Key performers

Bell Pottinger 1

Fee income £59,937,000 Growth 8% Staff 377

Last year’s league table topper reaffirmed its position as a thriving firm after recording eight per cent fee income growth to almost £60m over the course of 2009. During a tough year for the industry, it was Bell Pottinger’s diversity that saw it record year-on-year growth, despite the economic recession, according to group chairman Kevin Murray.

The diverse nature of the agency, which encompasses Good Relations, Harvard, Insight and Resonate, has enabled it to pitch for and win business with teams from across the business. Murray points to the group’s win of a multi-faceted account with European aircraft maker Airbus as an illustration of the success of the strategy during the year.

Despite a strong onus on cost control over the year, Bell Pottinger has made a number of significant appointments – most notably the promotion of Paul Bell to group chief executive, taking control alongside Murray.

Former Conservative Party shadow cabinet member Tim Collins joined as MD of the public affairs practice and Liam FitzPatrick rejoined from running his own consultancy to establish an internal comms and change management practice – a growing focus in 2010, according to Murray. Another key focus for 2010, says Murray, will be digital operations. ‘Every company is expected to have its own digital plan and we chase hard to ensure everyone is doing digital work appropriate to their marketplace.’

Along with high-profile account wins, such as Nokia and Coca-Cola Enterprises, Bell Pottinger has strengthened its armoury during the year. In 2009 it brought Essentially into its sports marketing group and most significantly merged its Bell Pottinger Corporate & Financial business with Pelham PR to step up its financial offering.

‘Financial PR was first in and may be one of the first out of the recession,’ says Murray. He notes that Pelham has had an excellent start to the year and the whole group is on budget so far in 2010–a budgetary target that is higher than in 2009.

2009 AT A GLANCE

Three best campaigns Nokia, NHS Choice, Madrid Olympic bid
Significant hires Liam FitzPatrick; Tim Collins
Predicted fee income Declined to make a prediction
Plans for next year Rebuilding financial comms business, further concentration on digital and internal comms/change management.
Further acquisitions remain possible

Citypress 77

Fee income £2,531,000 Growth 27% Staff 31

Citypress MD Charles Tattersall says he started 2009 feeling nervous about the economic landscape. He knew new business and conversion would be slower, so he decided to focus on three things: growing the business organically; increasing the agency’s London profile; and ramping up its digital capacity. The strategy worked, with the agency achieving a record level of fee income, making no redundancies and remaining a top ten player in the UK’s M&A market.

The agency threw itself into the digital sphere by hiring digital marketing shop Econsultancy to train all its staff in copywriting and SEO, and bringing two in-house web developers on board. It used this foundation to pitch for management of its clients’ websites, bringing in extra income. ‘We have a dedicated server and we can manage our clients’ websites. That’s where we see ourselves going; becoming content developers on any platform,’ he says.

Despite the focus on organic growth, the agency also won new business from the Home Delivery Network (previously owned by Littlewoods); Intempo, a digital radio brand; and Keeneze, a door-to-door catalogue sales firm.

But Tattersall says his business strategy has always been to target sectors where he believes there is growth, and not to take part in the ‘merrygo- round PR briefs’, where clients automatically review every year. ‘We create new work. For example, corporate finance advisers are recommending us to companies. This strategy means we might not win the big-ticket names and brands, but we do get solid companies,’ he says.

Tattersall predicts a 15 per cent growth for Citypress in 2010. He plans to increase the agency’s profile in London throughout the year, and to create a planning function. He also wants to bring in people with a media buying background to establish the function and make the agency ‘channel agnostic’. ‘I don’t think enough agencies focus on the audience. We want to get more scientific about our work,’ he says.

2009 AT A GLANCE

Three best campaigns of 2009 Lloyds TSB Commercial’s customer charter programme; launch of a Brother printer range; consumer champion campaign for The Co-operative Travel
Significant hires Alex Barnett, formerly senior press officer for Lloyds Banking Group; account director James Crawford, from Biss Lancaster
Predicted fee income for 2010 Aiming for 15 per cent growth
Plans for the year ahead Increase presence in London, set up a planning function

Engine Business 11

Fee income £16,138,000 Growth 48% Staff 146

The view from the fifth floor bar and café at Engine’s Great Portland Street HQ is impressive, particularly in good weather. The sun is certainly shining on the business – including its PR brands Mandate, Hogarth, Slice and Synergy – at the moment. If it continues its rapid growth, of which CEO Sacha Deshmukh is confident, it will not be long before the business needs to find more space. Acquisitions are a real possibility for Engine in 2010 – its 2009 growth was achieved organically – so it looks like more room will be needed.

