Fleishman-Hillard
Encyclopedia
Fleishman-Hillard International Communications, based in St. Louis, Missouri
, is one of the world's largest public relations
agencies, with a global network of offices as well as offices in 22 cities in the United States. It is a part of Omnicom Group
Inc.
with only the two founders, Alfred Fleishman
and Bob Hillard
. Then for more than twenty years their customer base was largely limited to regional clients. John Graham
who serves as chairman, was president of the company from 1974 to 2006. Under his command the company grew to encompass offices on six continents. Graham was succeeded by Dave Senay. Senay is the company's third and CEO. The company was acquired by Omnicom Group
in 1997. The latest office to adjoin the FH network has been a Swedish affiliate.
The firm's federal work has included the Social Security Administration
, on the “Ticket to Work
” program for disabled and blind Social Security recipients; Library of Congress
; Environmental Protection Agency
; Department of Defense
, to introduce “managed care” to 8.3 million current and former employees, at a time of “rising medical costs” and “decreasing resources”; and Office of National Drug Control Policy
, to “debunk the misconception that marijuana was harmless."
database, Fleishman-Hillard federal political action committee
had raised more than $79,000 as of October for the 2004 election cycle, with 47% of the donations given at that point going to Democrats, and 53% to Republicans. In the 2002 election cycle, the PAC gave 48% of the $59,800 raised to Democrats, and 52% to Republicans. In 2000, 44% of the $40,900 raised went to Democrats, 56% to Republicans. In 1998, 45% of the $37,250 raised was given to Democrats, 55% to Republicans.
described F-H in the US as having "managed crises for the oil, railroad, airline, meat, poultry, produce and high-tech communications industries. Fleishman currently is on retainer for the Partnership for Food Safety Education."
Other clients include:
In August 2004, PR Week reported that the Chicago
office of F-H were advising PepsiCo
with a campaign to respond to concern about rising levels of obesity. The campaign was promoting the company's "Smart Spot" on a range of products which it claims contribute to a healthy lifestyle.
reporter David Lazarus questioned whether codes of conduct were broken when Marc Bien, who he interviewed with the understanding that Bien was Vice-President of Corporate Communications for the telecommunications giant SBC Communications
, was actually found to be an employee of F-H. Lazarus wrote, in a follow-up article on a possible strike at SBC: "I quoted an SBC spokesman the other day defending the company's use of hundreds of outside contractors—a contentious issue in the contract talks with union members. Turns out, according to internal SBC documents, that the spokesman, Marc Bien, himself is a 'nonemployee' who is actually on the payroll of public- relations powerhouse Fleishman-Hillard. He is, in other words, an outside contractor, as are dozens of other Fleishman employees who assist with SBC's corporate spin. What makes the case unusual, though, is that Bien, who has appeared in this column many times representing SBC's position on a variety of matters, bears the title of SBC vice president of corporate communications. His business cards say as much, and he works in the firm's San Francisco office. Internal documents show that about a half-dozen SBC vice presidents are in reality Fleishman employees. Yet they present themselves as SBC executives."
The City of Los Angeles
sued Fleishman Hillard and the general manager of its Los Angeles office in 2005 for defrauding the city and padding its bills, including falsifying timesheets, when F-H did work for its Department of Water and Power programs from 1998 to 2004. In April 2005, Fleishman Hillard issued a public apology and paid a $5.7 million settlement to the city.
The firm responded that “On the basis of that investigation, the agency believes some senior executives of the Los Angeles office, who are no longer with the firm, caused certain bills to be presented to the city that appear to be improper and indefensible." The lawsuit came about after the Los Angeles Times
ran a series of investigative stories.
As a result of the case, several of the firm’s executives were terminated.
in 1989 Standley H. Hoch left the General Dynamics Corporation in St. Louis and joined G.P.U., the large Parsippany, N.J., utility that owns the Three Mile Island nuclear plant as CEO. Mr. Hoch had two mandates: trim management and lower costs, and fight to repeal the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935, which makes it difficult for utilities to operate across state lines.
In 1990 , G.P.U. paid about $600,000 to Fleishman-Hillard, G.P.U.'s only outside public relations agency, largely to supplement the company's lobbying effort. Early in 1991 , Hoch hired Susan Schepman away from the agency. Energy reporters say she spent much of her time placing Mr. Hoch in the forefront of the debate over the act's repeal.
Everything was fine until April 1991, when an anonymous letter sent to G.P.U.'s board and to a local regulatory commission exposed the intimate relationship between Mr. Hoch and Ms. Schepman, suggesting that it predated their arrival at G.P.U. The letter contended that Ms. Schepman had influenced Mr. Hoch to hire her agency without competitive bidding. Ms. Schepman had, in fact, been one of Fleishman Hillard's executives responsible for the General Dynamics account when Mr. Hoch was there.
