CorpComms Magazine

JOHN Fryer stood up to make his pitch. He knew exactly what was going through the minds of the people in front of him. Just weeks before, Fryer had been one of them: as the in-house head of press at the Financial Services Authority (FSA), he had sat through dozens of presentations from corporate communications agencies seeking work on one-off projects and campaigns. 

Fryer was fortunate that his first pitch for Polhill Communications, the financial PR agency he had just joined as consultant, was for a mandate related to the FSA. His knowledge of the organisation helped Polhill win the external communications role for Fund Distribution Limited, the £140m compensation scheme for victims of the split-level investment trust scandal, many of whom had incurred significant losses.

This was back in 2004, a time when the overriding trend was for agency PRs to move in-house, traditionally a more prestigious role, rather than the opposite route that Fryer was taking. 

However, Fryer has proved to be very much the forerunner to what has happened in the past 12 months. Only recently financial PR agency M:Communications lured Brigitte Trafford and Andrew Mills as senior consultants from their communication roles at, respectively, ITV and FTSE 100 packaging group Rexam. Jason Nisse became a director at Fishburn Hedges having left Barclays, where he was head of media relations, and only recently Robin Tozer also left Barclays where he was media relations manager, joining Brunswick as an associate. Brunswick is also Barclays' financial PR agency.

If the previous 18 months was known as the time when senior journalists went into PR, then the past 12 has been the year that agencies became sexy. 

Those who have taken the traditional career path are noting the trend with interest. Patrick Kerr, the director of corporate communications at FTSE-100 media giant Reed Elsevier, was a graduate trainee at Burson-Marsteller before taking on an in-house career that included Unilever, the food and cleaning products conglomerate and London First, the business lobby group. 

Kerr says that when he started his career, going in-house was seen as the golden route to stability, greater pay and status. However, he says that 'the assumption was challenged during the mergers & acquisitions boom earlier this decade', meaning that many corporate communications jobs were lost as companies merged functions with the groups they bought out. 

Kerr adds that the financial harm caused by the credit crunch has meant that in-house appointments have dried up: 'In the past 12 months, people have put off making those big hires, while agencies have consolidated their strength. The likes of Weber Shandwick and Edelman have expanded their scope and geographies,' he says. 

This extra 'scope' is just what attracted Barclays' Nisse to join Fishburn Hedges. At Barclays, there was a structural re-organisation, meaning that Nisse lost what he describes as 'most of the interesting work', such as an huge ongoing row over current account fees. Instead, Nisse's highlights became results and acquisitions. 

'In-house you get a sense of deja vu, unless there's something dynamic happening at the company,' Nisse explains. 'At an agency, I like that variety of different clients.' 

On its website, Fishburn Hedges lists financial services firms Oliver Wyman, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Barclaycard among Nisse's clients. There is also Ingenious Media, which backs Australian songstress Sia, and telecommunications monolith BT. 

Similarly, ITV's Trafford was attracted to M: because of its clients: 'I'd never done any agency work before, and I would be joining M: at a critical point in its story, as well as a roster of media clients including Virgin Media and Mecom,' she explains. 'I thoroughly enjoyed being in-house but it's interesting to broaden your experience.' 

The 'critical point' was that in February, four months prior to Trafford's appointment, M: had been bought by private equity giant The Riverside Company, signalling an expansion drive. Media is to be a major plank of that expansion, and that means that the contacts Trafford had developed in four years as ITV's group communications director can be put to their best possible use. Indeed, as one industry source puts it: 'M: is after their [Trafford and Mills] contacts books.' 

A leading consultant to the corporate communications industry points out that the key trend is not so much that in-house directors are migrating to agencies, but that there is 'greater fluidity' between the two. 

This 'fluidity' has developed as the money issue has started to be resolved. The disparity between in-house and agency - at least towards the top of the chain - has all but disappeared. Although a financial services PR director can expect an annual salary of between £180,000 to £300,000 plus incentives, a senior partner in an agency can earn almost as much through a £150,000 basic package with 100 per cent bonus. 

However, the bonus is dependent on bringing in clients, and Geraldine Davies, a partner at headhunter The Willis Partnership and a former director of corporate communications at Lloyds TSB and Prudential, warns: 'A well-established [in-house] person with experience of a large corporate brings gravitas to an agency, but they have to have the appetite to go out and sell to win work. There is always a thought that the grass is greener on the other side.' 

Fryer, the ex-FSA man who unknowingly helped pioneer the movement, agrees with Davies, saying that he had to 'change the mindset' to copy his in-house success at an agency. 'In-house, you're reporting to a tiered organisation, not just the chairman. While you don't get cluttered with all that organisation at an agency, you also don't have any experience of going out and pitching for work. People have to go through that transition period.' 

However, Fryer, pitching on his own, went out and won that big job on the split-level investment trust scandal barely a month in to his new role. Agencies will be hoping that their big name hires from major corporates can make the transition so easily.

share me: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Tweet