Jack O’Dwyer sponsors Entertainment Publciists Professional Society (EPPS) and gives away as a door prize raffle the O’Dwyerpr PR Director. Pictured above are Ann Simley, Rita and Bob Werden winners of the door prizes.
O’Dwyer’s Directory of PR Firms Lists 1,600
The 2012 O’Dwyer’s Directory of PR Firms, PR’s No. 1 source of information for clients looking for PR counsel and PR pros shopping for jobs, has been published.
The 42nd annual edition lists 1,600 PR firms and sorts them by size, geographical location and 12 types of PR specialties.
Clients shopping on the web for healthcare, tech, financial, food/beverage and other PR specialists are invariably directed to the O’Dwyer PR rankings that are based on data in the Directory.
More than 500 of the firms are in the free area of the O’Dwyer online database.
Copies of the 340-page print edition are $95 from the O’Dwyer Co., 271 Madison Ave., #600, New York, 10016.
Jack O’Dwyer Publisher, http://www.Odwyerpr.com, New York for new PR Directories just published 2012 O’Dwyer PR Directory of industry articles, top PR Firms and contacts in the country. The only publication of its kind for new biz leads and job hunting for public relations, government communicators and Entertainment Publicists. (40 years publishing).
“The Directory is an excellent textbook for PR students as well as those thinking of a PR career,” said publisher Jack O’Dwyer.
More than 500 PR firms provide extensive descriptions of their increasingly varied services, he noted.
“Such descriptions are far preferable to the outmoded definitions and descriptions of PR that are in most textbooks,” he added.
Almost all of what is known as “PR” is now in the agencies, meaning creativity and press contact, and the textbooks do not acknowledge that development, he said. Corporate PR, long called “corporate communications,” mostly means communications to employees, executives, the local community, retirees, suppliers, handling corporate ads via an ad agency, and supervising corporate gifts, he said.
NYT Described Shift of PR to Agencies
The shift of PR from institutions to PR firms was described 25 years ago in a nearly full-page, 1,823-word article in the May 31, 1987 Sunday New York Times by financial reporter Claudia Deutsch. http://tinyurl.com/7ygqjzn
Headlined “The Haves—and Have Nots—in Public Relations,” it described the increase in fees handled by PR firms (“The Haves”) and the gutting of many corporate PR depts.. (“the Have Nots”).
All of the data on PR firms came from the O’Dwyer Co. as did most of the facts about corporate PR units being downsized.
Deutsch, acknowledging the source of much of her information, started her article with these words: “ITEM: Jack O’Dwyer’s Newsletter, the bible of the PR profession, lists huge increases at PR agencies this year.
“The Directory is an excellent textbook for PR students as well as those thinking of a PR career,” said publisher Jack O’Dwyer.
She then described the carnage going on in corporate PR depts. including RCA, which fired almost all its PR staff after being acquired by General Electric; Monsanto, which off-loaded its entire PR dept. to Hill & Knowlton; W.R. Grace, which cut its PR staff from 34 to 13; ITT, which fired 20 PR pros in 1986; American Standard, which dissolved its four-person PR staff, and Olin Corp., which let two top PR execs go, Robert Kelly and Richard Francis. The O’Dwyer NL had covered many of these same stories.
The NYT article reprinted the top ten PR firms from the O’Dwyer Directory. H&K was No. 1 with $100.2M in fees and 1,800 employees; Burson-Marsteller No. 2 with 1,875 employees (fees were not provided); Ogilvy PR No. 3 with $31M in fees and 640 employees; Manning, Selvage & Lee No. 4 with $21.7M in fees and 334 employees; Edelman No. 5 with $20.9M in fees and 336 employees; Doremus Porter Novelli No. 6 at $20.8M; Fleishman-Hillard No. 7 with $18.4M; Ketchum No. 8 at $17.8M; Golin/Harris No. 9 with $17.4, and Ruder Finn, No. 10 with 260 employees.
PR’s No. 1 New Biz, Job Source Is Published
Monday, July 2, 2012
Contact: Jack O’Dwyer at jack@odwyerpr.com
631/288-0850
MAYO Communications 
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