According to PR Week, the PR industry has bounced back from recession. Its Top 150 league table shows that the average growth figure for a PR agency’s fee income was 9.24 per in 2010 – putting the market back in line with 2008 figures.
A whopping £838million was the figure PR Week put on the total fee income of the top 150 public relations agencies. Number one was Bell Poittinger Group with £67,818,000 and number 150, Eskenzi PR with £812,000 in fee income for 2010.
Overall the future looks rosy for us PR types then. However, I counted 30 out of the 150 which had actually posted a drop in income. That’s still 20 per cent of agencies that haven’t grown, but have in fact shrunk.
Both I and all of my freelance friends are very busy at the moment, which is great news for us and I guess great news for our clients. They get a senior, experienced PR person doing all of the work on their account, at the fraction of the cost for a larger agency. There are of course trade-offs working with one person – holiday and sickness for a start (we aren’t robots, although touch wood I haven’t been sick in two-and-half years!). But, the fact that they don’t get the junior staff on their account most of the time and it costs them less, seems to appeal to many. I have been referred to as a ‘bargain’ before!
Anyway, it’s horses for courses and great news that the overall trend is for the PR industry to be on the up.
