Backstory

Burson’s digital team in EMEA is practically a world-leading digital agency in its own right, with nearly 200 specialists across 13 markets in the region, covering digital strategy, creative, data and analytics, influencer, social media and paid media. The digital community is led by the Digital Innovation team, a borderless group of eight senior advisors, headed up by managing director Sama Al-Naib – one of our Innovator 25 for EMEA in 2023. The team’s ethos is “intelligent communications for maximum impact”, and it is committed to advancing Burson’s digital, data and intelligence solutions. This been underpinned over the past year with the launch of several initiatives, including Decipher, BCW’s impressive new AI offer, combining a predictive intelligence cognitive AI platform with corporate reputation and crisis counsel. Encouraging clients and colleagues to embrace the opportunities of generative AI and navigate pitfalls and regulatory changes around AI is also a big focus for the team.

Locations

Across the EMEA region, Burson has digital specialists in the UK, Germany, France, the Middle East, Italy, Brussels, Spain, Finland, Swede, Switzerland, Norway and South Africa. 

Performance

Overall, Burson had single digit growth across EMEA, but this rose closer to 20% for its top 25 clients in the region. The digital team works across a substantial proportion of BCW clients, including Warner Bros, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bombay Sapphire gin and Wimbledon.

People & Culture

Key digital hires in 2023 included Burson returner Solveig Veercamp as social and digital lead for EMEA, and Lorenzo Petracco was promoted to a new role as head of creative transformation for EMEA. Last year, the digital innovation team introduced the ‘Innovation Series’ of training sessions to increase generative AI proficiency across the agency, help teams use AI responsibly, transparently and ethically, and to encourage openness to evolution and change. Across the wider business, chief inclusion officer Carol Watson relocated to the UK and provides specialist and comprehensive DEI support to the EMEA region, including via Destination Inclusion, Burson 's immersive DEI learning journey. Using employee experience platform Culture Amp, Burson introduced a new performance management, and the agency launched The Learning Hub to support learning and skills development. Partnering with Wellable, Let’s Move is Burson’s annual challenge to support the health and wellbeing of its people, and the Passport Programme enables people to work remotely from another country.

Thought Leadership & Work

As well as Decipher, Burson’s digital team played a pivotal part in the development of a number of tools, including: the BCW Foresight dashboard to help public affairs and legal professionals navigate complex policy and legal data in a complex and fast-moving regulatory environment; the Influence Index of European policymakers; Know Your Opportunity, a tool that helps identify communications opportunities where search volume is high but content is low; and Advocate, a celebrity and influencer talent offer. BCW earned 15 SABRE nominations; stand-out work from the digital team last year included using a suite of influencer tools to help Wimbledon’s sportswear brand, The Wimbledon Collection, expand into lifestyle fashion and reach and younger and more diverse audience, leading to a 30% uplift in retail sales. The team also worked with Warner Bros to hone comms strategy and messaging for its Discovery channels in South Africa, and with Motorola raised awareness of violence against women in surprising way on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women by replacing Motorola’s logo on the shirts of AC Monza players with real crisis line messages from women for the football team’s Serie A match against Torino; the campaign went viral and earned 100% positive sentiment. 

— Paul Holmes

Backstory

Founded in 2013 by ex-journalist Tom Manners and Nic Simmonds, Clockwork’s name might reference the Stanley Kubrick film, but this communications firm is rather more optimistic than that dystopian image might suggest. Winner of African Agency of the Year honours in three of the past seven years, thanks to a pioneering focus on digital, Clockwork celebrated its 10th anniversary last year by re-imagining its market positioning based on a vision of ‘honesty and effectiveness. That has been supported by new investments in martech, data and performance capabilities, alongside elevated creative capabilities — for a client base that spans technology, gaming, entertainment and financial servic

Locations

Clockwork’s 135 staffers are based largely in South Africa, while there is also a UK operation. 

Performance

Clockwork reported robust financial returns in 2023, with fee income of £5.8m marking a significant increase of 23.4% compared to 2022. The firm’s client portfolio expanded with key additions such as Chery Group (Omoda and Jaecoo), BDO, Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Redefine and Openserve, joining an existing roster that features Microsoft (Xbox), Standard Bank, Canon, Synlab, BMW, Meta, and Discovery. 

