It’s earnings season again, the first that involves a quarter that was fully impacted by COVID-19. So what effect did the pandemic have on the Q2 earnings of large public relations firms?

O’Dwyer’s: “Omnicom’s PR group suffered a 15.3 percent drop in Q2 revenues to $295.8M as the COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on its travel, lodging, entertainment, energy, retail and automotive clients. Organic growth slipped 13.9 percent.”

Wall Street Journal: “IPG reported second-quarter net revenue of $1.85 billion, a decrease of 12.8% from the same time period last year. Organic net revenue—a measure that strips out currency effects, acquisitions and disposals—fell 9.9%, IPG said, citing the impact of the global economic contraction during the quarter.”

O’Dwyer’s: “FTI Consulting posted a 3.8 percent dip in Q2 strategic communications revenues to $56.8M, while operating income slipped 3.7 percent to $8.8M. First-half revenues fell 1.2 percent to $115.3M and operating income declined 15.5 percent to $16.3M.”

AdWeek: “In the U.S., Publicis Groupe’s organic growth declined 6.8% for Q2 and 3.3% for the first half of the year, aided by positive growth in Q1. Sadoun pointed out that organic growth was still positive on the year going into May, which he said showed the strong headwind the holding company had enjoyed heading into 2020 in the region.”