Recent controversy involving Fleishman-Hillard and The State of Ohio http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february192010/oxy_ohio_ms.php
. "Warning multinational bosses that the next Labour premier's philosophy is built on - wait for it - equity, the booklet predicts Brown will centralise power around himself," Maguire wrote.
In June 2005, Kevin Bell, Fleishman-Hillard UK CEO, spoke at a one-day conference in London called ID Cards: Towards Procurement and Implementation. The title of his talk was "Achieving public acceptance".
Fleishman-Hillard was rated 'International Agency of the Year 2005' by the Holmes Report. In 2004, for the 12th consecutive year, Fleishman-Hillard was ranked by clients of other agencies as having the industry's highest reputation for quality; in comparison with the 37 firms measured in the survey, Fleishman-Hillard ranked first in brand awareness among clients of other agencies for the 3rd year in a row (Thomas L Harris / Impulse Research Survey).
So far, as at February 2007, the firm has been awarded 87 Silver Anvils from the PRCA Silver Anvil Award Program, 76 Sabre Awards, 27 CIPRA Awards. The Dublin office, Fleishman-Hillard Saunders, has received 26 PRCA Awards since 1996, including a Supreme Award for Excellence in Public Relations in 2000.
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, is one of the world's largest public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
agencies, with a global network of offices as well as offices in 22 cities in the United States. It is a part of Omnicom Group
Omnicom Group
Omnicom Group is a holding company whose agencies provide marketing and communications services in the disciplines of advertising, customer relationship management , strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and...
Inc.
History
The company started up in 1946, in St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
with only the two founders, Alfred Fleishman
Alfred Fleishman
Alfred Fleishman , was co-founder, with business partner Robert Hillard, of Fleishman-Hillard, the St. Louis-based public relations firm that began in a rented room above a Woolworth’s store and has grown to become one of the world’s largest public relations agencies...
and Bob Hillard
Robert E. Hillard
Robert E. Hillard , together with his friend and business partner Alfred Fleishman, established Fleishman-Hillard in St. Louis, Missouri in 1946...
. Then for more than twenty years their customer base was largely limited to regional clients. John Graham
John Graham
- Politics and history :*John de Graham , Scottish soldier*John Graham, Earl of Menteith*John Graham, 3rd Earl of Montrose , Scottish peer*John Graham, 4th Earl of Montrose, , Scottish peer...
who serves as chairman, was president of the company from 1974 to 2006. Under his command the company grew to encompass offices on six continents. Graham was succeeded by Dave Senay. Senay is the company's third and CEO. The company was acquired by Omnicom Group
Omnicom Group
Omnicom Group is a holding company whose agencies provide marketing and communications services in the disciplines of advertising, customer relationship management , strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and...
in 1997. The latest office to adjoin the FH network has been a Swedish affiliate.
U.S. Government PR Contracts
According to the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform Minority Office, Fleishman-Hillard received the following amounts per year, for federal PR contracts:- $39,000 in 1998
- $33,589,000 in 1999
- $2,344,000 in 2000
- $5,011,996 in 2001
- $23,903,419 in 2002
- $3,433,690 in 2003
- $8,686,529 in 2004
The firm's federal work has included the Social Security Administration
Social Security Administration
The United States Social Security Administration is an independent agency of the United States federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability, and survivors' benefits...
, on the “Ticket to Work
Ticket to Work
The American Social Security Administration’s Ticket to Work program is part of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999...
” program for disabled and blind Social Security recipients; Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
; Environmental Protection Agency
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
; Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
, to introduce “managed care” to 8.3 million current and former employees, at a time of “rising medical costs” and “decreasing resources”; and Office of National Drug Control Policy
Office of National Drug Control Policy
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy , a former cabinet level component of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, was established in 1989 by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988...
, to “debunk the misconception that marijuana was harmless."
Political Action Committee
According to the Center for Responsive PoliticsCenter for Responsive Politics
The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-profit, nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics and the effect of money and lobbying activity on elections and public policy and maintains a public online database of its information.Their database...
database, Fleishman-Hillard federal political action committee
Political action committee
In the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a...
had raised more than $79,000 as of October for the 2004 election cycle, with 47% of the donations given at that point going to Democrats, and 53% to Republicans. In the 2002 election cycle, the PAC gave 48% of the $59,800 raised to Democrats, and 52% to Republicans. In 2000, 44% of the $40,900 raised went to Democrats, 56% to Republicans. In 1998, 45% of the $37,250 raised was given to Democrats, 55% to Republicans.
