LAIZER EDWIN N

BAPRM 42691

ARRIVAL OF THE GLOBAL VILLAGE

The primeval forces that drive entrepreneurs to establish global empires have combined with those that enable them to achieve their ambitions. The driving forces are the quest for survival, power, peace, pride and profit. Company leaders know they must grow in size if they are not to be swallowed up by a bigger corporation.

Leaders of industry are just as hungry for power as presidents, prime ministers, generals and bishops. Many also believe that an economy in which nations are interdependent is a significant force for peace and that global corporations have a pivotal role to play in bringing that about. For some individuals, the status conferred by being leader of a global corporation is sometimes more important than the power or profit that position brings. National rather than personal pride is a clear driving force for many of the huge corporations that emerged in post-war Japan and more recently in Korea as they sought to reach parity with and then overtake companies in the United States and Europe. Profit is the primary reason for the existence of business enterprises. To achieve maximum profits, the corporation must cooperate on a global scale. Technology, privatization, the dismantling of protectionism, swifter, cheaper travel, less restricted movement of capital and labour, standardization and education have been important factors in helping business leaders achieve their global ambitions. All of these factors have contributed to the remarkable growth of public relations. There is every prospect this growth will continue, notwithstanding the bursting of the dot.com bubble, the aftershock sustained by the entire technology sector and the general slowdown in the global economy that started at the turn of the millennium.

The world’s ten biggest PR firms in 1990 recorded fee income of $910 million, according to Dwyer’s Directory of PR Firms. Ten years later the top ten fee income had risen to $2.5 billion, as reported by the Council of PR Firms and published in PR Week (Table 26.1).

 A massive consolidation of the largest PR agencies took place as the twentieth century came to a close and continued at the beginning of the twenty-first. Larger agencies continued to acquire smaller ones as the principal agency networks sought to flesh out their service to clients geographically and by specialty practice. To this a phenomenon new to the world of public relations but which had been seen in the world of advertising for many years was added a series of acquisitions that has created the formation of three global super-groups, each comprising several agency networks or brands. Omnicom agencies combined to record $810 million, Interpublic $708 million and WPP $844 million in fees for the year 2000, in the Council’s rankings. These new groupings have made bed fellows of previously fierce competitors such as Hill & Knowlton and Burson Mars teller, now both owned by WPP, the British-based communications conglomerate.