10 | June 6, 2013
| businessnews.com.au
32
FEATURE
PU B L I C R E L AT I O NS
%
Increase in number of consultants in top five
PR firms in past year
Local knowledge counts for
LEADER: The name Peter Harris has become synonymous with public relations in Perth after 15 years at the biggest firm
in the state, PPR. Photo: Bohdan Warchomij
WA experience has kept Perth’s top PR firms on
top of their game and prevented global companies
from getting much of a look in.
5-PAGE FEATURE
Shanna Crispin
[email protected]
the broader community, to manage how the
media portrays a potential ‘crisis’, to ensure
employees remain loyal to their employer,
or drum up investor interest.
Since the GFC, WA’s buoyant economy has
been kind to the PR industry, which relies
to a large extent on a plentiful supply of
cash flowing through the system to grow
its influence.
In the past 12 months, most firms have
grown as digital media opens new doors
– but the reliance on long-standing relationships remains.
Top dog
W
ESTERN Australians
are a parochial lot –
in sport, politics and,
not surprisingly, business – and nowhere is
it more apparent than in the state’s public
relations industry, where relationships are
its lifeblood and the local stalwarts reign
supreme.
For more than a decade the PR field has
been dominated by a handful of familiar
names. While a few founders have dropped
away and a couple of new firms established,
those who have been around the longest
remain at the top of the heap.
Names such as Peter Harris, Anthony
Hasluck, Marie Mills, Warrick Hazeldine,
Des Riley, Paul Downie and Estelle Buzzard
may be off the radar for many Western
Australians, but the value they bring to the
business community puts their services in
high demand at the big end of town.
They’re the ones behind the scenes whose
role it is to lift a business’s profile out in
The state’s largest PR firm, Professional
Public Relations, started as Assert Marketing and Public Relations in 1996.
It was founded by
then Westpac marketing professional Paul
Niardone and ex-Channel Nine journalist and
media adviser to Labor
premier Peter Dowding, Bob Willoughby.
In 1998, the firm’s
current managing
director, Peter Harris,
- Peter Harris
joined the team as
its third employee –
making him one of the longest-serving
public relations professionals among the
cohort that exists today.
Now, with 15 years’ experience under his
belt, he has a good grasp of what works in
the local market.
“Trust is critical, relationships are critical,” Mr Harris told Business News.
“While we’re in a digital and social media
age, clients still want to be able to engage
with a human face, and they want best
practice advice from someone they have
met, come to trust, and who is sitting across
the table from them.”
These comments come after Mr Harris
has spent 10 minutes vigorously drawing
on a whiteboard, mapping out PPR’s history
and business relationship with the global
PPR brand.
The short version is the original Assert
firm took on the Professional Public Relations name in 2000 as its WA ‘representative’
arm, without any money changing hands
or any share in the local company being
surrendered.
Seven years later, Messrs Willoughby and
Niardone sold the local company to PPR
Australia, which had earlier been bought
by global company WPP, leaving Mr Harris
as managing director of a WA firm owned
by one of the biggest communications companies in the world.
“What that’s meant for us is a huge flow
of information coming
from all over the globe
at our fingertips,” Mr
Harris said.
“Our profession is
about the individual,
but it’s also about the
brand. I’m not going to
shy away from the fact
that PPR is very successful because of our
brand.
“[As a result] we’ve got
some very, very strong brands placing their
trust in us to bring them the best result.”
Trust is critical,
relationships
are critical
Intruders
PPR is one of only two examples of a
global company having taken complete
ownership of a local firm – FTI Consulting
being the other.
That company started as Strategic Communications when co-founded by former
journalists Paul Downie and John McGlue
in 2002, and was bought by global firm FTI
Consulting in 2008.
While the global ownership has been
successful for FTI, the announcement this
week of Mr Downie’s return to the business
is a sign of how important experience and
long-standing relationships are in the local
market.
From next month, Mr Downie will become
the company’s senior managing director in
WA, working alongside current managing
director Shaun Duffy.
The firm’s global head of communications
practice, Edward J Reilly, said the experience injected by the return of Mr Downie
would help the company grow throughout
Australia and the Asia Pacific region.
“We are tremendously excited to have
Paul back on our team; he is one of the
preeminent communications counsellors
in the market, bringing our client base a
wealth of expertise and experience,” Mr
Reilly said.
Cannings Purple has gone down a slightly
different route in partnering with a global
brand; it was formed last year when local
company Purple Communications –
founded by Warrick Hazeldine and Caroline
de Mori in 2004 – sold a 49 per cent stake to
Sydney-based Cannings, which had already
been bought by global firm STW Group.
Mr Hazeldine said STW’s influence was a
game-changer in an increasingly competitive local market.
“You want to be leading the pack, not following it,” he said.
“The relationship with STW has been fantastic – their commitment to training and
development is second to none.”
The relationship has bolstered Cannings
Purple’s capability across the board, but in
the past year Mr Hazeldine has also led a
strategy to claim more share of the government relations market, which he said had
become attractive as miners in particular
faced increasing operating costs.
“As the equity markets soften and companies become a bit more capital-constrained,
it’s important to be able to deal with the
approvals process very efficiently, because
time is money.”
Adding value to Cannings Purple in that
regard is new executive chair Deidre Willmott, formerly head of external relations at
Fortescue Metals Group. (See story page 13)
Bob Stevens has also come on board,
bringing years of expertise gained as an
adviser in the Department of Mines and
Petroleum.
WA’s second largest firm ranked by the
number of consultants is Clarity Communications, which has remained staunchly
local.
Founder and managing director Anthony
Hasluck told Business News he was surprised at the relatively few national and
global companies that had sought to target
WA following the entrance of large multinational resources firms.
“I thought there would be far more of the
advertising agency model where contracts
would be let and there’d be pitches and all
the rest of it, but it hasn’t really gone down
that route as far as I can see – you’re still
largely governed by relationships, referrals
and networking,” Mr Hasluck said.
businessnews.com.au | June 6, 2013 |
7
WA public relations firms with 10 or more
consultants (compared to five last year)
11
FEATURE
PUBLIC RELATIONS
double when it comes to PR in Perth
Perth really is about
proving yourself, and
it’s not what you know
to get an introduction;
the introductions come
from personal referrals
- Kirsty Danby
GREEN SHOOTS: She may have been in the industry since 2006, but Platform Communications founder Kirsty Danby is a
relative newcomer compared to the cohort of long-standing PR professionals at the state’s top firms. Photo: Bohdan Warchomij
That, he said, was the likely factor discouraging the independent entrance of the
big national and global PR firms.
“But I’d be very surprised if that doesn’t
change over time. I don’t think it’s a bad
thing because partly what it does is professionalise the industry more because clients
get a chance to compare an apple with an
apple.”
East coast-based firm Rowland is one
of the few examples of a firm attempting
to enter the WA market, largely without
a previously established footprint; it had
set up shop for a time in the 1990s but
exited.
It made another foray into WA in 2007,
with negotiations understood to have been
in the works for the acquisition of a local
firm, but withdrew when the GFC hit.
New players
In contrast, several smaller local firms
have succeeded to varying degrees in breaking into the top end of the sector.
The newest firm in the top 10 is Platform
Communications, founded by Kirsty Danby
in 2006. The fact a seven-year-old firm is
still regarded as the new ‘kid on the block’ is
evidence of how ingrained local history and
experience is in the communications scene.
And yet Platform Communications has
the most impressive growth of the sector
leaders, with the number of consultants
almost doubling in the past two years.
Ms Danby said Platform’s success was
founded on her own relationships forged
in the years prior to launching the business
while working as a consultant.
She was working in BHP Billiton’s internal
communications team when she decided to
go it alone and establish Platform.
“They were our founding client and we
still have a relationship with them today,”
Ms Danby said.
“Perth really is about proving yourself, and it’s not what you know to get an
introduction; the introductions come from
personal referrals.
“Now I think we’ve got enough runs on
the board to be respected, but you do have
to prove yourself.”
Platform has taken a narrow focus on the
resources sector, with more emphasis on oil
and gas as that industry heats up, allowing
the firm to establish its own niche without cutting too much into the realm of the
larger competitors.
Gemma Tognini is another who had years
of local experience and established relationships to help launch her company, gtmedia.
“I literally started out with a mobile
phone, a laptop, and a contact book,” Ms
Tognini said.
“I know for a fact that relationships bring
results and I always had the view that if you
do a fantastic job and charge a reasonable
price you would never be short of work.”
Continued on page 12
see
BOOK
OF
LISTS
page 14
12 | June 6, 2013 | businessnews.com.au
FEATURE
49
PUBLIC RELATIONS
%
Cannings’ stake in Purple Communications,
which formed Cannings Purple
Local knowledge counts for double
when it comes to PR in Perth
From page 11
As one of the smaller firms in town (nine
consultants), gtmedia has been the target
of a number of global firms looking to enter
the WA market.
“The best and easiest way for them to
get a footprint into WA is to buy into an
established company, and we’ve had those
approaches ourselves,” Ms Tognini said.
“That’s flattering, obviously, but not the
be all and end all.”
LastSay Communications is another to
have been a takeover target.
Founder Donna Cole told Business News
it was local firms’ ability to be “smart, agile,
and over deliver on results” that ensured
they would remain successful and safe from
being overwhelmed by the major players.
Digital age
Like most industries, the advent of digital media has forced change in a PR world
BREADTH: Warrick Hazeldine says his motivation for merging with east coastbased Cannings last year was to take advantage of additional capability available
through STW Group’s global expertise. Photo: Bohdan Warchomij
YOUR MARKET, OUR READERS.
CIVIL & MINING
Perth Precast
where strategies need to transgress across
multiple communication platforms, including social media.
Many firms are taking heed of reduced
opportunities in traditional media to
diversify into other areas, such as growing
demand for internal corporate communications strategies, or in Cannings Purple’s
case, government relations.
But for PPR, part of the answer has been
to create its own channel; when traditional
media began cutting back resources in 2011,
the firm published its own magazine – The
Pick.
“It has been difficult to get a range of our
clients coverage [in traditional media], and
that’s no disrespect to any media outlets, it’s
just simply what’s happening with online
and digital and with the size of papers
reducing,” Mr Harris said.
“So what we’re endeavouring to do is talk
to the marketplace direct.”
The magazine is now distributed to about
500,000 potential investors in three different languages.
It’s almost like
the name ‘public
relations’ has ceased
to be of any great
value to anyone
- Anthony Hasluck
Where business gets its energy
We should talk 9288 2100
PPR has also started an oil and gasfocused magazine – The Rig – as it looks for
more income in that market.
It raises the question of what’s next
for public relations as marketing budgets
tighten and the accessibility and allure of
traditional forms of media fade.
There’s consensus around the importance
of digital, and increasing collaboration
between service providers that previously
may have been segregated – web design
working with communications working
with advertising agencies.
But as Clarity Communications’ Anthony
Hasluck said, the definition of a public
relations firm was becoming increasingly
blurred. “It’s almost like the name ‘public
relations’ has ceased to be of any great
value to anyone – it’s just a handy catch-all
for people who help other people communicate better than they might otherwise have
done,” he said.
“But if you got all of us in a room and got
all of us to describe it, you’d probably find
that it’s a bunch of different answers.”