World Pr Report 2014
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WORLD PR REPORT 2014 Produced by the Holmes Report and the International Communications Consultancy Organisation Capstone-Hill-Search-Holmes-A4.pdf 1 02/09/2014 20:14 C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Proud Sponsors of the World PR Report. Supporting 11% worldwide growth through global in-house & consultancy talent sourcing Capstone Hill Search is a specialist talent Contact: Jamie McLaughlin finder for the PR and MarComms industry; Tel: +1 212 601 1932 committed to solving your hiring needs no Email: [email protected] matter the size of your business. We work Web: www.capstonehillsearch.com locally, nationally and globally to provide the best people for the best roles. We deliver outstanding service expertise and insights to both candidates and clients throughout the entire hiring process and beyond. New York - London - Melbourne - Sydney WORLD PR REPORT 2014 CONTENTS 04 Foreword David Gallagher and Francis Ingham 05 Global Rankings 18 Global Research 18 Trends and Attitudes 24 Opportunities and Challenges 37 Growth 47 Talent 51 Local Markets 53 Methodology Produced by the Holmes Report The Holmes Report ICCO and ICCO. The Holmes Group is dedicated to proving and The International Communications Consultancy improving the value of public relations, by providing Organisation (ICCO) is the voice of public relations The Holmes Report insight, knowledge and recognition to public relations consultancies around the world. The ICCO membership Paul A. Holmes — CEO professionals. The Holmes Group was founded in comprises national trade associations in 29 countries Arun Sudhaman — Partner & Editor-in-Chief 2000 by Paul Holmes ([email protected]), across the globe in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas Greg Drury — Partner & President, US Operations Editor-in-Chief and CEO, who has more than two and Australia. Collectively, these associations represent Aarti Shah — Associate Partner & Senior Editor decades of experience writing about and evaluating over 1,700 PR firms. the public relations business and consulting with both www.iccopr.com ICCO public relations firms and their clients. The Holmes David Gallagher — President Group delivers against its mission by providing the most Francis Ingham — Chief Executive sophisticated reporting and analysis on public relations Anastasia Demidova — General Manager trends and issues. www.holmesreport.com Report Design — [email protected] WORLD PR REPORT FOREWORD David Gallagher Francis Ingham ICCO President & ICCO Chief CEO EMEA, Ketchum Executive FOREWORD This World Report describes an industry that continues to flourish in every part of the world. Across the globe, PR agencies are on the up - growing in revenue; optimistic about the future; profitable. And as general economic conditions grow more positive, the trends “ This World Report - of the past few years seem set only to accelerate. PR a unique source of weathered the economic storm better than many other intelligence for agency industries, and now seems set fair to take advantage heads around the of the brighter times ahead. world - should give us a feeling of pride and A key driver of this is PR continuing to broaden Overall though, this World Report - a unique its remit - to win work that once would have source of intelligence for agency heads around confidence...” gone elsewhere. A large part of this is of course the world - should give us a feeling of pride social media, but that is far from the being and confidence. Pride in being part of such the entire picture. Marketers across the board a vibrant, dynamic industry. Confidence that are moving spend from other disciplines and PR’s best times are yet to come. towards PR - a trend that is highly positive for the industry. Of course there are challenges, and of course not every region our country in the world can be its fastest growing. The talent gap is obvious. So too is the need finally to put evaluation and measurement at the heart of what agencies do. And in that regard, ICCO is taking concrete, substantial steps via its ongoing partnership with AMEC. Equally, we need to do more work to prove the direct financial costs and benefits of movements in corporate reputation, an area of vital importance to PR’s future, and yet one where we continue to perform less well than we could. 4 WORLD PR REPORT 2013 GLOBAL RANKINGS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Arun Sudhaman Partner & Editor-in-Chief The Holmes Report GLOBAL PR INDUSTRY Public relations industry growth improved GROWTH SURGES TO 11% IN significantly to 11% in 2013, cracking the double- 2013 digit barrier for the first time since the global • Publicly-owned MNC firms up recession took hold in 2008. 