Richard Edelman: ‘We would have been choked by the holding companies’
Digiday covers the latest from marketing and media at the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. More from the series →
Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman, inherited the family business from his father 40 years ago. Since then, he has expanded the company to 29 different countries, while remaining independent and family-held. Edelman discusses growth, challenges and marketing challenges in this episode of Starting Out: Cannes Edition.
Subscribe: iTunes | Google Play | Stitcher | RSS | Anchor
It’s not 40 years since I joined Edelman as a 23-year-old. My dad actually called me in March of that year, and I was all set to go to Playtex as a product manager. He said that DDB made an offer to buy Edelman, and he didn’t want to sell. He wanted me to come to Edelman for a year and see what it was like. Would I come to Edelman? I said OK. It was a little bit of obligation and family pride. I had a nice vacation planned after graduation, but he called me and said that they got a client, so I had to come in to work the day after graduation. So, I quickly learned what it was like to work in a family business.
I joined when we were [valued at] $6 million and five to six locations. Now, we’re nearly a billion dollars, and we’re in 65 locations. We’ve done it as a family business. We’re the only ones of size who are still private, independent and family-held. All the other PR firms sold out to WPP, Omnicom or others for the reason of synergy. My father thought we would be better off being entrepreneurial, being able to expand into adjacent areas like digital, creative, entertainment and experiential. We would have been choked by the holding companies. They demand high margins; they force big layoffs. We don’t. We focus on long-term growth.
Economies of scale work to a point. It works for us because we can serve our clients anywhere. But beyond a certain size, you get diseconomies of scale because you get slow and bureaucratic.
We are in a massive evolution period for PR. Historically, I would call a reporter, pitch a story because I know what you’re looking for, and the journalism platform is halved. The idea of our distribution channel being choked off is something I saw coming five years ago. We have to set up digital and social communities, and help clients go directly to users of information. Governments are paralyzed or corrupt in many parts of the world. So brands are waking up a new democracy. We have to push brands to do something, and not just talk.
More in Marketing
At the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Mastercard joins a pack of consumer brands flocking to Formula One
For marketers looking to align their brands with F1’s expanded appeal to audiences, the Las Vegas Grand Prix is providing a slip road into the sport.
Why PepsiCo and EA are expanding their partnership into mobile: A Q&A with PepsiCo vp of global sports and entertainment partnerships Adam Warner
The planned, multi-year nature of PepsiCo’s integration into “EA Sports FC” reflects that both PepsiCo and Electronic Arts are playing the long game as they look to step up the presence of ads inside and beyond EA’s portfolio of sports titles.
Key takeaways from Digiday’s 2024 Gaming Advertising Forum
Now that gaming has gone from a buzzword to a regular presence in brands’ media mix, marketers are more closely scrutinizing the value and ROI of their investments in this channel — and the platforms are rising to the challenge. Here are some of the biggest takeaways from this week’s Gaming Advertising Forum.