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.
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The company started up in 1946, in St. Louis, Missouri with only the two founders, Alfred Fleishman and Bob Hillard.[1] Then for more than twenty years their customer base was largely limited to regional clients.[1] John Graham who as of 2010[ref] serves as chairman, was president of the company from 1974 to 2006. Under his command the company grew to encompass offices on six continents.[1] Graham was succeeded by Dave Senay. Senay is the company's third and current[ref] CEO. The company was acquired by Omnicom Group in 1997. The latest office to adjoin the FH network has been a Swedish affiliate.
According to the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform Minority Office, Fleishman-Hillard received the following amounts per year, for federal PR contracts:[2]
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."
According to the Center for Responsive Politics 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.[3]
In a listing on its website of PR companies with a crisis management capability, the American Meat Institute 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."[4]
According to O'Dwyer's PR Report, in mid-2004 F-H clients included:
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.[20]
In May 2004, San Francisco Chronicle 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.[21] 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."[22]
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.[23] 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.[24] 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.
Fleishman-Hillard was granted a contract for the State of Ohio for an anti-overdose campaign, newspapers pointed to a potential conflict of interest as they previously worked for Purdue Pharma and managed crisis communications for their highly addictive product OxyContin.[25]
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 Brown. "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.[26]
In June 2005, Kevin Bell, Fleishman-Hillard UK CEO, spoke at a one-day conference in London titled 'ID Cards: Towards Procurement and Implementation'. The title of his talk was "Achieving public acceptance".[27]
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.