6% • Independent PR firms up 12.5% Growth was again powered by independent reporting $4.5bn compared to the latter’s PR agencies, which were up 12.5% on $4.7bn. • PR agency industry worth 2013, according to the 2014 World Report, $12.5bn, employs more than which is produced by the Holmes Report in “Public relations agencies in general are 80,000 people conjunction with ICCO. beginning to experience the kind of growth we should expect to see in the • Revenue per head rebounds to The first phase of the World Report ranks the current environment,” said Holmes Report $155k 250 largest PR firms in the world, revealing publisher/CEO Paul Holmes. “The things that a global PR industry that grew 11% in 2013, PR firms should be good at — authenticity, compared to 6% in 2012 and 8% in 2011. engagement, credibility, conversation — are all increasingly valuable in the digital age, Once again, publicly-held MNC firms and while it has taken some firms a few years lagged, with those owned by the major to adapt and expand their service offerings, holding groups growing by 6% in 2013 to these numbers suggest that as a whole the around $5.3bn. That figure still represents a industry is getting it right.” considerable improvement on 2012, when the major public-owned MNC PR firms grew by “But once again we are seeing disappointing just 3.3%. growth for many of the industry’s flagship agencies — and Reported PR growth at the ‘big four’ holding particularly those owned by the larger groups — WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic and holding companies,” added Holmes. Publicis Groupe — was more modest, at “It’s not entirely clear why this should be. around 4%. However, when accounting for Perhaps they are restricted from expanding all of the publicly-owned firms in the Global their offering out of a concern that will Rankings, including smaller and specialist cannibalize sister agencies; perhaps their agencies, reported growth was a much sheer size makes them less flexible or less healthier 11%. nimble in times of rapid change; or perhaps holding company profit targets make it more The market share of globally reported difficult to make the necessary investments. revenue—slightly more than $9.7 billion—held Whatever the cause it is clear that they by the four giant holding companies, which are losing market share to midsize and was around 50 percent three years ago, holds independent firms.” steady at around 45 percent. The share of the overall global PR industry revenue—now This year’s Global Rankings also finds a estimated by The Holmes Report at close welcome rebound in revenue per capita for to $12.5 billion based on the vast number those firms reporting both fee income and of smaller firms that do not provide revenue headcount to an average of around $155,000, figures— remains well under 40 percent. compared to $142,000 last year, and ahead of the $151,000 reported in 2011. Based on Also of note is that independent PR firm its research, the Holmes Report estimates fee income has almost reached parity with that the global PR agency industry employs the big four holding groups, with the former more than 80,000 people, up from 75,000 last year. WORLD PR REPORT 2014 5 GLOBAL RANKINGS TOP 10 Arun Sudhaman Partner & Editor-in-Chief The Holmes Report TOP 10: 2014 2013 AGENCY HQ 2013 [$] GROWTH [%] EDELMAN, WEBER SHANDWICK, 1 1 EDELMAN USA 746,672,274 12.2 2 2 WEBER SHANDWICK USA 697,468,500 11.0 THEN DAYLIGHT 3 3 FLEISHMANHILLARD USA 554,190,000 1.5 4 4 MSLGROUP FRANCE 547,040,000 4.0 • Double-digit growth for world’s 5 6 KETCHUM USA 490,000,000 11.4 two largest PR firms 6 5 BURSON-MARSTELLER USA 454,500,000 0.0 • WPP PR firms flat, but Ketchum 7 7 HILL+KNOWLTON STRATEGIES USA 386,100,000 -1.0 8 8 OGILVY PUBLIC RELATIONS USA 297,000,000 0.0 continues climb 9 10 BRUNSWICK UK 210,000,000 0.0 10 9 HAVAS PR FRANCE 209,000,000 5.0 Edelman and Weber Shandwick have Fee income for eight of the top 10 firms is widened their lead as the largest PR firms estimated by The Holmes Report based in the world, according to the 2014 World on published sources (including holding Report. company revenues) and our own knowledge of the industry, with the majority of large Edelman, which grew 12% to $747m, has holding companies continuing to use the now held the number one spot for the Sarbanes-Oxley financial disclosure rules past four years. Meanwhile, The Holmes as an excuse not to publish numbers of Report estimates that Weber Shandwick individual businesses. grew by 11% to reach almost $700m in fee income, putting it well clear of third-ranked Independent firms, meanwhile, continue to FleishmanHillard. outperform the holding companies in terms of growth, with Edelman only the most In general, it was a year of modest growth for prominent example. Overall, independent the giant PR firms, with only Ketchum joining firms submitting information to the Holmes Edelman and Weber Shandwick in delivering Report 250 experienced growth of better than double-digit growth.