The top 100 hi-tech public relations companies generated revenue of $498.8m in 1998, up 28% from the previous year, according to a PR Week survey. Feeding off the huge influx of venture capital funds and a major brand building activities among technology start-ups, hi-tech PR firms accounted for a quarter of the entire PR income bought in by PR Week’s list of top 200 firms.
Portland, Oregon-based Waggener Edstrom, which holds the Microsoft Corp account and was kept very busy last year with the antitrust trial in Washington, topped the list with $40.9m, while global PR firms Fleishman-Hillard, Porter Novelli, Shandwick and Ketchum PR all made the top five with hi-tech income of over $20m.
Others picked out for special mention by PR Week included Cambridge, Massachusetts-based FitzGerald Communications Inc, one of the few remaining independent firms after a wave of consolidation. Its hi-tech clients include Newbridge Networks Corp, GTE Internetworking, the Manugistics Group and Sapient Corp. Other fast growers were New-York-based Middleberg & Associates, which holds the Lucent account and which doubled in size last year, and the San Diego-based McQuerter Group, which grew 60% in 1998 and handles Fujitsu America, Qualcomm Corp, Advanced Communications Systems Inc and IBM Global Services.
