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Technology and competitive pressures changed the landscape for public relations, advertising and marketing professionals in the state last year but also helped underline what hasn't changed in their business.
The year's biggest deal was the sale in October of The MWW Group, the largest independent public relations firm in New Jersey and one of the biggest in the country, to Chicago-based Golin/Harris International, part of the $5 billion publicly traded Interpublic Group of Companies. MWW is retaining its name and Michael Kempner is staying on as CEO.
There were other deals as well such as the mergers of The R&J Group, a Parsippany-based advertising and public relations firm with Cody Design, a Fairfield-based firm specializing in package design and point-of-sale materials and the acquisition of Danlee Public Relations, formerly of Red Bank, by New York City-based STC Associates
But among the firms which hung onto their independence, the top concern was coping with the changes that technology is bringing.
Alan Marcus, the head of The Marcus Group in Secaucus, has been in the business for some 30 years, through lean times and flush ones and takes a long view of the changes.
"Since our inception we have seen dial telephones give way to push buttons with automatic conferencing, manual typewriters give way to electrics and ultimately to personal computers,"...