PR: AT CLOSE QUARTERS - How do advertising agencies and PR agencies work together? Helen Jones investigates.

Public relations, for so long the Cinderella of the marketing communications industry, has become an essential part of the mix as advertising agency groups strive to offer clients a one-stop shop and seamless integrated solutions.

In the past ten years, independent PR companies have been snapped up by agency holding groups, not only to generate public relations for clients but also to encourage mutually beneficial cross referrals and give the holding groups access to new areas such as investor relations and employee communications.

For many advertising agencies, it's about providing clients with more flexible solutions. Ogilvy & Mather, for example, says that it increasingly works not only with Ogilvy PR but also other PR companies within the WPP Group, including Hill & Knowlton on the launch of the Ford Street Ka.

O&M's chief executive, Paul Jackson, says: 'The intention is to create a great creative idea early on and then see how it can work in terms of PR or direct marketing. It's not about stretching the idea but coming up with a big idea that will encompass other disciplines and can be used in a variety of ways.'

So how does the relationship between ad agency and PR company work in real terms, within the same holding group?

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Cilla Snowball, the chief executive of Abbott Mead Vickers , says the relationship between the agency and the PR specialists within the Omnicom Group, which include Ketchum, Porter Novelli International and Fleishman-Hillard, is only the tip of the iceberg. 'Lots of big integrated accounts operate across every area - advertising, PR, direct marketing, media planning and buying, not just a selected few.' However, AMV has worked with Ketchum, for example, on the Pepsi account.