relations & marketing founded 1953 headquarters 230 park ave. south new york city usa area served worldwide key people harold burson & bill marsteller founders don baer worldwide ceo owner wpp plc parent young & rubicam website www.burson marsteller.com burson marsteller is a global public relations and communications firm headquartered in new york city . burson marsteller operates 67 wholly owned offices and 71 affiliate offices in 98 countries in six continents . 1 the company was founded by harold burson and william marsteller in 1953 and by the early 1980s had become one of the largest public relations companies in the world . in 1979 it became a subsidiary of young & rubicam which in turn is now owned by wpp group plc. the current ceo of burson marsteller is don baer former communications director for the clinton administration 2 who joined the company in 2007 and who replaced mark penn as worldwide ceo in july 2012 . 3 the firm provides public relations and advertising services to clients including multinational corporations and government agencies . it 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 4 5 and its work for regimes facing severe human rights criticisms argentina and indonesia . 6 the firm also works in corporate pr public affairs technology and healthcare communications and brand marketing . contents 1 history 1.1 1950s and 1960s founding and early history 1.2 1970s general motors 1.3 1980s young & rubicam and worldwide expansion 1.4 1990s global presence and philip morris 1.5 2000s 2 operations 2.1 company overview 2.2 structure and employees 2.3 training 2.4 crisis management 2.4.1 tylenol 2.4.2 bhopal 2.4.3 other cases 2.5 corporate pr 2.6 technology 2.7 public affairs 2.7.1 romania 2.7.2 indonesia 2.7.3 argentina 2.7.4 ukraine 2.8 healthcare 2.9 google smear campaign 2.10 brand marketing 2.11 subsidiaries and affiliates 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit 1950s and 1960s founding and early history edit prior to the establishment of burson marsteller co founders harold burson and william bill marsteller owned separate agencies focused on public relations and advertising respectively . burson had established harold burson public relations in 1946 and was based in new york city . meanwhile marsteller had founded the chicago based advertising agency marsteller gebhardt and reed later renamed marsteller inc. in 1951 . 7 burson and marsteller met in 1952 when marsteller needed a pr agency to work on an account for his client rockwell manufacturing 8 and was referred to burson . the two agencies shared the rockwell account and later an account for clark engineering equipment company . 9 in 1953 they entered into partnership 10 creating a new public relations firm that was owned jointly by burson and by marsteller s advertising agency . 11 beginning with a staff of four and just two main clients 12 operations quickly grew and in the early 1960s burson marsteller began to establish a presence outside of the united states . in 1960 they opened an office in toronto canada becoming the first u.s. pr agency to do so . 13 one year later in 1961 following the founding of the common market in europe the company established its first european office in geneva shortly followed by an office in brussels in 1965 . 14 at this time hill & knowlton was the only other u.s. pr firm with an office outside the united states . 15 in 1967 burson marsteller opened its first london office . 14 1970s general motors edit one of the firm s earliest clients was the electro motive division of general motors gm the division of gm that made diesel locomotives beginning in 1956 and was the only pr agency retained by gm at the time . 16 in 1970 burson marsteller was engaged by the main division of gm to manage their pr 8 following stiff competition from larger firms . according to harold burson gm was seeking outside pr management following the publication of ralph nader s book unsafe at any speed which called into question gm s design practices and led to negative media representation of the company . gm remained a client of burson marsteller for the next eleven years . 17 at the time they took on gm burson marsteller was the 10th largest pr firm in the united states . 18 in 1974 wolcott and company a los angeles based public relations firm founded by robert bob b. wolcott jr. merged with burson marsteller . wolcott co. had offices in new york washington d.c. and san francisco . bob wolcott joined the executive management team and was in charge of west coast and asian operations . 19 1980s young & rubicam and worldwide expansion edit in 1979 the company was sold to the communications group young & rubicam . in his memoirs burson described the decision as being made for two primary reasons . first burson marsteller required capital in order to finance its expansion . second marsteller s advertising agency had declined in profitability and needed management fixing . 15 following the takeover burson became executive vice president and a board member of young & rubicam . 7 20 as part of young & rubicam in the late 1970s and early 1980s burson marsteller became known for its crisis management work . 21 notable clients consulting burson marsteller for crisis management included babcock & wilcox following the three mile island accident in 1979 ; johnson & johnson during the 1982 tylenol crisis 22 and union carbide corporation following 1984 bhopal disaster . 