Peel the Layers to Locate New Niches

It’s an occupational hazard for PR firm owners looking for an edge with clients and prospects: the commoditization of marketing communications. Killer creative is all well and good, but it’s not hard to find. In a hypercompetitive marketplace, clients not only want effective marketing campaigns with solid returns. They want PR firm owners to make…
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The Holmes Report: Independent Shops Fueling PR M&A 

The trend of independent agencies dominating the M&A landscape picked up in 2016 right where it left off in 2015. For the second consecutive year independent PR agencies took up most of the M&A space, according to an annual analysis of PR industry deal activity by The Holmes Report. The report, which was released late last…
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Window Shopping: What PR Buyers Want From Sellers

Sure, there are plenty of PR agency owners who prefer to roll right along, making their numbers, growing their clientele and expanding their services organically, without ever making acquisitions or putting themselves in play. But what if they ran their firm as if they were going to buy it? The question was tackled during a…
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3 Ways the PR and Ad M&A Field is Changing

The PR market is pretty frothy. In the last year, for example, Finn Partners has acquired PR agencies Horn Group, Seigenthaler and DVL. (Gould + Partners represented the seller in each of the deals; Gould+Partners currently has several potential PR transactions in the pipeline.) Meanwhile, the Stagwell Group, the investment group started by former WPP…
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