Many Tech PR Practices Post Double Digit Gains

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Many of the more than 70 tech practices taking part in the O’Dwyer rankings reelased today posted double-digit gains in 2012 led by Edelman, whose tech practice grew 71% to $217,856,287, comprising 33.2% of the firm’s total revenues.

Richard Edelman, president and CEO, has said that the “biggest increases” at the firm, whose overall revenues grew 12.4% to $655 million, were in digital.

The majority of the firm’s clients are now incorporating digital in the assignments to the firm, he said.

Allison+Partners, San Francisco, posted a 50% rise in tech fees to $9,500,000.

Heit

Jonathan Heit, president and senior partner, said the Samsung account doubled as Consumer IT and Digital Imaging were added to the Enterprise Business Division.

Venture-backed companies in the San Francisco Bay area as well as the rest of the country are driving innovation and using PR to help this, he said.

“Allison has beefed up its capabilities by adding new and interesting mobile applications, hardware and web services that reach consumer as well as investor audiences,” he added.

Heit said the firm has a “unique positioning as a mid-size shop with offices in ten domestic markets” and works with start-ups as well as multinationals.

Other big tech gainers included Atomic PR, San Francisco, up 13% to $17 million;

Mandell

Finn Partners, New York, growing 17.8% to $10.2M; Merritt Group, up 28% to $9.2M; LaunchSquad, San Francisco, up 26% to $8.5M; Matter Communications, Boston, ahead 21.7% to $7M; W20 Group, San Francisco, up 169% in its tech practice to $5.3M; Coyne PR, Parsippany, NJ., up 40% to $4.7M; Zeno Group, New York, growing 319% to $4.7M, and Trevelino/Keller, Atlanta, growing 34% to $1,550,000.

Jason Mandell, co-founder and partner of LaunchSquad, said the firm expanded into more consumer, lifestyle and fashion brands with both the New York and Boston offices contributing to the growth.

“Our new creative service areas, especially in content marketing via our Original9 Media sub-brand, brought significant additional revenues,” he added.

The home office of San Francisco continued to focus heavily on both enterprise and consumer startups and showed “healthy growth,” he added.

Peter Finn, founding partner of Finn Partners, said the growth of the firm’s technology practice, its largest specialty, was propelled by account wins such as Rovi Corp., Nominum and IEEE; expansion of existing accounts, and the firm’s deep expertise in mobile communications including assignments from Vonage, Ingram Micro Mobility, Tom Tom and NetZero.

Among firms joining the Tech ranking were FTI Consulting, New York, with $17.4M in fees; Max Borges Agency, Miami, $6.9M; Connect Marketing, San Francisco, $6.3M; Ron Sachs Communications, Tallahassee, $841,650 in tech fees; Focal Point Communications, Burlingame, Calif., $637,800; Standing Partnership, St. Louis, $273,037; Hirons & Co., Indianapolis, $255,000, and energi PR, Montreal, $105,434.