Deshmukh attributes Engine’s success in 2009 to a number of factors. The company is employee-owned, so its share ownership is stable. ‘This meant we were able to invest in new talent and new areas of business,’ he says. ‘Other agencies may have stopped that kind of growth investment in 2009. We were able to take advantage, although it was risky.’

The risk paid off. Engine launched a corporate responsibility arm, led by former M&S ‘Plan A’ architect Robert Nuttall, which Deshmukh says has seen a lot of growth. Other areas of the business including financial PR and consumer PR also grew. Big wins included American Express, Siemens and Bayer pharmaceuticals. The company’s healthcare division also scooped PRWeek’s prestigious campaign of the year award. The only low point for Deshmukh was the difficult task of finding new talent. While the recession did not hold back Engine’s growth, Deshmukh says it gave the agency an opportunity to become more involved in client businesses: ‘We have been able to have deeper conversations about future business decisions.’

Looking ahead, Deshmukh plans to expand Engine into new geographical areas including Brussels, the Asia-Pacific region and India. But his long-term ambition is to work on campaigns for the biggest and best companies in the world: ‘The companies that will be the biggest in ten years’ time probably don’t even exist yet. For us the real test is thinking about these businesses, and helping them on their journey.’

2009 AT A GLANCE

Three best campaigns American Express, Rewards Card launch; Radox, ‘Be Selfish’ campaign; opening of Acropolis, the Museum
Significant hires Lucinda Kemeny, formerly City editor of the Financial Mail on Sunday, joined the financial team; Robert Nuttall, hired from Clownfish to head up Green Mandate; Nicole Martin, joined after 13 years at The Daily Telegraph
Predicted fee income for 2010 £19-20m, through a mixture of organic growth and acquisition
Plans for the year ahead Expansion into Europe, Asia-Pacific and India; further expansion into the US

Mischief 100

Fee income £1,631,000 Growth 29% Staff 22

For many agency bosses, 2009 was a year to batten down the hatches and weather the economic storm.

Not so for Mitchell Kaye, MD of Mischief. ‘2009 was a record year for us for income, profit and pitch wins,’ he says.

Not to mention award wins. In 2009 Mischief scooped Marketing magazine’s PR Agency of the Year award, a PRWeek Best Place to Work award and three PRCA awards including campaign of the year. It also became the youngest agency ever to be shortlisted for PRWeek’s prestigious Agency of the Year award.

Kaye says the recession did not change his approach to 2009 one bit. ‘I set the agency up from day one to be a well-run business and in a recession, you need a well-run business,’ he points out.

‘I read a lot in 2008 about the year ahead, and a lot of features and opinion from people who had worked through recessions before in their careers. I decided the best way forward was to continue running a good business, to continue to treat staff, clients and suppliers well, and to continue to do great work.’

The approach paid off. The agency won business with BAA, QVC and Kempton Park racecourse among others. For the latter, Mischief works not only on PR but on wider brand activity. ‘In our pitch to them we argued the case successfully that it shouldn’t be just a PR brief, so in the end we were hired with a much broader remit,’ explains Kaye.

Kaye says Mischief was inundated with letters from PR professionals wanting to work for the agency, and its graduate programme attracted more than 100 applications. However, he says he was disappointed by many of the candidates he interviewed: ‘There was a lack of available talent to add to the team we have.’

For Kaye and Mischief as a whole, 2009 was the year that ‘our big ideas got bigger’. The high point of the year, however, was more personal: ‘It was my mum phoning me up and telling me she had heard about a campaign that was one of ours.’

