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Executive Summary

L.A. public relations agencies have enjoyed an unprecedented degree of growth in recent years. Combined fee income for the top 25 jumped from $95 million in 1996 to $106 million in 1997, a 11.2 percent increase and rose again to $132 million in 1998, a 25 percent gain.

L.A. agencies perform a broad array of services, but many specialize in the industries that dominate the local economy. Entertainment is a popular niche, and health care and technology are growing in importance as local specialties.

P.R. agencies are benefiting from the same thing that has been hurting ad agencies changes in the media. The growth of cable television, the plethora of niche magazines and the rapid expansion of the Internet have split media audiences, so advertisers are looking at non-traditional means of generating awareness. That means more reliance on P.R., and less on advertising.

As with ad agencies, large public companies own most of L.A.’s biggest P.R. firms. New York-based Omnicom Group owns three of the agencies on the list, and Interpublic Group and WPP Group each own two.

The Pacesetter

Shandwick/Rogers & Cowan, formerly Rogers & Cowan, again tops the list of the largest public relation agencies in Los Angeles. The firm had 1998 fee income of $14.2 million, an increase of almost 25 percent over 1997.

In October of last year, the Interpublic Group, one of the world’s largest communications holding companies, purchased Shandwick and all of its marketing brands including Rogers & Cowan, which changed its name after the purchase in order to enhance the name recognition of Interpublic’s Shandwick division.

Though Rogers and Cowan is known as an entertainment specialist, Thomas Tardio, Shandwick’s president and co-chairman and managing director of Rogers & Cowan, said entertainment represents just one of three main anchor industries for the agency. Consumer technology and consumer goods represent the other two.

Celebrities represented include Eddie Murphy, Nick Nolte, Dustin Hoffman and Denzel Washington. The company has a music group that conducts worldwide P.R. campaigns for such artists as Paul McCartney and Clint Black, a product placement group, a promotions group, a corporate and consumer marketing group and assorted other divisions.

The company’s strongest area of growth is new media. “The most vibrant space for us has been the e-commerce and the dot-com space,” Tardio said. “These are the companies that have either enabling technologies or are content or commerce sites.”

Rogers & Cowan has been doing business in Los Angeles since 1950, and was purchased by Shandwick in 1987.

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