Political Contributions: A Look into Top PR Firms

With the Presidential election coming, thought it would be interesting to review the political giving in the form of contributions, from the large Public Relations, marketing, and public advertising conglomerates. In most cases, the period covered is the 2014 giving cycle.

Omnicom Group: Omnicom is an umbrella conglomerate including many entities, including Javelin, Proximity Worldwide, Rapp, Targetbase, Brodeur Worldwide, Fleishman-Hilliard, Ketchum, Pleon, and Porter Novelli.

Omnicom supported individual Republican candidate campaigns amounting to just under $240K and Democrats, $161.4K. When it came to PAC donations (Federal and State) – Omnicom contributed for Republican $49K and Democrat approximately $87K. They also supported other parties and PACs without specific party affiliations. Source.

FTI Consulting. FTI has more than 4,400 employees, representing clients in 27 countries and 6 continents. Their executive headquarters is in Washington DC. When it comes to contributions, all of them originated from individuals. Republican candidates received $92K, Democratic candidates received $72K. Source.

Interpublic Group: Interpublic agencies include Universal McCann and McCann Erickson. Interpublic made political contributions in excess of $388K. That included contributions to individual Republican candidates for almost $150K and Democratic candidates of almost $133K. They also donated $1300 to Republican PACs and $5,400 to Democratic PACS. And, out of $62K of contributions to parties and their committees, $47K went to the Democrats. Source.

WPP Group. WPP was founded in 1971 and is one of the world’s largest communication service providers, today employing over 166 thousand people. Total contributions in the 2014 cycle from individuals and organizations at WPP came to over $1.5 million. They gave almost $350K to individual Republican candidates and over $550K to Democratic candidates. Contributions to parties and party committees totaled $273K plus – of which approximately $165K went to the Democrats. Source.

MDC Partners: The scandal ridden Public Relations company gave very little to candidates. There is no information for 2014 listed. With donations coming to a whopping $2K, it seems that they don’t give to politics at all.  Source.

So now you know where the big firms and conglomerates stand on supporting political candidates and issues. What are your thoughts on political contributions being made from public and private companies? Voice your opinion in the comment section below!