Our Heritage

“Our Most Significant Defining Moment: Establishing a Burson-Marsteller Presence in Europe”
Harold Burson

Burson-Marsteller has its roots in a one-employee business started by Harold Burson in 1946, operating as Harold Burson Public Relations. Following a breakfast meeting with Bill Marsteller at the Plaza Hotel in New York the first Saturday in 1953, a new public relations firm jointly-owned by the Marsteller agency and Harold Burson was created.

In November 1959 when Burson-Marsteller decided to establish a presence in Europe, there were three Burson-Marsteller offices in the United States with a commitment to opening a fourth in Toronto. Burson-Marsteller was five years away from delivery of the first computer, word processing was a decade away and, like our clients, we relied on the telephone and a wired typewriter called a “Telex” for overseas communications. There were few truly international brands at that time and even fewer international public relations firms.

The first European Burson-Marsteller office to open was Geneva, in 1961, with the aim of offering clients a total communications service. It quickly became clear that all of Europe could not be served from a single location however. With European Common Market headquarters already established in Brussels, the second Burson-Marsteller office was opened there, which has grown at the same fast pace as the regulatory powers of the European Commission. Brussels was followed by London, which is now the third largest Burson-Marsteller office. Our presence in Germany started with Stuttgart and Frankfurt. After winning a major assignment in 1977 to promote Berlin’s 700th anniversary, a small office was opened in the one-time German capital but it was closed two years later when the project was completed. The Berlin office was reopened in 1990 after the removal of the Berlin Wall and the restoration of Berlin as Germany’s capital city.

By the early 1980s Burson-Marsteller had offices in the Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy – and was becoming a market leader in all of them. Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen were added and Burson-Marsteller became the largest public relations firm in Scandinavia. In 1983, Burson-Marsteller became the world’s largest public relations firm.

The aftermath of the two oil crises in 1973 and 1978 spurred several of our larger clients, including American Express and Citicorp, to establish themselves in the Middle East. Following a joint venture agreement in 1979 we have continued to have a presence here though affiliate relationships, and today this is an area where we are growing our business. We have also just finalised an agreement with a pan-African affiliate that allows us to service clients across the African continent.

Today Burson-Marsteller in Europe, Middle East and Africa has a network of 17 offices and over 30 additional markets covered by affiliates.

Watch this space for how we continue to grow.