L. Mart’s scientific contributions

The relationship between an agency and itsclient has a limited timescale. Thus far,research has primarily focused on therelationship between advertising agencies andtheir clients. Based on a study of the existingliterature, most of which is advertising based,this article explores the agency-clientrelationship for public relations agencies in theUK travel industry. Our model concentrates onthe four phases of client-agency relationships:agency selection; successful relationships;failing relationships; and agency switching.Several factors influence these four phases, butthis article focuses specifically on an underexaminedfactor: whether the size of a client’spublic relations agency might influence thenature of the relationship between a client andagency. UK travel companies with differentsized public relations agencies were interviewedto test the model and assess the impact ofagency size. We found evidence to suggest thatagencies should be aware of how their size mayinfluence client perception during the selectionprocess. Agencies similarly should be consciousthat their size might act as an indication of howclients perceive their ability, and indeed mayinfluence their client-agency relationship on anongoing basis. Attention to size-relatedperceptions may help prevent clients switchingagencies.