PR Budgets Average $2.7 Million

PR Tactics, a publication of the Public Relations Society of America, reports corporate budgets for public relations average $2.7 million in 2002, an increase from $2.25 in 2001. The Thomas L. Harris/Impulse Research Client Survey found that telecommunications firms outspend other sectors, averaging $8.04 million for PR budgets. Chemicals and plastics average $5.55 million; retailing, $3.96 million; energy, $3.68 million; and sports and entertainment, $3.52 million. Some of the PR spending goes to promoting new products. PR Tactics reports "a recent survey of 600 U.S. companies found that 87 percent of them introduced a new name for a product, service, or company in the last two years. ... Two-thirds reported that creating a new name was more difficult than in the past, perhaps given the influx of new monikers. What may surprise, however, was that 43 percent ... said they do not use research to test new names."