Burson Marsteller

Burson-Marsteller has launched Burson Campaigns, a corporate issues management division that will be based in Memphis, TN. Areas of expertise will include corporate reputation and business development.

The group will be led by Maury Lane, previously the director of issues, crisis, and public affairs comms at FedEx, which is also based in Memphis. He was also president and principal at Hill Country Communications, which specializes in PR for the hi-tech, telecom, and manufacturing areas, and public affairs.

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Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

Matthias Lüfkens, head of the World Economic Forum‘s digital group since 2004, is joining Burson-Marsteller to lead its digital team in the EMEA region starting February 1, 2012.

Lüfkens will be based in Geneva and will oversee a team that handles digital efforts including comms strategy, online reputation, and mobile marketing across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

In addition to his work for the World Economic Forum, Lüfkens has worked with a number of Fortune 500 companies, writes a column for a business magazine, Bilan, and speaks at tech events.

Burson-Marsteller has named Patrick Ford global vice chairman, client services and Dave DenHerder as U.S. CEO, both effective January 1. Ford’s is a newly-created role; he has been U.S. CEO since 2006. He’s been with the firm since 1989.

DenHerder has served as CEO of Direct Impact, B-M’s grassroots public affairs and corporate reputation firm since 2007. He joined the firm in 2005 and has led the Ford Motor Company account for WPP. Prior to joining the firm, he was a regional director for the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign and worked with the former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao.

Nicole Cornish, president of Direct Impact, will assume the role vacated by DenHerder. Laura Hall, consumer and brand marketing MD, will take over the Ford account.

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Burson-Marsteller has added a new offering to its consumer and brand marketing practice: Fan Experience will help clients further capitalize on their sponsorship buys across sports, arts, entertainment, and culture.

The offering builds on a program the firm has been using over the past year. B-M worked with MetLife to announce MetLife Stadium, organizing events and other comms programs, which led to further work with the company throughout 2011. Jason Teitler, managing director, of the U.S. consumer and brand marketing practice, said in a statement that brands must now turn “fan affinity into brand affinity.”

B-M also recently added the Caring Consumer group to this consumer practice, which is meant to help clients talk about their CSR efforts.

Burson-Marsteller is getting all touchy-feely and what not. Today the firm launched Caring Consumer, a subgroup of the consumer and brand marketing practices that also incorporates experts from the CSR and corporate groups to bring notice of corporate good deeds to the consumers who care.

A big part of the new group is the Consumer Care Package, a tool that analyzes a company’s CSR efforts versus the landscape for those efforts to show how a brand can reach consumers and what the ROI of that comms program would be.

Burson-Marsteller is taking a majority stake in Arcay Communications, an award-winning South African firm headquartered in Johannesburg. Arcay has an affiliate presence in 50-plus countries across Africa. B-M and Arcay have had a relationship since 2007. The firm will now be known as Arcay Burson-Marsteller.

Robyn de Villiers founded Arcay more than 20 years ago, and will now serve as chairman and CEO of the newly-formed firm.

 

Sabrina Guttman has been named U.S. deputy technology practice chair at Burson-Marsteller based in San Francisco and reporting to Jim Goldman, the U.S. chair for the firm’s tech practice.

Guttman had previously worked in the Burson tech group as a director from 2005 to 2007. Most recently, she was at Ruder Finn, where she spent a few months at the leader of the firm’s new tech and innovation practice. It was announced just a couple of weeks ago that she’d left the firm. Ruder Finn will be seeking a replacement.

She has also previously worked at Axicom U.S. where she served as a strategic counselor to Dell’s VP of global comms. During her 15-year career, Guttman also worked with tech companies including HP and Sun Microsystems.

Burson-Marsteller continues its focus on China with a new specialty group focused on the country, led by Daisy King. The practice will be based in New York.

King, the firm’s former market leader in the Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu offices will serve as MD in the corporate practice reporting to Jason Schechter, the practice chair. She joined the firm 11 years ago.

The new group will work with U.S.-based companies with comms needs in China, and Chinese companies seeking PR help here.

Burson-Marsteller China has launched D/BM, a digital and social media influencer practice. Zaheer Nooruddin, the firm’s lead digital strategist for Greater China, will lead the new practice.

The practice will provide online engagement and digital strategies, measurement and monitoring services, and identify influencers.

We spoke with Vibrant‘s Jonathan Gardner about digital trends across Asia. Gardner has lived and worked in the region, and recently paid a visit (just for fun). Check out some of that info here.

Burson-Marsteller has launched a global energy practice, pulling from the expertise of 100 of the firm’s international consultants.

Using oil issues in the Gulf of Mexico and the nuclear energy issues in Japan as examples, worldwide CEO Mark Penn said in a statement, “With energy demand anticipated to rise 40% in the coming decades and energy challenges becoming more extreme, strategic communications will be even more vital to success.”

The practice will be led out of B-M’s Beijing office. Leadership for the practice will include Bob Pickard in Asia Pacific, Mike Lake in North America, Ramiro Prudencio in Latin America, Bill Royce in Europe, and Stephen Worsley in the Middle East.

B-M launched a new tech practice, North of Nine, a couple of weeks ago.