23 24 the company was also involved in the introduction of new coke in early 1985 . in interviews burson has stated that the negative reaction of the public to the new product was unexpected . 24 following the reintroduction of the original coke recipe the strategy that burson marsteller advised coca cola to employ was to be humble and apologize to the u.s. public for making the decision to change to new coke . 18 22 just two months after original coke was reintroduced as classic coke sales of coke coca cola classic and cherry coke had risen 10 percent compared with the previous year . 25 the 1980s also saw the company involved in large scale publicity events . in 1984 burson marsteller first brought entertainment and sports together to generate publicity for its clients with the organization of the at & t olympic torch relay sponsored by the telecommunications company . 26 this was the largest promotional event that the company had undertaken to date with up to 150 people working full time on organizing the 8 000 mile relay . 27 one year later burson marsteller executive geoff nightingale came up with the idea of hands across america as a fundraising event for usa for africa sponsored by its client coca cola . 28 by 1983 burson marsteller had become the world s largest pr firm with 63.8 million in revenue for that year . 8 the following year it acquired cohn & wolfe an atlanta based public relations firm 29 which operated as a subsidiary of burson marsteller until 2000 . the firm had established its first offices in asia in 1973 with offices in hong kong singapore kuala lumpur and tokyo 18 and by the mid 1980s it had further expanded overseas operations with the founding of offices in australia and new zealand . 30 a subsidiary of the xinhua news agency new china news agency went into partnership with burson marsteller in 1985 providing commercial public relations for foreign firms in china and for chinese companies internationally . 31 this subsidiary later became china global public relations mainland china s first specialized public relations consulting firm . 32 following burson marsteller s appointment as the official public relations counsel for the seoul olympics in 1988 10 it was the first foreign public relations firm to be granted a license to open a wholly owned communications and marketing office in south korea . 33 burson marsteller also expanded into central and south america during the 1980s . offices were established in san juan puerto rico and sao paulo . a regional headquarters was established in miami in may 1989 34 and with the regional headquarters in place the company won mastercard international s latin american account which became one of the firm s largest accounts of the time . 35 the agency s business grew by about 24 % annually during the 1980s according to burson and pr week stated in 1988 that burson marsteller was by that point the largest international pr firm in the world . 10 the following year burson stepped down as ceo of the firm . he continued to work on major accounts such as coca cola and merrill lynch 24 while james h. dowling succeeded him as the second ever ceo of burson marsteller . 36 1990s global presence and philip morris edit by 1990 burson marsteller had branches in 28 countries with 52 offices and over 2 300 employees . 20 notable international work carried out by burson marsteller in the early 1990s included a public relations campaign undertaken for the egyptian ministry of tourism in 1993 following terrorist attacks on tourists in egypt . the campaign aimed to encourage tourists to visit egypt focusing on recent archaeological discoveries . 37 in december 1994 the company received attention after an executive at burson marsteller was killed by a mailbomb sent by the unabomber . the washington post reported that ted kaczynski targeted burson marsteller executive thomas mosser due to a belief exxon had consulted with burson marsteller during the valdez oil spill . burson marsteller stated that they had advised exxon in the past and had been asked to review and analyze exxon s handling of the disaster afterwards but had not been engaged to manage the crisis itself . 38 in the 1990s the company also received considerable attention for pr campaigns on behalf of tobacco company altria formerly philip morris companies inc. in which it was engaged to discredit anti smoking research and legislation attempts . 39 in 1993 burson marsteller helped organize a response to a 1992 united states environmental protection agency epa report which had identified secondhand smoke as a group a human carcinogen . 40 the strategy employed by burson marsteller was to build doubt among consumers about the scientific validity of the epa report and to target legislators who supported curbs on smoking . 41 as part of this strategy the company organized a smokers rights group called the national smokers alliance nsa 42 to target politicians who supported anti smoking legislation . 43 44 the nsa was founded with an estimated 4 million in philip morris seed money and involvement of some fifty other tobacco industry players . 45 their activities also included support for the advancement of sound science coalition tassc which was created in 1993 by apco worldwide another major public relations firm with funding from philip morris . 46 47 in europe burson marsteller provided support for an advertising campaign in 1996 carried out by philip morris . advertisements were published comparing the health risks of second hand smoke exposure with a range of other activities .