O'Dwyer's PR Firm RankingsIt was a banner year for the PR business as the just-released 2015 O'Dwyer's ranking of PR firms shows the best growth in recent memory for the top 25 firms.

A robust 18 firms enjoyed double-digit growth in 2014 while three others were up in single digits. Three firms showed single-digit slippage. One was flat.

Fifty-seven percent of the 120 ranked firms were up by double-digits, compared to 44 percent of the previous year's group.

The outstanding performance among the Top 25 was a bi-coastal affair, as evidenced by the 44.6 percent advance by San Francisco's Spark PR and 40.4 percent increase by Washington's Levick.

O'Dwyer's Top 10 Ranking of PR Firms
Download PDF of O'Dwyer's Mar. 9 Newsletter with full chart of ranked firms

No 11 Allison+Partners turned in an impressive 28.3 percent rise in fees to $37M and No. 9 DKC registered a 26.2 percent surge to $41.5M.

Peter Finn's Finn Partners reported a 19 percent hike in fees to $52.8M, taking the No. 6 slot behind Ruder Finn.

FP is off to a strong beginning in 2015 following the acquisitions of the Nashville duo of DVL Public Relations & Advertising and Seigenthaler PR.

The recast DVL Seigenthaler, a Finn Partners Co. adds $11M in 2015 fees and 80 staffers to the operation and a leadership position in the southeast.

Edelman logoEdelman continues its march to be the first PR firm to crack the $1B fee income mark. With $82.6.M in fees, W2O is moving to join the exclusive triple-digital club of Edelman, APCO Worldwide and Waggener Edstrom.

The size and clout of Richard Edelman's firm benefits the PR business, which is sometimes viewed as a small potatoes add-on business to communications campaigns. Edelman changes all that. The No. 1 firm's mastery of the digital space paid dividends in 2014 as that skill translated into a 15 percent growth rate in online/mobile work, more than twice the seven percent growth from "traditional" PR.

Edelman reported solid gains in financial services, food & beverage, consumer packaged goods and healthcare. Technology and public affairs charted slower growth.

2014 provided strong momentum to the PR sector, which will help power firms this year and generate more appeciation of the business.

O’Dwyer’s Ranks PR Specialties

PR has moved mostly to the agency side where extensive practice areas have been built up over the past 20 years and O’Dwyer’s has the only rankings by PR specialty.

Healthcare has 66 ranked firms this year. Nashville-based ReviveHealth cracked the top 10 at #6 with net fees of $8.7M, up 65.7%.

Edelman and Waggener Edstrom dominate the technology ranking which has 68 firms. Tech specialist Hotwire grew 47.7% to come in at #24.

Financial PR heavyweight ICR with $47.1M in net fees almost knocked Edelman out of the top spot in financial/IR which has 48 firms.

APCO Worldwide continues to lead the environmental PR/PA specialty (32 firms ranked) with $29.6M in net fees.

Food & beverage has 51 firms with NY-based Hunter PR leading everyone at $15M in net fees except top-ranked Edelman.

Growing specialty professional services has fees from 48 firms.

All the specialty charts plus breakdowns for key geographical areas such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco are posted on odwyerpr.com.