Recent development of public relations counseling business in 1990s and 21st century (e.g., Burson-Marsteller, Omnicom Group) (jan 1, 1990 – jan 1, 2020)

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After Bernays’s pioneering counseling efforts, a number of public relations firms, most headquartered in New York, began to take root, most notably among them Hill & Knowlton, Carl Byoir & Associates, Newsom & Company, and Burson-Marsteller. It took another three decades for African American public relations counselors to arrive on the scene. One of the earliest was D. Parke Gibson, who began his firm in the early 1960s, authored two books on African American consumerism, and advised companies on multicultural relations. Gibson served as inspiration to later African American counselors, such as Ofield Dukes and Terrie Williams.
For many years, Hill & Knowlton and Burson-Marsteller jockeyed for leadership in the counseling industry. One early counselor, Harold Burson emphasized marketing-oriented public relations “to help clients sell their goods and services, maintain a favorable market for their stock, and foster harmonious relations with employees.” In 2000, Burson was named the most influential PR person of the 20th century. In the 1990s, the counseling business saw the emergence of international super agencies, many of which were merged into advertising agencies. Indeed, both Hill & Knowlton and Burson-Marsteller were eventually merged under one corporation, WPP, which also included the J. Walter Thompson and Young & Rubicam advertising agencies. Another mega-communications firm, Omnicom Group, owned seven major public relations firms, including Fleishman-Hillard, Porter Novelli, and Ketchum. In the 21st century, with the growth of such large agencies, occasional lapses in ethical standards confronted the profession (see A Question of Ethics in this chapter). Despite these communications conglomerates, most public relations agencies still operate as independent entities. The largest of these, Edelman Public Relations, founded by another legendary public relations pioneer, Daniel Edelman in 1952, collects $875 million in annual fees. Nonetheless, local agencies, staffed by one or several practitioners, still dominate the industry. In the 21st century, then, the public relations counseling business boasts a diverse mix of huge national agencies, medium-sized regional firms, and one-person local operations. Public relations agencies may be general in nature or specialists in everything from consumer products to entertainment to health care to social media and technology.

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