Freud Communications
| Industry |
Advertising Public relations |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1985 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
Key people | Matthew Freud |
| Products |
Branding & identity Consumer insights Design Digital Marketing Market research Media planning and buying Public relations Relationship marketing |
Number of employees | 200 approx. |
| Website | Freud Communications |
Freud Communications is a public relations firm based in London. It was founded in 1985 by Matthew Freud—of the Public Relations dynasty of Edward Bernays—and great-grandson of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud). The PR firm of Edward Bernays became Britain's largest independent consumer PR firm.[1] The firm was bought in 1994 by another independent UK agency, Abbott Mead Vickers (AMV), in 1994 for about 10 million pounds only for Matthew Freud, together with other partners, to buy back the company in 2001, for a similar sum, when AMV was itself purchased by the US group Omnicom.[1][2]
The French Publicis Groupe (the third largest communications firm in the world) acquired a 50.1% stake in Freud Communications in June, 2005. In 2006 Freud purchased advertising agency DFGW. [3][4]
Freud Communications USA, which closed in February 2009, was based in New York City.[5] The company had a turnover in 2011 of around £40million per year, a staff of more than two hundred and has been ranked by PR Week in their ranking system as 6th in the UK.[6]
In 1999 Leapman reported in The Times that Freud Communications had offered an Internet brand management service to its clients. This would "scour the Net for references to its clients" and if they were criticised, "the agency would use rebuttal tactics to minimise the potentially negative impact of online inaccuracy".[7]
In 2007 PR Week ran a story documenting the use of WikiScanner to track anonymous edits and link them to organizations through their IP addresses and found that "Freud Communications' London office was caught making edits on behalf of clients." [8]
References
- 1 2 Hopkins, Nic (2005) Matthew Freud, The Times, June 17, Friday p. 55
- ↑ Ford, Emily (2010) Freud may break away from Publicis, The Times Thursday November 25, Page 63.
- ↑ Sweney, Mark (2011) Matthew Freud to buy back PR agency for the second time, The Guardian, Sunday 13 March (Accessed April 2013)
- ↑ Andrews, Amanda (2011) Matthew Freud buys back his PR firm from Publicis, The Telegraph 15 Apr (Accessed April 2013)
- ↑ HL Group absorbs Freud New York - Brand Republic News
- ↑ PR Week:Top-150-league-table 2011 (Accessed April 2013)
- ↑ Leapman, Michael (1999) Trade Digest The Times, June 11, Friday
- ↑ Shah, Aarti (2007) Tool draws attention to firms' Wikipedia edits, PR Week USA, Friday, 31 August (Accessed April 2013)
External links
- Official homepage
- Farsetta, Diane (4 September 2007). "Wikis Prove Tricky for PR Firms". PR Watch (Center for Media and Democracy). Retrieved 28 March 2011.