Capabilities
In a listing on its website of PR companies with a crisis management capability, the American Meat InstituteAmerican Meat Institute
The American Meat Institute is the oldest and largest trade association representing the U.S. meat and poultry industry.-Information:Originally founded in 1906 in Chicago as the American Meat Packers Association, the American Meat Institute is a trade association that provides leadership to...
described F-H in the US as having "managed crises for the oil, railroad, airline, meat, poultry, produce and high-tech communications industries. Fleishman currently is on retainer for the Partnership for Food Safety Education."
Clients
According to O'Dwyer's PR Report, in mid-2004 F-H clients included:- the state of IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, "to handle PR and public affairs to prevent the closure of Scott Air Force BaseScott Air Force BaseScott Air Force Base is a base of the United States Air Force in St. Clair County, Illinois, near Belleville.-Overview:The base is named after Corporal Frank S. Scott, the first enlisted person to be killed in an aviation crash...
in the southern part of the state"
- NovellNovellNovell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
, Sun MicrosystemsSun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
and JD Edwards, in a San Francisco-based "effort to use customer outreach programs to add their voice to clients' PR, sales and marketing efforts"
- Great Plains AirlinesGreat Plains AirlinesGreat Plains Airlines was a regional airline headquartered out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States. The airline was founded in 2001 a mix of tax credits and government loans totaling $27 million and expanded rapidly, filing with the Air Transportation Stabilization Board for a guarantee of $17...
, a short-lived St. Louis-based service that declared bankruptcy after four months
- Circuit City, a $1 million account.
Other clients include:
- Democratic Party of Japan
- HBOSHBOSHBOS plc is a banking and insurance company in the United Kingdom, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lloyds Banking Group having been taken over in January 2009...
, the UK’s biggest mortgage and savings bank (Sub req'd)
- Quickie Manufacturing Corporation
- AtheroGenics Inc
- Marriott HotelsMarriott InternationalMarriott International, Inc. is a worldwide operator and franchisor of a broad portfolio of hotels and related lodging facilities. Founded by J. Willard Marriott, the company is now led by son J.W. Marriott, Jr...
and Ritz-Carlton HotelsRitz-Carlton Hotel CompanyThe Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. is the parent company to the luxury hotel chain, Ritz-Carlton Hotels. The hotel company is a subsidiary of Marriott International...
- Mexicana Airlines
- National Association of Insurance CommissionersNational Association of Insurance CommissionersThe National Association of Insurance Commissioners is an Internal Revenue Code Section 501 non-profit organization which seeks to organize the regulatory and supervisory efforts of the various state insurance commissioners from around the United States. The NAIC was formed in 1871. Its current...
- California Grown
- EgyptEgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
- San Joaquin County
- AT&TAT&TAT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
is a long standing client, both domestically and internationally.
In August 2004, PR Week reported that the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
office of F-H were advising PepsiCo
PepsiCo
PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company...
with a campaign to respond to concern about rising levels of obesity. The campaign was promoting the company's "Smart Spot" on a range of products which it claims contribute to a healthy lifestyle.
Controversy
In May 2004, San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
reporter David Lazarus questioned whether codes of conduct were broken when Marc Bien, who he interviewed with the understanding that Bien was Vice-President of Corporate Communications for the telecommunications giant SBC Communications
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
, was actually found to be an employee of F-H. Lazarus wrote, in a follow-up article on a possible strike at SBC: "I quoted an SBC spokesman the other day defending the company's use of hundreds of outside contractors—a contentious issue in the contract talks with union members. Turns out, according to internal SBC documents, that the spokesman, Marc Bien, himself is a 'nonemployee' who is actually on the payroll of public- relations powerhouse Fleishman-Hillard. He is, in other words, an outside contractor, as are dozens of other Fleishman employees who assist with SBC's corporate spin. What makes the case unusual, though, is that Bien, who has appeared in this column many times representing SBC's position on a variety of matters, bears the title of SBC vice president of corporate communications. His business cards say as much, and he works in the firm's San Francisco office. Internal documents show that about a half-dozen SBC vice presidents are in reality Fleishman employees. Yet they present themselves as SBC executives."
The City of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
sued Fleishman Hillard and the general manager of its Los Angeles office in 2005 for defrauding the city and padding its bills, including falsifying timesheets, when F-H did work for its Department of Water and Power programs from 1998 to 2004. In April 2005, Fleishman Hillard issued a public apology and paid a $5.7 million settlement to the city.
The firm responded that “On the basis of that investigation, the agency believes some senior executives of the Los Angeles office, who are no longer with the firm, caused certain bills to be presented to the city that appear to be improper and indefensible." The lawsuit came about after the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
ran a series of investigative stories.
