Weber Shandwick

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Weber Shandwick is the world's largest global public relations firm.

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Contents

[edit] History

Weber Shandwick is a formation of three previous companies[1]:

  • Shandwick International - founded in London in 1974, 25 years later it had grown to become the largest public relations agency in the UK, and a worldwide force with a major presence in both Europe and Asia Pacific
  • BSMG Worldwide - merged with Weber Shandwick in 2001. The company dates back to 1921, with the founding of the Bozell & Jacobs advertising and public relations agency in Omaha, Nebraska. Bozell later acquired Sawyer Miller Group – a leading political consulting firm – and applied its campaign-based disciplines to the world of advocacy on behalf of brands, ideas and issues


[edit] Present

Now a division of Interpublic Group, NYSE: IPG, Weber Shandwick is a leading global public relations agency with offices in 77 markets around the world. Weber Shandwick provides strategy and execution across practices such as consumer marketing, healthcare, technology, public affairs, corporate/financial and crisis management. Its specialized services include digital/social media, advertising, market research, and corporate responsibility. [2].

Chaired by Jack Leslie, its global CEO is Harris Diamond[3]. Harris Diamond was just honored as the PR Agency Executive of the Decade by the Holmes Report [4]. Its president is Andy Polansky. UK CEO Colin Byrne was hired by Peter Mandelson to advise UK Prime Minister Tony Blair during the 1997 and 2001 general elections[5].

In 2006, Weber Shandwick was named Large PR Firm of the Year (PR News U.S.), European Consultancy of the Year (The Holmes Report) and Network of the Year (Asia Pacific PR Awards). The firm also won the United Nations Grand Award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Relations for three consecutive years, 2005, 2006 and 2007. In the Holmes Report's Best Agency to Work For study, Weber Shandwick scored the highest marks of any of the large, publicly-traded, full-service agencies. In 2007, Weber Shandwick received the highest client-satisfaction honors in the 2007 Agency Excellence Survey by PRWeek U.S. PRWeek U.S. referred to Weber Shandwick as the "blue chip" in its April 23, 2007 agency business report. In 2008, they won Large PR Firm of the Year (PR News U.S.). In 2009, The Holmes Report awarded Weber Shandwick with Global Agency of the Year (The Holmes Report, SABRE Awards). PRWeek awarded Weber Shandwick with its first annual Global Agency of the Year award (2009). Weber Shandwick was also recognized as PRWeek’s 2009 Global Agency Report Card Gold Medal Winner. As the year 2009 ended, Weber Shandwick was named one of the agencies of the decade by Advertising Age[6]. However, Weber Shandwick in the same year lost its third Brussels CEO within 5 years.

The 2007 Holmes Agency Report, Paul Holmes wrote: "With no sign of complacency and probably the best management team in the business, there's no reason why the firm should relinquish its current position to anyone anytime soon."

Also in 2007, the entire Brussels team of Weber Shandwick's sister firm Cassidy & Associates left to form EU lobbying law firm Alber & Geiger, including the name partners of the new firm: former Cassidy CEO Andreas Geiger and the former Advocate General of the European Court of Justice, Siegbert Alber.

[edit] Trivia

  • Weber Shandwick is P&G's largest PR agency in China.
  • FutureWorks founder and CEO Brian Solis was formerly Director at The Benjamin Group, which was acquired by Weber Shandwick.
  • Weber Shandwick is recognized by PRWeek as the Global Agency of the year in 2009.[7]
  • Weber Shandwick is also chosen by the Holmes Report as one of the best 30 PR agencies to work for in 2009.[8]

[edit] Clients

Weber Shandwick's clients include many Global Fortune 500 companies. Notable clients include the following:

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.webershandwick.com/overview/index.cfm/contentid,1217.html
  2. ^ http://www.webershandwick.com/overview/index.cfm
  3. ^ http://www.webershandwick.com/overview/index.cfm/contentid,1173.html
  4. ^ http://http://holmesreport.com/news.cfm?siteid=1
  5. ^ http://www.webershandwick.com/overview/sub/bio.cfm?emplycode=52540
  6. ^ http://adage.com/results?endeca=1&return=endeca&search_offset=0&search_order_by=score&search_phrase=Book+of+Tens
  7. ^ See Weber Shandwick press release http://www.webershandwick.com/Default.aspx/AboutUs/PressReleases/2009/WeberShandwickTopsPRWeeksFirstGlobalAgencyReportCard
  8. ^ See the Holmes report http://www.holmesreport.com/story.cfm?edit_id=10720&typeid=6

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber_Shandwick"