23 June 2006

Preacher man…

So a couple of weeks ago PR Week published the Top 50 Tech Agencies league table; a slightly flawed affair that we and others posted about. Judging by the comments on our post, the most intruiging thing seemed to be the absence of Lewis PR from the table.

The official (though rather odd) reason given was that Lewis was “washing its hair”…sorry, that it wanted “to focus on international growth”. Of course, it was all too easy to assume that Lewis declined to submit numbers because they might paint a less than complimentary picture with regard to the agency’s performance over the past 12 months.

And anyway, isn’t it up to any individual agency as to whether it chooses to submit numbers? Well, we don’t think so – if you’re in, you’re in…you can’t pick and choose when it looks good – and our feelings are certainly backed up by the comments of one high-profile PR blogger.

After the publication of last year's Tech Top 50, he wrote:

“Then where's Firefly? Mark Mellor, its head honcho, has time to comment but no numbers to submit? Surely it's the responsibility of respected firms to be transparent about performance? Fortunes will wax and wane - we all know that (LEWIS UK only reported 1% growth in 2003) - but I don't think the response should be to yo-yo in and out of the tables at a whim.”

Quite.

And who was it that penned these wise words? Only Morgan McLintic.

That’s right…the same Morgan McLintic who's a Vice President at, umm, oh yes, Lewis PR.

Funny, he was rather quieter regarding this year's table.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lewis entered the US PR Week league tables which came out a month prior to the UK ones. So why enter one and not the other?

....the world's leading.... said...

Yes, it does seem odd.

If you read the Lewis profile in the US PR Week tables(here - www.prweek.com/us/search/article/554073/ - but you'll need a sign in) then it all sounds positive enough (growth in all regions, etc).

Sure, the revenue growth tells a story - 62% up in the US 2005 over 2004 but 'only' 20% up globally in the same period - but the revenue in the US is that much smaller at the moment that big figure growth is still possible.

Anonymous said...

I see Morgan's still not popped round here to defend himself.