As a result of the case, several of the firm’s executives were terminated.
in 1989 Standley H. Hoch left the General Dynamics Corporation in St. Louis and joined G.P.U., the large Parsippany, N.J., utility that owns the Three Mile Island nuclear plant as CEO. Mr. Hoch had two mandates: trim management and lower costs, and fight to repeal the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935, which makes it difficult for utilities to operate across state lines.
In 1990 , G.P.U. paid about $600,000 to Fleishman-Hillard, G.P.U.'s only outside public relations agency, largely to supplement the company's lobbying effort. Early in 1991 , Hoch hired Susan Schepman away from the agency. Energy reporters say she spent much of her time placing Mr. Hoch in the forefront of the debate over the act's repeal.
Everything was fine until April 1991, when an anonymous letter sent to G.P.U.'s board and to a local regulatory commission exposed the intimate relationship between Mr. Hoch and Ms. Schepman, suggesting that it predated their arrival at G.P.U. The letter contended that Ms. Schepman had influenced Mr. Hoch to hire her agency without competitive bidding. Ms. Schepman had, in fact, been one of Fleishman Hillard's executives responsible for the General Dynamics account when Mr. Hoch was there.
Recent controversy involving Fleishman-Hillard and The State of Ohio http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february192010/oxy_ohio_ms.php
Fleishman-Hillard and UK politics
In April 2005, Kevin Maguire wrote of F-H distributing a glossy brochure to their clients sketching the likely changes that could be expected under a Labour government led by Gordon BrownGordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...
. "Warning multinational bosses that the next Labour premier's philosophy is built on - wait for it - equity, the booklet predicts Brown will centralise power around himself," Maguire wrote.
In June 2005, Kevin Bell, Fleishman-Hillard UK CEO, spoke at a one-day conference in London called ID Cards: Towards Procurement and Implementation. The title of his talk was "Achieving public acceptance".
Fleishman-Hillard was rated 'International Agency of the Year 2005' by the Holmes Report. In 2004, for the 12th consecutive year, Fleishman-Hillard was ranked by clients of other agencies as having the industry's highest reputation for quality; in comparison with the 37 firms measured in the survey, Fleishman-Hillard ranked first in brand awareness among clients of other agencies for the 3rd year in a row (Thomas L Harris / Impulse Research Survey).
So far, as at February 2007, the firm has been awarded 87 Silver Anvils from the PRCA Silver Anvil Award Program, 76 Sabre Awards, 27 CIPRA Awards. The Dublin office, Fleishman-Hillard Saunders, has received 26 PRCA Awards since 1996, including a Supreme Award for Excellence in Public Relations in 2000.
External links
- Fleishman-Hillard International Communications website
- sourcewatch GFDL documentation on Fleishman-Hillard
- David Lazarus, "Union, SBC Talks Resume," San Francisco Chronicle, May 5, 2004.
- American Meat Institute, "Public Relations Firms With Crisis Management Capabilities, accessed February 8, 2004.
- Andrew Davis, "Fleishman-Hillard: Out in Front of the Competition", Windy City Times, December 15, 2004. (This is an interview with F-H's Phillip Sontag about its launch of a gay and lesbian PR and marketing practice, FH Out Front).
- "CREW Files Complaint Against Social Security Administration -- SSA Paid Fleischman-Hillard $1.8 million", Media Release, February 23, 2005.
- Dan Bloch, "F-H to highlight HBOS’s social banking agenda", PR Week, April 1, 2005. (Sub req'd)
- "Former Fleishman-Hillard L.A. chief sues for wrongful termination", The Mercury News, March 30, 2005. (This is an Associated Press story).
- Kevin Maguire, "The insider - Kevin Maguire on election brochures and butties", New Statesman, April 18, 2005.
- Philip Dine, "Illinois spends at least $3 million lobbying to save military bases", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 5, 2005.
- "Koizumi and chief rival a study in contrasts", Mainichi Daily News, September 5, 2005.
- Alex Black, "F-H bags Egypt attempt to woo foreign investors", PR Week, September 9, 2005. (Sub req'd).
- Les Mahler, "San Joaquin County retains D.C. lobbyist: Vote to keep Fleishman-Hillard touches off debate", Tri-Valley Herald, October 30, 2005.
- Bob Evans, "How a company cashed in on anthrax", Kansas City Star, December 9, 2005. (Originally published in Daily Press, Newport News, Va.)
- overbilling controversy with LA Dept of Water and Power
- Tana Butler, One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, NOT: Sorry, “Healthy” Mr. Potato Head, in which a Fleishman-Hillard employee makes a fool of herself and the National Potato Board