Perhaps the hottest public relations firm in Sweden over the past couple of years, Prime PR entered its 10th year in 2008 with fee income in excess of €10 million and close to 100 employees, enough to make it one of the two or three largest public relations firms in the Nordic market, and a growing reputation beyond the consumer arena where it made its name as it has grown its corporate and public affairs business as well as its consulting and analysis abilities.

 Prime was launched in 1998 by Carl Fredrik Sammeli and Folke Hammarlind and was named “rookie of the year” by the trade journal Resumé back in 2000. The firm hasn’t looked back since. It was more recently ranked first when the Swedish business daily Dagens Industri asked marketing and communications directors to identify their preferred public relations providers. Prime PR has achieved recognition beyond its domestic market in recent years, picking up a European SABRE Award for its work on behalf of the Swedish Dairy Organisation.  

Having initially established its reputation in the consumer public relations arena, the firm has diversified considerably and its business is now split into four roughly equal parts: consumer and lifestyle marketing; business-to-business and corporate communications; public affairs; and research and analysis, primarily through a business and lifestyle trends consulting unit called United Minds.  

Last year saw continued strong growth, with fee income up by better than 34 percent, and there was new business from SCA, Libresse, Tork, Wasabröd, SAAB, Audi, Stockholm County Council, Swedish Forest Industries Federation, Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, Anticimex, Dannemora Minerals, Abba Seafood, Bonnier, Almega (a forum for service companies), and The Association of Private Care Providers. Existing clients such as IKEA, The Swedish Institute and Alecta continued to expand the scope of their work with Prime, which also continues to work with blue-chip brands such as McDonald’s, TeliaSonera, Save the Children, Electrolux, and adidas. 

Highlights of the year included the European launch of Tork for SCA Hygiene Products, the Donken Rap campaign for McDonald’s, development of a global sales strategy for Cinnober; several qualitative surveys in China for The Swedish Institute; and the Let’s Design campaign for Libresse. “Prime has a phenomenal ability to repeatedly—and often under heavy time pressure—deliver creative and effective PR ideas that work not only in theory, but actually break through the media clutter in a fiercely competitive reality,” says Lars Joelsson, senior project manager for PR and media relations at TeliaSonera. And Ingela Stensson, director of communications at the Swedish Dairy Association, describes Prime as “smart, fast and flexible… and sometimes a little crazy.” 

Prime has close relations with affiliate agencies in Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, U.K., the Netherlands and the U.S. and its senior executives have considerable international experience.