ABSTRACT
I n 2001, the IT sector was a growth area in the UK PR industry, in terms of statureand earnings. According to PR Week, during 1998 the UK’s top 150 technology sectorPR agencies generated a combined fee income of £86 million, accounting for 19 per cent of the PR industry’s total fee income that year. Once perhaps considered the unglamorous preserve of specialist business-to-business agencies, the IT sector is forging ahead in terms of attracting clients from the lucrative internet and new media marketplace. With computing and the internet becoming increasingly mainstream, IT companies were asking PR agencies to reach general audiences alongside the ‘traditional’ publics of IT analysts and the press, while many consumer campaigns included an internet/web component. As a spokesperson for PR Week pointed out during late 1999: ‘There’s a lot of “dot com” [website] business around, and the technology agencies are benefiting.’
