Employment at the 35 largest public relations firms on this week’s Business Journal list grew 8% in the past 12 months for a combined 337 employees directly involved in PR operations.
The numbers suggest businesses are recovering from the recession and are willing to increase public relations budgets. Firms added staff to handle new accounts and expanded business from existing clients.
Roswell, Ga.-based Leader Enterprises Inc.’s local office retained the top spot from last year. The firm had a 17% increase in the number of employees at its Seal Beach office, bringing the PR employee count to 35.
Impressing a client in one area can lead to other assignments, said Marc Altieri, Leader’s vice president of marketing and communications.
Irvine-based Vizio Inc. originally hired Leader to do lifestyle and general market PR.
“Now we’re covering trade-based media, national and mainstream, and also doing mobile tours and events for Vizio,” Altieri said.
Unified Marketing
Leader positions itself as a unified marketing agency, offering traditional PR, brand strategy and development, social media, event marketing and retail marketing.
“It saves the client money by having services under one roof and preserves message efficiency and cohesiveness,” Altieri said.
Leader will handle branding and television ads for new client Radio Flyer Inc. of Chicago, along with traditional PR.
“We don’t overwhelm our clients with our capabilities when doing a specific pitch to a company, but we will let them know we have other services available in case they’re interested,” Altieri said.
Citizen Paine, based in Los Angeles with an office in Irvine, is Leader Enterprises’ closest competitor and roughly half the size at 17 employees, good for the No. 2 spot—the same spot it held last year.
Leader Enterprises ousted Citizen Paine (formerly known as PainePR) from the top spot on the list last year.
Citizen Paine has been focusing its efforts on global offices the past few years and reported a 19% decline in the number of public relations employees at its Irvine office in the past year.
Chief Executive Daryl McCullough said the decline is a normal part of the “ebb and flow” of business.
“We don’t treat our U.S. offices as profit centers, because client work is shared between all our offices,” McCullough said.
The company has offices in Europe, South America and Asia. It went through a rebranding in October by linking sister agencies, bringing together the different global brands under the group name Citizen Relations.
Regionally, the Citizen Relations agencies were rebranded as Citizen Paine in the U.S., Citizen Brando in the U.K. and Citizen Optimum in Canada.
There were several ties in the latest list’s rankings.
Four companies tied at No. 11, four tied at No. 17, nine tied at No. 23 and four tied at No. 32.
Fifteen companies reported increases to the number of public relations employees, while three companies reported decreases. Thirteen companies had flat numbers from last year, and four companies were Business Journal estimates.
Newcomers
Six companies were newcomers to the list, including No. 11 Beach House PR Inc. of Newport Beach. The company ramped up its hiring efforts over the past year, increasing its public relations employee count by 67% from last year. Beach House specializes in PR and marketing for beauty, fashion and lifestyle brands.
Another new company to the list is Laguna Beach-based Young Co. The company tripled its public relations employees from two to six employees, good for a tie with eight other companies for the No. 23 spot.
“We have a very active internship program here, and decided to hire a few of those interns as full-time employees,” said Bart Young, chief executive of Young Co.
The shop positions itself as a full-service marketing agency, offering creative and branding ideas, social media services, and traditional PR to small and midsize companies. It has 13 employees overall with six assigned to the public relations side.
No. 7 Costa Mesa-based Idea Hall moved up two spots from last year after adding two public relations employees.
Business Up
“Business is up 20% year-over-year, which made it possible for us to add some key senior-level talent to our team this past year,” said Rebecca Hall, president of Idea Hall.
The firm’s growth has come from both existing clients as well as new clients.
Hall believes PR firms need to focus more on results rather than tactics as her firm has done by expanding beyond traditional PR services to include marketing, branding, print and digital advertising, and social media.
“The old PR agency model is broken, and we’re seeing that more integration is necessary to serve clients’ needs,” Hall said.
Idea Hall’s clients include Boy Scouts of America, Orange County Council, Bixby Land Co. and Sabal Financial Group, among others.
