Women and women’s issues have claimed a prominent position in the Presidential campaign in recent months, and that should only become more pronounced as November nears. But what about women in business? It’s no secret that public relations offers unusually exciting opportunities for talented women to establish careers and build companies of their own. At…

Two weeks ago, APCO’s Margery Kraus wrote in this blog of the blurring lines between every major marketing practice. PR firms are producing advertisements, ad agencies are controlling massive social media campaigns, and branding shops are helping define SEO strategies. As these traditionally silo-ed marketing areas continue to blend and overlap, one nascent offshoot in…

Why would a PR company buy an ad agency? Isn’t that backwards? This is a question I’ve been asked a lot in the weeks since my firm, APCO Worldwide, announced it had purchased a majority share in creative powerhouse StrawberryFrog. StrawberryFrog is a great agency with innovative leaders, a winning philosophy, iconic clients and a…

As we reported last week, headcounts are up at our member firms, revenues are higher, new business pipeline are stronger, and firms are innovating new practice offerings. All that growth is exciting, but it can also pose challenges. As one business author has noted, medium-sized businesses that catch fire enter a kind of “no man’s…

We use our “Firm Showcase” feature to celebrate the most exciting, pathbreaking models, techniques, and approaches in our industry. This week, our attention turns to a large agency that made headlines for doing something that many companies have talked about but few have done: Aggressively altering their model to meet the demands of today’s clients….

Communications professionals, whether on the client or agency side, often struggle with how to quantify the results of public relations programs. Clients sometimes don’t commit the funds for measuring programs, and when they do, they are not always satisfied with how results are communicated at the end of a program.  At times, clients and agencies…

We all recognize how important it is to choose clients wisely, yet we don’t always do it, and the results can prove damaging: Short-lived and tumultuous partnerships, poor return on new business budgets, and perhaps worst of all, confusion and declining morale among internal personnel who have to witness and live through client-firm conflict. The…

Whether it’s Mideast politics or the standoff between NFL players and owners, negotiation has snared headlines in recent months. Yet it’s an increasingly important subject for professional services firms as well. Given shifts in the communications marketplace, and with procurement officials and others monitoring budgets more tightly than ever, continued profitability for many firms depends…

The agency-procurement relationship has come far in recent years, yet an even stronger, more productive relationship is on the horizon, driven in part by a new desire on the part of clients for efficiencies and demonstrable ROI.  For the Council’s Board of Directors, helping to improve this relationship is imperative; with that in mind, the…

Spring is in the air, and in our industry at least, you can really feel the warming trend continue. We are seeing very healthy demand for public relations services across geographies and practice areas, thanks to improving consumer and business confidence in most markets around the world.  And, when looking at the broader context of…