The 2025 PR Agency Review with W Communications founder Warren Johnson

It’s my twice yearly chat with W Communications founder and CEO Warren Johnson and today it’s our 2025 PR Agency Review of the Year.Warren founded W Communications in 2009. It now has global revenues of £25 m and a headcount of 200, with 140 in London and 60 across the rest of the world.Over the next half hour or so Warren and I will discuss the ups and downs of PR agency life over the last 12 months.Before that, the breaking news is that the PRmoment Awards final entry deadline is Friday 23 January. Don’t miss the opportunity to create proof points of the quality of your agency’s work.Also, check out the speaker programme for our latest PR Masterclass: The Intersection of PR and GEO. It’s another stellar line-up.SummaryWarren Johnson rated the PR agency market happiness index for Q1 as "three out of five" due to economic unease, but Q2 improved for W Communications due to diversification and a trend towards "silliness and frivolousness," while they rated Q4 as challenging due to "speurious pitches" and negative sentiment following a "disastrous budget." The discussion also highlighted the strength of corporate and B2B sectors, the volatility of consumer PR, the necessity of innovation and entrepreneurial agency behavior, and the positive impact of fractional hiring which benefits agencies by providing "phenomenally experienced ex clients." Warren predicts that 2026 will be "a real game of two halves," favouring innovative agencies, and expressed skepticism about AI's current efficiency in PR, suggesting it will allow experienced humans to do "even more work" while acting as a "real time bomb" by hindering junior development.DetailsPR Agency Happiness Index (Q1 and Q2) Ben Smith asked Warren Johnson for a hypothetical happiness index of the PR agency market at large, starting with Q1, which Johnson rated as "three out of five," characterizing it as uneasy and jittery due to negative sentiment in the wider economy. Ben Smith recalled starting 2025 positively, though political and geopolitical uncertainty soon challenged that outlook. Warren Johnson suggested that this constant disruption has become the "new normal". For Q2, Johnson noted that W Communications felt "quite good" due to heavy diversification, including spinning off their restaurant business, Chomp, and growing their influencer business, which was showing better monetisation. This period also coincided with a push in pop culture toward "silliness and frivolousness" to escape depressing global issues.Sectoral Performance and Innovation The discussion shifted to the performance of corporate, consumer, and B2B PR sectors in H1. Warren Johnson highlighted that corporate shops are having a moment, with some valuations moving them toward management consultancy models. B2B is thriving, supported by the ascendancy of LinkedIn and technology powered by AI. Consumer PR, however, is more volatile, experiencing good highs but also lows around the budget. Johnson stated that innovation is critical, as they experienced their best trading quarter ever in Q3, driven by diversification into specialized services like influencer and experiential marketing. They emphasized that agencies must be entrepreneurial and reward innovation, suggesting that clients post-COVID have increased their appetite to buy more from agencies.PR Agency Happiness Index (Q3 and Q4) and Economic Climate W Communications experienced their best trading quarter ever in Q3, predominantly driven by consumer work and specialized services due to extensive innovation. Warren Johnson noted that things started to slow down approaching the budget. Q4 was generally challenging due to "speurious pitches."