Durée & Company, a Fort Lauderdale and Aspen full-service public relations, marketing and special events firm celebrating its 20th anniversary year, has received the national distinction of being named to PRNEWS’ 2020 Agency Elite Top 100 list.
The inaugural honor spotlights the year’s most innovative and strategic PR firms in the United States. Durée & Company is one of three South Florida agencies named to the list, and one of only three U.S. agencies specializing in cannabis/CBD PR.
“This is an extraordinary national honor for Durée & Company. We are proud to be named to PRNEWS’ Agency Elite Top 100 list ― what a way to celebrate 20 years in business!” said Durée Ross, the firm’s president and founder. “We are pleased to be recognized among some of the largest and most longstanding PR agencies in the nation, as well as the smaller and mid-sized newer agencies ― all lauded for their innovation and strategic ideas.”
While it serves clients in many industries, Durée & Company is setting a precedent for other PR firms now working in the cannabis and hemp/CBD industries.
Realizing that the U.S. was on the brink of a “green rush” in 2018 during the time that the Farm Bill passed, Ross pursued the CBD industry and quickly started working with a number of clients in the space. Since then, the agency has experienced substantial growth and gained expertise in this practice area.
Durée & Company recently launched its own microsite, cannabismarketingpr.com, dedicated to its continued expansion into the booming cannabis and hemp/CBD industries. The microsite features information about Durée & Company’s comprehensive services in this arena, including PR and marketing, crisis prevention, influencer relations and much more.
“Through our work with the rapidly growing cannabis and hemp/CBD industries, as well as with the many other industries we serve, we are truly dedicated to creating unique and smart strategies to achieve success for our clients – and we continue to be forward-looking,” Ross added.
The Agency Elite Top 100 winners represent a wide range of both industry specializations and core capabilities, ranging from crisis communication, media relations, reputation management and public affairs to digital communications, social media, content creation and everything in between.
This year’s list – composed of boutique firms, mid-sized shops and monolithic, global organizations – demonstrates that size doesn’t always matter. Many of the smaller firms have gone head-to-head against firms much larger, proving that creative concepts and execution can be accomplished by teams of any size.
To compile its list, PRNEWS asked applicants about new products, services and expertise offered over the last year ― wanting to better understand how the most innovative companies in PR think. PRNEWS also sought to recognize how each of these agencies pivoted their businesses and assisted their clients across categories during the COVID-19 pandemic.
PRNEWS asked applicants to put on their “futurecast goggles” and share their views about the three trends they believe the industry will be talking about in the next five years. PRNEWS will be exploring many of these ideas in the months to come.
The PRNEWS team scored all of the entries across more than 12 criteria to highlight the standout agencies doing the most innovative work. Potential clients can filter according to industry specialization, core capability or both, depending on their specific needs.