Public Relations Company
The concept of managing public perception predates the term itself by centuries. Ancient rulers employed town criers and scribes, but the modern public relations company emerged from something messier: the industrial robber barons of the late 1800s needed help with their image problems.
How PR became an industry
The Boston Publicity Bureau opens—generally acknowledged as the first PR firm, though they didn’t call it that. George Michaelis, Herbert Small, and Thomas Marvin handled what they termed “publicity campaigns” for AT&T and other corporations dealing with the not-so-small problem of being hated by the public.
Edward Bernays (Freud’s nephew, which he mentioned constantly) essentially grabbed the term “public relations” and ran with it. His firm did work that ranged from brilliant to ethically questionable—convincing women to smoke by calling cigarettes “torches of freedom” falls squarely in that second category.
Arthur Page joins AT&T not in a publicity role, but as VP. Why does this matter? Page insisted PR wasn’t about spin—it was about making the company actually deserve good press. Revolutionary idea. Companies are still struggling with it.
The Public Relations Society of America forms. Finally, there’s a professional organization, which is code for “we need standards because some of what’s happening in this industry is wild.”
Burson-Marsteller faces the Bhopal disaster. Union Carbide hired them after the gas leak killed thousands in India. The firm’s handling of the crisis became what every PR program now teaches as both precedent and cautionary tale.
Edelman releases the first Trust Barometer. The annual study becomes crucial because it confirms what PR companies suspected: trust isn’t about messages anymore. Trust depends on proving credibility through actions, not press releases. The shift toward content marketing and brand journalism accelerates.
Cambridge Analytica scandal breaks. PR firms that spent years building corporate social media presence suddenly have to explain why their clients’ data practices matter more than their Twitter voice. Crisis management strategies get completely rewritten.
Generative AI tools proliferate. Some PR companies panic. Others realize humans remain essential for strategic thinking, relationship management, and knowing when the AI-generated press release sounds obviously wrong. The firms adapting fastest treat AI as an assistant, not a replacement—using it for drafts, research, and data analysis while keeping human judgment at the center.
What a PR company actually does
There’s confusion around this. People think PR firms just issue press releases and arrange media interviews. That’s like saying architects just draw buildings.
Modern PR companies operate across multiple disciplines. Media relations remains core—pitching journalists, securing coverage, managing press inquiries. But the scope expanded dramatically. Content creation now encompasses everything from blog posts to video scripts to podcast concepts. Social media management shifted from an add-on service to a primary concern. Crisis communications means having teams ready at 2 AM when something goes viral for the wrong reasons.
The strategic counsel component gets underestimated. Good PR firms tell clients things they don’t want to hear. “That product name is terrible.” “This policy will create backlash.” “Your CEO needs media training because that interview was painful.” That’s the valuable part—outside perspective combined with industry expertise.
Types of firms
The industry splits several ways. Large multinational networks like Edelman, Weber Shandwick, and FleishmanHillard handle global campaigns for major corporations and governments. They’ve got offices everywhere and relationships with top-tier media. Mid-sized agencies often specialize—technology PR, healthcare communications, financial services, consumer brands. Boutique firms go even narrower, sometimes focusing on a single industry vertical or specific service like crisis management.
Then there’s the in-house versus agency debate. Some organizations build internal PR teams. Others outsource everything to agencies. Most use a hybrid approach—in-house for day-to-day management, agencies for campaigns or specialized needs.
How they make money
The traditional model: monthly retainers. Clients pay a set fee for ongoing services—X hours of work, Y deliverables. Project-based fees work for defined campaigns with clear start and endpoints. Performance-based pricing exists but remains controversial because PR results are hard to quantify. Did that positive article result from the PR pitch or would it have happened anyway?
Larger firms have practice areas beyond traditional PR that generate revenue: public affairs (government relations), brand strategy, digital marketing, content studios producing video and interactive experiences. The lines between PR companies, advertising agencies, and digital consultancies blurred years ago.
Measurement remains complicated
How do you prove PR worked? Advertising, you can track directly—spend X on ads, get Y clicks, generate Z sales. PR never had that clarity. For decades, firms measured “impressions”—how many people potentially saw the coverage. This metric is garbage because potential doesn’t equal actual. No one reads every article in the newspaper they subscribe to.
Better measurements focus on engagement, sentiment analysis, message pull-through (did the coverage include the key points?), and share of voice compared to competitors. Advanced firms use attribution modeling, tracking how PR activities correlate with business outcomes. Still imperfect, but progress.
The ethics problem won’t go away
PR has an ethics issue that dates back to its origins. Bernays pioneered propaganda techniques. Ivy Lee, another PR founder, represented the Rockefellers during labor disputes and later worked for Nazi Germany (which, understandably, became a problem). The industry has spent a century trying to separate legitimate reputation management from manipulation.
Modern controversies continue. PR firms have represented tobacco companies, oil companies during environmental disasters, foreign governments with questionable human rights records, and corporations accused of discrimination or fraud. Where’s the line? The PRSA code of ethics exists. So do ethics guidelines from other professional organizations. Enforcement remains another question.
Some firms refuse certain clients or industries on principle. Others take a “everyone deserves representation” approach. This debate shows no signs of resolving.
Technology changes everything and nothing
Today’s PR companies use tools that didn’t exist a decade ago. Media monitoring platforms track brand mentions across thousands of sources in real-time. Influencer databases help identify who matters in specific niches. AI tools draft initial press releases, generate media list suggestions, and analyze sentiment at scale.
But the fundamentals haven’t changed. Relationships still matter more than anything. A PR person who built trust with journalists over years can get a client into publications that ignore cold pitches. Understanding narrative and timing remains crucial—knowing when to push a story and when to hold back. Crisis management still depends on human judgment about what information to release and when.
The best PR companies recognize technology amplifies good strategy but can’t replace it. Automation handles repetitive tasks. Humans handle everything requiring context, nuance, or relationship management—which remains most of what matters.
What makes firms succeed or fail
Reputation in PR is ironic—firms that manage reputation for others must carefully manage their own. Success comes from results for clients, yes, but also from how they’re perceived by journalists, influencers, and potential clients. A firm that burns bridges with reporters by sending terrible pitches or lying to protect clients destroys its own effectiveness.
Employee turnover kills agencies. PR involves long hours during crises, demanding clients, and sometimes ethically gray situations. Firms with high turnover lose institutional knowledge and client relationships. The best agencies invest in training, maintain reasonable workloads (relatively speaking), and create cultures where people stay.
Adapting to change matters more in PR than many industries. What worked five years ago—blast email pitches to journalists—actively hurts now. Firms that clung to old methods while media fragmented, social platforms rose, and content marketing exploded found themselves irrelevant. Adaptation doesn’t mean chasing every trend, but it does mean recognizing fundamental shifts in how information spreads and public opinion forms.