PR Week’s 2018 Power Book is out, and an impressive piece of work it is. I know how hard it is to pull such things together; respect to all involved. Congrats to the winners. Of which there are about 900.
There is an online version of this document, but like most things, it is better in print.
What’s striking to a hack is the names that are missing.
So Sir Alan Parker is top of the agency list. Roland Rudd second. No knighthood yet Roland? Outrageous.
The next eight should have a duel at dawn in anger not being higher up. For our amusement.
Perhaps some on the list are better at doing PR for themselves than their clients. I only said perhaps.
The in-house list has Tesco’s Jane Lawrie at number one. Fair enough, though I can’t see why she is more important than Barclay’s Stephen Doherty at number three and strongly suspect he couldn’t care less. (She may not either.)
None of these fine people are more influential in PR than those who move in the background.
At the Daily Telegraph in the 1990s, some of us would be blessed with a call from a man we dubbed The Dark Prince*.
He’s still around. And his word remains more significant than anyone in PR Week’s list.
There’s a whole, unofficial world of flakery out there. We like those people best.
*This is one of those ones where five different guys who think they are The Dark Prince are going to brag to their mates, get drunk, then ring me and complain they are identifiable. All five of them.
