BGR Group, one of Washington’s biggest lobbying firms whose clients include Verizon Communications Inc. and Mass General Brigham, has banded together with seven other shops around the country to form a new umbrella company, Advocus Partners.
The firms engage in federal and state lobbying, polling, messaging and public relations, coalition building, and grassroots advocacy and last year had combined revenue of $205 million, said executives with the group.
The deal is a sign of shifting strategies for the influence campaigns that frequently go well beyond Capitol Hill. The biggest lobbying enterprises increasingly deploy social media, messaging, and state-focused approaches. Some have pursued private equity investment to fund new business areas; another holding company went public.
Sign up for What to Know in Washington, a morning newsletter with the most important stories from Congress, the administration, and beyond.
“Like everyone else in this business, we saw advocacy change,” said Bob Wood, BGR’s chairman and CEO, who chairs the board of Advocus Partners. “For our core business of strategic communications and lobbying, we had to have many other components to be effective on Capitol Hill or in states.”
The other firms now under Advocus Partners are the Herald Group, which does communications for advocacy campaigns; Hilltop Public Solutions, a grassroots organizing firm; state and local lobbying enterprise Stateside Associates; Florida firm Capital City Consulting; the Sacramento-based Capitol Advocacy; the Tarrance Group, which does GOP political polling as well as nonpartisan issue advocacy surveys; and Hicks Partners, a Columbus, Ohio, lobby firm.
Remy Brim, a co-leader of BGR’s health care practice and a former health policy aide for Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), said the additional tools that the other specialties bring is increasingly needed in lobbying efforts.
“All of these health care fights have gotten more complicated,” said Brim whose registered clients include Mass General and Pfizer Inc. “It’s not just putting together a one-pager and going to the Hill. It’s about creating an echo chamber.”
Advocus may eventually expand its holdings, especially into state capitals and into artificial intelligence, executives said in interviews.
The firms plan to keep their names and offices, largely operating as before. But partners in each of the firms now have an ownership stake in the holding company, which in turn owns the eight shops.
BGR dates back to 1991 when Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and Mississippi governor, and Ed Rogers went into business and then formed Barbour Griffith & Rogers with Lanny Griffith the next year. They sold the business to Interpublic Group of Cos. in 1999, a trend of that era when big advertising and public relations conglomerates bought up a number of firms. BGR then bought itself back, as did other firms that sought to regain their independence.
Advocus isn’t the only K Street holding company. The Public Policy Holding Co., which owns some of the biggest federal lobbying firms including Crossroads Strategies and Forbes Tate Partners, went public in December 2021 on the Alternative Investment Market, a unit of the London Stock Exchange. PPHC also owns state lobbying and public affairs shops, including a Sacramento firm.
Wood said Advocus did not have plans to go public.
‘Light Bulb’
The “light bulb moment” for Advocus happened about three years ago, Wood said. BGR and some of the other firms quietly inked the deal last year, while the remaining shops joined as of March 1. Bloomberg Government is first to report the arrangement.
Craig Pattee, managing director of Advocus, said the holding company grew out of existing working relationships across the companies as they collaborated informally. The name stems from the Latin word for advocate, he said.
The company’s priority for this year is “learning how to run plays together,” he said.
Figuring out how to leverage AI is on the list for the near-term future, he said, noting that it’s hard to grow that organically indicating the potential for a future acquisition.
John Latimer, founder and managing partner of the Sacramento firm Capitol Advocacy, said state lobbying has also transformed.
“We’ve gone way past shoe leather lobbying,” he said. His firm lobbies for such clients as the California Hospital Association, Pacific Gas & Electric, and the California Retailers Association. “If you want to be successful, you need a lot more tools and different skills.”
Latimer said he’s watched as other firms sold to bigger enterprises. “If we wanted to maintain our position as a leader, we had to evolve,” he said, adding he found the Advocus deal appealing because “we all still operate our own business.”
Beyond Stalemate
Much of the outside-the-Beltway and messaging specialties aim to address stalemate on Capitol Hill.
“We all see with the gridlock in Washington right now, states, 40 of them have single-party control, red or blue, and they’re moving very fast,” Wood said.
Hill lobbying efforts often rely on grassroots organizing to pave the way for a visit up to the Capitol. “The federal members, they want to be hearing from entities of influence that matter in their home districts,” Wood said.
B.J. Martino, president and CEO of the polling firm Tarrance Group, said the deal was in line with his firm’s ambition of growing the advocacy portion of its business, beyond political campaign work.
“Research can be a big part of helping to develop the messages, help identify important, critical targets for understanding, either motivating or persuading,” Martino said. “This gives us the opportunity to be an integrated team when necessary.”
Brian May, a partner at the Florida firm Capital City Consulting, said he’s working on projects with some of the other shops but noted they’re all still getting to know each other.
“When you bring a number of firms like this together, you have to put the effort into it,” said May, who plans to host other Advocus shops for a mini-retreat in Florida next month.
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story: