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Select a PR Firm as You Would a Fine Vintage Wine!
01/03/2006 1:31:27 PM
Looking for a robust PR firm that
will deliver a distinct bouquet to your company's image? Go for one that's
old enough to know better.
Just as you'd select the right vintage wine for a special occasion, you
should take into account how long a firm's been around, said spin sommelier
Thomas J. Madden.
"Pick no PR firm before it's time," he recommends. "If a firm passes the
test of time, it's likely to deliver consistent results in the future," said
Madden, author of "Spin Man" and other books about PR.
Madden's firm, TransMedia Group, is about to toast its 25th anniversary
this year as a successful survivor in a bubbly industry where new firms pop
like champagne corks, only to fizzle out in a year or two.
"Here today; gone tomorrow" is the epitaph on many one-person shops that
close soon as they lose their one big client. "It's a dangerously fickle
business to be at the mercy of one or two clients," said Madden, whose
diversified firm today has more than 25 clients spread over many sectors and
throughout the country.
Madden and his wife Angela started their boutique firm in Manhattan after
he left NBC, in 1981 where he was vice president, assistant to the president.
TransMedia had just one client then, AT&T. Next came MetLife and the
high-flying Drexel Burnham, followed by The City of New York, for whom Madden
created a public service campaign that won a Bronze Anvil Award from the
Public Relations Society of America.
"In 1987, my wife made me an offer I couldn't refuse. 'I'm moving to
Florida,' she announced. 'You can come along or freeze.' So they relocated
the firm to Florida where today it's one of the state's largest independent PR
firms serving clients worldwide.
Madden said the last recession massacred firms specialized in a single
sector, like technology. Today a booming economy is growing a new crop of
young hopefuls operating home-based PR businesses that will plug away until
their mini-bubble bursts.
"A high percentage of our job applicants today own their own mini-firms,"
said Madden. "We're leery about hiring someone who's too entrepreneurial,
however, as they may still dream of resuscitating their fledgling firm and
might be tempted to snatch a client from our growing roster."
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