PR List

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Executive Summary

It was a very good year for local public relations agencies, with most seeing substantial increases in fee income. For the 25 firms on the list combined, fee income increased to $106 million in 1997 from $95.3 million in 1996. Three firms, in particular, saw large increases: Rogers & Associates rose 57 percent in the last year, and both Ketchum Public Relations and Bragman Nyman Cafarelli saw an increase of 46 percent.

L.A.-based Rogers & Cowan remains No. 1, with $11.4 million. As with advertising agencies, large public companies own most of the nation’s biggest P.R. firms. London-based Shandwick plc and New York-based Omnicom Group Inc. each own three agencies on the list, and Young & Rubicam owns two.

Brett O’Brien, chief executive of No. 14 Murphy O’Brien Communications, says he expects to remain busy as clients who see positive results from public relations projects feed the agency more work. O’Brien said emerging high-tech and Internet-related companies, especially, are looking to PR agencies to build brand-name recognition without paying costly advertising fees.

The Pacesetter

Rogers & Cowan retained its perennial spot atop the list of the largest public relations agencies in L.A. County. The firm had 1997 fee income of $11.4 million, up 8.5 percent from $10.5 million in 1996. Rogers & Cowan is an L.A.-based subsidiary of Shandwick plc, a London-based public company. It has been doing public relations work here since 1950 and has several prominent clients, including Nabisco, Swatch, IBM and Microsoft.

Thomas Tardio, chief executive and president of Rogers & Cowan, said the agency is anchored by accounts in three main industries film and television, interactive entertainment and fashion and beauty. In the entertainment world, Tardio said the agency has seen an increase in contracts for product placement and promotional support. Recently, it placed IBM products in the new “X-Files” movie. In the gaming industry, Rogers & Cowan has done work for Microsoft, Sega GameWorks and Purple Moon. And most recently, Ray-Ban sunglasses chose Rogers & Cowan as its agency of record.

The name “Rogers” in the Rogers & Cowan belonged to agency co-founder Henry Rogers, whose son Ron Rogers is the founder of L.A. County’s fifth-biggest P.R. agency, Rogers & Associates. The son briefly ran his father’s company before deciding to branch out on his own.

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