War of the PR Firms

Every year about this time, The Business Journal (the rag formerly known as City Business) publishes the Top 25 PR Firms which is avidly read by 250 Minnesotans. I admit to be somewhat fascinated by the rise and fall of a very tight, incestuous, competitive market.

Shandwick, Padilla and Carmicael Lynch are on the top, as usual. They'll probably never be dislodged because I think they fudge a bit and lump their advertising and web fee income in with their "Public Relations" fee income. A charge I'd never be able to substantiate.

It's much more interesting to me to watch who is scratching their way through the middle. SCG managed to move up a spot to number 10, but my old company, Haberman & Associates closed the gap and are now directly behind us. (They're listed as having 11 employees which is a heck more than when my hire made my #5.) Miller Meester and Lilja are completely gone and someplace called Fast Horse made its list this year.

It's interesting to see who the firms choose to list as their major clients and people often ooh or groan -- clients they wish they had, clients they'd hate to work with. Most of the firms on the list are owned by their namesakes. #1 & 3, however, are both owned by Interpublic. I never knew that Karowski was owned by Martin Williams and I'd love to hear the story about how Tunheim freed itself from the grips of Carlson Companies.

The biggest use for this list, of course, is gossip generation. It can be heard around offices all day things like "Oh, Joe went to Risdall" and "I applied for a job at Snow" or "We lost the Acme Anvil account to Himle Horner". (All individual and account names have been completely fabricated.)

I guess this just means that I've been working in PR too long.