July 1st, 2024, marked the official launch of Burson, a global communications leader creating value for clients through reputation to enable innovation, growth, and leadership. The brand identity and new client and talent offerings will articulate Burson’s expertise in delivering creative and compelling solutions for building reputational capital.
“Businesses and organizations are operating in a constant state of complexity and uncertainty, marked by rapid advancements in technology, economic volatility, wide-ranging activism, and social and geopolitical turbulence,” said Corey duBrowa, Global CEO, Burson. “A strong reputation grounded in action, communicated clearly and creatively, and deployed as capital across stakeholders will enable clients to succeed in this environment. Reputation is a company’s most valuable asset for enhancing perception and growing performance, preference, valuation and return.”
Burson launched its new visual identity and value proposition across all global channels, articulating its modern approach to reinventing how reputation is built and protected in today’s dynamic environment. To bring this new positioning to life, Burson introduced a series of products and programs to empower its counselors and creators to solve clients’ challenges across sectors and markets. The new visual identity, inspired by the power of light to illuminate insights and reveal opportunity, reinforces the company’s commitment to counseling clients with bold creativity and advisory solutions.
Relentless Innovators
Burson is introducing a new framework and consulting methodology to assess and actively manage “reputation capital” across four pillars: Company actions, communications, social narratives and stakeholder beliefs. Underpinning this work is the Burson Innovation Portfolio, a body of AI-enabled tools that, when paired with human intelligence, enables faster, better insights; precision audience targeting; and culturally relevant creative. These solutions – core components of the PR Studio of WPP Open, WPP’s AI-powered marketing operating system – include five suites that serve a continuum of client needs:
• The Sonar Suite, which anticipates and evaluates risk through social narrative intelligence;
• The Decipher Suite, which predicts the impact of proactive and defensive communications; the impact of themes globally and regionally; and emerging cultural trends;
• The Creators’ Suite, which creates audience-specific content at scale, by identifying both the supply and demand of information online as well as white space in narratives;
• The Specialists’ Suite, which trains Burson’s AI tools on specific industry sectors; and,
• The Fount Suite, which takes an aggregated view of the data across the life cycle of a campaign to measure and optimize performance.
“In today’s complex operating environment, business leaders are converting pervasive risks into opportunities for innovation and value creation,” said AnnaMaria DeSalva, Global Chairman, Burson. “The Burson Innovation Portfolio, which draws on the technology strengths of our combined agencies and WPP, reflects our promise to combine artificial and human intelligence in ways that help our clients succeed at the intersection of risk, creativity and reinvention. Leading companies are already leveraging these solutions to build and protect reputation in highly material situations. We are committed to both our clients and our employees that Burson will be an engine for their growth and for the enablement of the transformations that the world needs now.”
Experts at Scale
Burson applies its proprietary approach to reputation across the Burson Group, a streamlined suite of agencies with scale across today’s most transformational industries and anchored by the flagship full-service Burson brand. They include:
• Axicom, the earned-first global communications agency for tech brands and brands with a tech story,
• Burson Buchanan, newly rebranded from Buchanan Communications, the financial communications and capital markets advisory firm,
• GCI Health, the full-service global healthcare agency inspired by people,
• Hill & Knowlton, a full-service global firm and proven partner for business and brand transformation, providing strategic communication, marketing and corporate affairs solutions.
“A powerful differentiator across the Burson Group is the considerable number of former chief communications officers and senior client advisers among our ranks who have hands-on experience managing the issues and opportunities that clients face every day,” said duBrowa. “AnnaMaria and I both had long careers in-house, and we know the enormous value this perspective brings to clients. Our team of seasoned counselors – with their access to industry-leading, AI-first technologies and creative firepower – is unrivaled in the marketplace.”
Lifelong Learners
Burson is also unveiling its new learning academy focused on client leadership and skills development to ensure teams are exceptionally well-versed to counsel clients today and tomorrow and are trained on a consistent, global, “one Burson” approach.
“Burson Persons past and present – and certainly future – are known for being high performers who are never satisfied with the status quo, remain relentlessly curious and are constantly striving to improve,” duBrowa noted. “We are pleased to introduce The Burson Academy for the next generation of agency leaders and to continue this important tradition of rigorous professional development.”
The Burson Academy offers curricula under four pillars: Leadership, for career navigation, management and leadership growth; Client Excellence, for building strong consultative client relationships; the Craft of reputation management, with focus on writing, media relations, issues management and creative; and AI/Innovation, for development in data & analytics, AI, the Burson Innovation Portfolio and new ways of working.
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