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-Leading global public relations and communications firm
-Subsidiary of Young & Rubicam, which is now owned by WPP Group.
Clients often engage Burson-Marsteller when the stakes are high: during a crisis, a brand launch or any period of fundamental change or transition. They come to us needing sophisticated communications campaigns built on knowledge, research and industry insights. Most of all, clients come to us for our proven ability to communicate effectively with their most critical audiences and stakeholders. We develop client programs using an Evidence-Based Communications approach.We provide our clients with:
- Public Relations
- Public Affairs/Government Relations
- Corporate Positioning
- Crisis Management
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Opinion Research
- Digital Marketing
- Organizational Communications
- Brand Marketing”
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Burson-Marsteller provides public relations and advertising services to clients, including multinational corporations and government agencies. Burson-Marsteller is primarily known for its crisis management services and political lobbying. It has won numerous awards from the public relations industry over the years for its work in high profile crisis management, including the late 1990s Asian financial crisis, a 2002 extortion attempt against British company GlaxoSmithKline, and a response described as the “gold standard” for its crisis management of the 1982 Chicago Tylenol poisonings. Other high profile crisis cases include the manufacturers of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station and Egypt following terrorist attacks on tourists in 1993. At times it has also been the subject of protests and criticism for its use of smearing and doubt campaigns (to undermine concerns about passive smoking for Philip Morris in the 1990s and anti-Google smear campaigning for Facebook in 2011) and its work for regimes facing severe human rights criticisms (Argentina and Indonesia). The firm also specializes in corporate PR, public affairs, technology and healthcare communications and brand marketing.
News
“One of the masterminds of Barack Obama’s groundbreaking online campaign model has joined Burson-Marsteller as chief strategy officer in the US.
Thomas Gensemer is departing Blue State Digital (BSD) after seven years as managing partner and CEO of the digital agency, which was acquired at the end of 2012 by Burson parent WPP.
At Burson, he will report to US CEO Dave Denherder, taking on the chief strategy officer role that was previously occupied by Don Baer, who became global CEO of the firm after the departure of Mark Penn to Microsoft last year.
According to a statement, Gensemer will ‘focus on developing integrated client campaigns, new product offerings and thought leadership strategies for the firm.'”
“News From the Advertising Industry”
The New York Times (7/14/2013)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
“Thomas Gensemer joined Burson-Marsteller, New York, part of the Young & Rubicam Group division of WPP, as United States chief strategy officer, a new post, reporting to Dave DenHerder, United States chief executive. Mr. Gensemer will be focused on tasks that include developing integrated campaigns for clients and new product offerings. Mr. Gensemer had been managing partner and chief executive at another WPP agency, Blue State Digital, known for its political and public-affairs work.”
Burson hires Blue State Digital CEO as strategy chief
http://www.prweekus.com/
USA Today (5/13/2011)
http://usatoday30.usatoday.
In a stunning mea culpa, Facebook on Thursday admitted that it was behind a whisper campaign to spread privacy fears about Google. Facebook says it never intended to smear the search giant.
Meanwhile, giant public relations firm Burson-Marsteller issued a statement saying it should have never agreed to carry out the assignment on Facebook’s behalf, and that it violated its own policies and procedures to do so. Burson confirmed on Thursday that it no longer works for Facebook.
The admissions follow a Tuesday story in USA TODAY detailing how Burson consultants approached top-tier media companies and high-profile technologists, on behalf of an unnamed client, to seed largely unfounded allegations about privacy shortcomings in Google’s Social Circle service. On Thursday, blogger Dan Lyons, of The Daily Beast, broke a story naming Facebook as Burson’s client.
Facebook issued a statement saying no smear campaign was authorized or intended. “We engaged Burson-Marsteller to focus attention on this issue, using publicly available information that could be independently verified by any media organization or analyst,” the statement said. “The issues are serious, and we should have presented them in a serious and transparent way.”
Those developments bring into sharp relief the escalating infighting between high-profile tech companies scratching to extract advertising profits from sensitive information disclosed to them by Internet users. (more)