I wish Edelman and A&R the best with the acquisition. I just have to add that I am cautious in my optimism for its success. This is because I was involved in a similar acquisition in 1998.
I started my PR career as an intern with Alexander Communications, Inc. in 1996. At the time, the San Francisco office where I started had about 17 employees, and the Atlanta office had about 30. That was ACI at the time. The marquee client was Novell, and they had just landed two divisions of HP, the network server division and the new “Pavilion” consumer division. It was an amazing time to be involved with technology and the office was full of incredibly smart people including Pam Alexander, Holland Carney, Brian Johnson, and Amy Messenger.
The ‘middle management’ at the time was also very strong with Kim Hughes, now with Blueshirt, Hani Durzy, who now is with eBay and Mark Bingham as account supervisors.
By 1998, ACI had grown to almost 200 emloyees, revenues of $12 million, , a kick ass client roster, and several more offices, including Silicon Valley where I moved and our upstairs neighbor was Be, Denver and Boston. We were easily in the top 3, and many say ‘top 1′, tech boutique PR firms (anyone see any parallels here?). Technology was booming and the major interational firms wanted to be part of it so there was a buying frenzy. In the course of a few weeks, both ACI and our primary competitor, were both purchased by major international firms (again any parallels?) .
I can only speak for my experience at ACI, but for all of the posturing and talk of synergy and respect for the brand…….Ogilvy killed it. I was there until 2000, as were many others who hung around for bonuses, and then began the real industry-wide benefit of the consolidation that was taking place. Smart people with great backgrounds, that learned at the feet of an industry legend went out on their own.
Right now, I know of at least five firms led/founded by Alexander alums (not including Mark’s firm) including, The Usher Group (founded by Usher Lieberman), Fama-PR (co-founded by Anthony Citrano), Volume PR (founded by Elizabeth Robinson), Montgomery Pacific Group (founded by Ken Montgomery), and Morgan/Dorado (founded by me 
.
And AlexanderOgilvy? Try and find a reference to it on the Ogilvy site these days. Amy Messenger is still there, but I’m not sure if any more of the original nearly 200 are.
I hope this works out for Edelman, I really do. But if it doesn’t, look for a boom in new technology PR firms in 2008.
Richard Edelman, Pam Pollace, and Bob Angus, I recommend that you contact some of the people above and see why they left.
But more importantly, maybe try Amy Messenger at Ogilvy, and see why she stayed.
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Hey Josh! I like the blog. I don’t know any details about this transaction but I do see two key differences that may work in its favor. 1) Edelman has had a successful technology PR practice and Ogilvy did not. Edelman probably won’t try to run it like consumer or other corporate. 2) More importantly, Edelman is independent. WPP’s ownership of Ogilvy created a culture so driven by quarter-to-quarter projections and results for Wall Street, it was impossible for key leaders to grow and manage the thriving company that had been so attractive to begin with. Our firm flourished when we kept our eyes on the client goals. Growth and profits followed excellent work. If you spend the majority of your time counting your money instead of serving customers, your business will fail. That is the the weakness of the newly “dependent” agency. Not to say that I or any other of the principal partners aren’t grateful for making a great deal, just to say if the conditions had been different, I for one would have stayed on longer to build something tremendous from all that potential that is now lost. I wish them all the best of luck.
Holland! Great to hear from you and thanks for reading!
This is incredible feedback, and I agree with you in that there are several MAJOR differences between Edelman and Ogilvy. The two biggest being independence and willingness to invest in the future, without the pressure of Wall Street.
Richard Edelman has a great vision for where he wants to take the firm and he is putting his money where his mouth is with smart acquisitions like this one.
Your point on focusing on excellent work is a great one. If I’m half as successful with Morgan/Dorado as you , Pam and Sandra were with ACI, then both the agency and our clients will be in great shape.
(for context, Holland was the GM of the SF office of ACI (where I started my PR career) and was the Western Region President of Alexander Communications.
Josh, you got it right. But you have to admit the Ogilvy PR ride was really fun. I stay in touch with as many Ogilvy people worldwide as I do ACI. Nothing lasts forever. In fact, I’d consider it a compliment if Ogilvy or Edelman wanted to buy my firm someday!
My best to you, Bridget Cavanaugh
wwww.oberrycavanaugh.com
Josh – you make some great points here.
It has been my experience that boutique-size firms are often chosen by clients (and achieve success) because of the more personal service we provide, combined with providing clients greater access to senior talent and a stronger drive to uniquely, creatively generate sizable visibility for our clients.
Our success is inextricably connected to the success of our clients programs.
But when absorbed into a more corporate-size/feel agency, many may feel that the pressure to perform is not as critically linked to whether the agency flourishes or fails. Ergo, service/results slip (while fees increase), and your top-performers grow frustrated – eventually leaving the newly formed firm to do what they joined the boutique agency to do in the first place – infuse creativity and bottom-line value into PR.
So what solves this problem? Perhaps it has less to do with the size of the acquiring firm, and more to do with the client service philosophies of their executive management… If they never take their eyes off of the skill, client service, and creativity that got us all to where we are today, then perhaps they’ll be less likely to squash what made the boutique agency great – and profitable.
To Bridget’s point, I know we look forward to entertaining acquisition opportunities that stand to extend our style of PR and client service to an even broader market than we could reach on our own. And what a perfect world it would be if that could happen without compromising what made us great in the first place… just as in the not so distant past, ACI was truly (and uniquely) remarkable.
Then again, perhaps the “children” ACI sent out into the world have ultimately accomplished more for the PR craft than ACI could have ever done as a stand-alone firm, and we should all tip our hats to WPP….
Thank you both Bridget and Elizabeth. Great to hear from you! Elizabeth you bring up an interesting point. Does the level of engagement by all levels of employees decrease in sync with the porportional growth of the company once you reach a certain magical ‘perfect agency size’.
At a small agency, everyone sees that the founder is putting in long hours and the type of work they are capable of….not so much at the big agency, not everyone gets a chance to work with the boss. I do have to give Richard Edelman props on this. He is definitely engaged in the day to to workings of accounts.
In regards to getting bought, in the case of Morgan/Dorado it’s way too early to even think about that. We’re ( I use the ‘royal’ we here) building something that this region doesn’t have and we have the opportunity to do some great work with a range of interesting companies. So, for now at least, everyone put away your checkbooks.
Actually since everyone is here I have an idea that I floated by Usher for a loose confederation of ‘Alexander Alumni Network’ firms. Anyone want to hear more about that?
Love the idea Josh. I firmly believe some of the best and brightest PR minds came from Alexander, and to have that thought power organized and communicating together could be an impressive thing.
We are also actively hiring as well as looking for freelance support, and to be able to hire or discuss referrals from past ACI/AOPR ranks would be ideal for us (there are now 2 former AOPR folks full-time at VolumePR).