2009 AT A GLANCE

Three best campaigns BAA, A Week At The Airport; Kempton Park, Best of British Gala featuring the Royal Filly-monic Orchestra; Love Film and its millionth customer
Significant hires Head of digital content Will Scougal, from Cake; account director Charlotte Hutley, from The SPA Way; account director Kat Taylor, from Taylor Herring
Predicted fee income for 2010 £2m
Plans for the year ahead ‘For our big ideas to get even bigger, to continue to challenge the traditional model of PR, attract the best talent and the best clients, and to keep staff and clients happy’

PHA Media 84

Fee income £2,126,000 Growth 56% Staff 22

PHA Media founder Phil Hall puts the agency’s successful fourth year down to a dramatic growth in client numbers, and to the fact that its reputation is beginning to spread.

The agency added seven retainer clients and ten project clients to its roster in 2009, bringing its total to 62. Hall believes that video game retailer Game was a particularly significant addition because PHA beat four bigger agencies to win the account.

Hall also believes the agency has benefited from the cachet of working with celebrities and its exposure in high profile media slots through its crisis work for clients such as Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin and Gordon Ramsay. In May, Hall hired the News of the World’s associate director Phil Taylor to head the agency’s new celebrity department.

But Hall is keen that these developments do not skew perceptions of his agency. ‘It is only ten per cent of what we do; the majority of our clients are corporate,’ he says.

PHA Media has found the sport sector particularly fruitful, working with Wentworth Golf Club, Bruno Senna and, most importantly for Hall, winning back West Ham. ‘I’ve been a fan since I was five years old,’ he smiles. Hall also identifies the legal sector as a particularly lucrative source of income.

The agency’s low point was when, like other creative agencies, it fell victim to the Crossrail project. It was given three months to leave its office without any compensation. PHA Media launched a ferocious campaign that secured compensation to pay for its move to ‘bigger and better’ Wardour Street premises.

Hall says he plans to develop the agency’s digital skills over the coming year. He has already hired a new head of digital, Rosie Sayers, and trained his staff. Now he is planning to build a radio and television studio. ‘The influence of newspapers is dropping so quickly that we need to react quickly,’ he points out.

2009 AT A GLANCE

Three best campaigns War Time Spirit, Energy Saving Trust; Simon Dolan and The Twitter Dragon; British Beach Volleyball team for 2012
Significant hires News of the World associate editor Phil Taylor
Predicted fee income for 2010 No set target, but 20 per cent growth estimated
Plans for the year ahead Launch a digital department complete with a television and radio studio

Speed 63

Fee income £3,157,000 Growth -37% Staff 39

There is no sugar coating 2009 for Speed Communi-cations. But considering 2009 was also the year the agency merged five brands into one, moved premises and still managed to make a profit, co-MDs Stephen Waddington and Steve Earl are not too disheartened.

In March 2009, Rainier PR, which incorporated Lighthouse and Custard, merged with fellow Loewy Group agencies Mantra and BMA to become Speed. Such internal upheaval, combined with the recession, meant Waddington and Earl were not expecting 2009 to be a bumper year. ‘Our target was to break even,’ says Waddington. ‘As it turned out, we made a profit of about eight per cent.’

Earl say the real achievement for Speed in 2009 was the agency’s prominence in Google searches despite the brand’s youth. The agency comes seventh in the results of a Google search for ‘speed’ – ‘behind the amphetamine, but ahead of the Keanu Reeves blockbuster of the same name,’ notes Earl.

Waddington and Earl took the opportunity to look at training in 2009, making sure all team members were proficient in both traditional PR methods and the brave new world of digital and social media.

And the year was not without its successes. Notably, the agency won clients including The Economist, Symantec and Virgin Media. The major client loss for Speed was Wickes. Staff-wise, the agency’s headcount fell by eight or nine, but is heading up again.

For the agency, the low point of 2009 was the ‘difficult conversations with people who were not going to be involved with the new business,’ says Earl. But looking ahead to 2010, Waddington and Earl feel they are in a position from which they can grow.

They also want to maintain the transparency they have introduced to the agency. ‘When you show your people transparency, your salary scale and fee income month by month, they can really get on board,’ says Waddington.

2009 AT A GLANCE

Three best campaigns Launch of The Economist’s social media strategy including Economist TV on YouTube; Symantec, Threat Report; Tesco, child health and wellbeing campaign
Significant hires Clare English, previously an account director in consumer, promoted to business development director; creation of a new board for the organisation
Predicted fee income for 2010 £4m Plans for the year ahead A target of 20 per cent growth ‘would be amazing’