
his ears in a four-year-old stockholder lawsuit charging
OMC improperly avoided an earnings charge of at least $89.5M
in 2001 (Wall Street Journal 3/2/07 and 2/9/06). Sorrell
is involved in a nasty personal/business lawsuit involving
WPPs operations in Italy (4/4 NL). The New York Post
(and almost no other media) is covering this in detail.
Interpublic (Weber Shandwick, Golin Harris, MWW, De Vries
PR) is not too keen on getting press these days since it
is still dealing with the repercussions from reporting $514M
in non-existent earnings from 2000-04. But CEO Michael Roth
has promised a new level of transparency. IPG
at least holds its annual meeting in New York while OMC
has fled out of town four years in a row (and will hold
this years annual meeting May 22 in Denver). Attempts
to dialogue with the two French-owned firms, Publicis (a
large minority interest is owned by Dentsu) and Havas, have
been unsuccessful. Publicis operates Publicis Dialog
and OMCs Code of Ethics promises fair dealing
with anyone it comes into contact with.
At the bottom of this
food chain is the executive committee of CPRF, comprised,
according to the bylaws, of three reps from the Big Five
and two independents. The entire 18-member CPRF
board, including 12 independents, should have an ad campaign
that includes ads opposite the New York Times ad column,
and it Ad Age, AdWeek, and the entire PR trade (and not
just PR Week). Spreading ads around in a fair manner would
bring more coverage of PR and relieve CPRF of the charges
of favoritism and unfairness. PR firms are not going to
join an organization that acts in an unfair manner. There
is no PR campaign at all by CPRF in the sense of reaching
out to the PR trade press and building relationships with
PR editors.
We wonder why no one
in the PR academic world will take up a study of
the influence of the acquisition policies of the Big Five
on the U.S. PR counseling industry when so much of this
material is public record
a
chief issue before the PR industry today is the vote
in favor of PR pros having to lie occasionally
in order to save their jobs that was taken at a session
for 350 PR pros hosted by PR Week/U.K. (3/21 NL). The ODwyer
website conducted a poll on the same question for two weeks
and the returns held steady at 65% saying an occasional
lie was needed to save employment. Its obvious
many PR pros have been forced to provide less than the truth
but the field cannot accept this attitude without harm.
PR critics are going to seize these findings and run amok.
Barbara Burns, president of PRSA/New York, has made a strong
statement calling on PR groups to urge a change in behavior
of PR people. PR pros can at least have a policy of saying
No comment when they are in situations where
clients and employers will not allow them to be truthful.
|