"Public Affairs: Marrying High-Touch Influence with High-Tech Channels to Win Hearts and Minds"
Each day, elected and regulatory officials make decisions that could jeopardize a company's or industry's competitiveness or complicate a non-profit foundation's mission. Burson-Marsteller's Public Affairs professionals serve as trusted advisors to our clients, helping them build reputations and influence in the world's power centers, as well as navigate intensive, short-term policy battles. Our global Public Affairs network has the people, relationships, and expertise to help our clients achieve their public policy and business objectives by shaping the decision-making process -- in state capitals across the United States, Washington, D.C., Brussels, and other major capitals around the world.
Our approach integrates the best of traditional public relations and public education with state-of-the-art digital communications tools to deliver the right message, through the right messenger, to the right people, at the right time. We make your story personally relevant and compelling to each targeted audience segment, and we win the competition for that audience's hearts and minds by reaching them multiple times, through multiple "trusted sources." We deliver against your business goals and gauge our performance based on metrics consistent with those goals.
Our strategic thinking, our relationships with influentials, and our unparalleled execution of public affairs campaigns have been tapped by a wide range of clients, including industry and professional associations, corporations, nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. For more information on our Public Affairs specialties, please visit our Government and Energy pages.
Our network: built on our people
Burson-Marsteller's global Public Affairs network is built on the experience of our seasoned communications professionals, many of whom have served in high-level government capacities at the local, state, and national levels, or in the news media. In cities around the globe, our people are well-connected with traditional influencers, including government officials and operatives, influential journalists, and non-governmental organizations. At the same time, our professionals are well-versed in influencing online influencers, an essential component to almost any winning public affairs strategy.
Areas of expertise: an integrated public affairs approach
Burson-Marsteller's Public Affairs professionals know that a successful campaign is about more than media clippings and Web site hits; it is about driving desired behavior. We leverage the right combination of communications tools to educate and motivate each target audience, and we integrate them into a seamless whole campaign with greater impact than the sum of its parts. Our areas of expertise span both "off-line" and online communications, and include:
- Public education
- Social marketing
- Stakeholder outreach and engagement
- Multi-cultural and multi-lingual outreach
- Partnerships and ally development
- Grass-tops and grass-roots mobilization
- Media training
- Media relations
So, whether it's introducing the redesigned U.S. currency around the world, repositioning Hong Kong as a global city, or explaining energy deregulation to every consumer in Texas, Burson-Marsteller knows how to design and execute successful public education and social-marketing campaigns for public- and private-sector clients. For examples of these campaigns and more, please take a look at our case studies.
Burson-Marsteller offers the "total package"
In addition to the global public affairs reach of the Burson-Marsteller network, the Public Affairs Practice offers clients the expertise of:
- Prime Policy Group − Ranked by Fortune as one of Washington, D.C.'s, top government-relations companies, Prime Policy Group provides lobbying in all 50 states, as well as in Brussels and other European capitals.
- Direct Impact − Considered America's leading grassroots mobilization firm, Direct Impact has an unmatched network of field operatives throughout the United States who are ready to assist clients recruit and train allies and champions.
- Penn Schoen Berland − With almost 30 years of research-based market and political experience, Penn Schoen Berland is a leading research and strategic communications firm that brings the lessons learned on the campaign trail into the boardroom, providing its clients with strategic, actionable recommendations to help them win in the most competitive situations.