People & Culture

After a decade in business, Clockwork co-created six key pillars with staff to reflect its current values and culture - partnering with emerging South African artists to bring these ideas to life across art, sculpture and installations at its Johannesburg office. As a South African agency, DEI is non-negotiable, evident in the firm’s dedication to maintaining its BBBEE Level 1 positioning into 2024. In addition to Manners and Simmonds, key leaders include new appointments  Jacques Shalom and Sergio Santos van Vuuren as chief creative officer and PR director, respectively, alongside client service director Mathabo Diale, business development director Dustin Carr and strategy director Daniela White. Marcus Reynolds is UK CEO, while co-UK CEO Richard Dutton departed. 

Thought Leadership & Work

Clockwork's thought leadership includes quarterly speaking events and ‘connect’ sessions with influencers and media leaders — along with a 2024 trends forecast. Among its notable campaigns were three Gold SABRE nominations for Xbox and Aware.org 

— Arun Sudhaman

Backstory

Talk about Texan. In 2007, Jeff Hahn, then an account manager at Austin’s TateAustin, beat Edelman’s bid to buy the $2.6 million real estate firm by promising to make “Howdy!” the forever centerpiece of agency culture and approach. Since then, Hahn has grown his now eponymous agency into a $19.5 million business by serving the food and energy sectors — “heating and eating,” as they say, essentials of daily life. Highly focused on innovation, Hahn has made major investments in data, measurement and other technology, building in-house tools and making four acquisitions in six years (the latest was in 2021). The firm’s data practice, Hahn Labs, touches 50% of its clients. 

Locations

Hahn is based in Austin with employees in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Denver, Seattle and Provo, Utah.

Performance

2023 was Hahn’s 16th consecutive year of year-over-year growth, with revenue rising 10% to nearly $20 million. And that built on particularly stellar performances in 2022 and 2021, when fee income rose 34% and 43% respectively, making for the two biggest growth years in Hahn’s history. New wins fueled 73% of 2023 growth, with the addition of new clients including the Texas Department of Agriculture (shrimp), the Central Texas Food Bank, Novozymes and St. David's Foundation. Organic growth accounted for 37% of annual growth thanks to expanded remits from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, Whataburger and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT. As of 2023, Hahn had six clients with budgets of more than $1 million. Four of them have been Hahn clients for five-plus years. Data science is Hahn’s No. 1 growth engine, followed by content and thought leadership.  Energy and utilities is  the firm’s fastest-growing practice as companies look to remain relevant in a net zero environment.

People & Culture

Hahn’s 52-person team is an eclectic crew made up of data scientists, campaign strategists, digital platform builders, social and paid marketers and PR experts who collectively tap capabilities from predictive analytics to creative.  Principal and CEO Jeff Hahn (whose childhood farming in Iowa primed him for his work in food and energy) is supported by leaders including chief innovation officer Tim Weinheimer, chief data officer Michael Griebe and managing directors Meredith Vachon (food & beverage) and Lindsey Gillum (energy & essentials). Hahn has doubled down on its work-from-anywhere policy, reconfiguring its Austin headquarters for a remote-first workforce, customize new parents’ return to work plans around individual needs and wants and quarterly profit-sharing. Nearly 20% of Hahn’s staff identify as people of color and 50% of its executive team are women — numbers Hahn plans to boost through hiring, training and promoting diverse employees.

Thought Leadership & Work

Hahn executives are prolific thought leaders. Jeff Hahn’s book “Breaking Bad News: 12 Essential Crisis Communication Tools” is the foundation of the firm’s crisis and issues practice. Tim Weinheimer’s 2018 ebook “The Robot Apocalypse | How Brands Can Survive and Thrive in the Age of AI'' fuels Hahn’s exercises building creative AI-generated campaigns to show how the technology can kickstart campaigns, albeit as a supplement, not a replacement, to human intelligence. Key work included supporting Beef Loving Texans with an original Hulu series, BBQuest, focused on Texas barbecue (and now in season three); and a rapping puppet campaign for Oklahoma Natural Gas that drove record rebate participation, boosting customer savings.  

— Diana Marszalek

Backstory

KPR lost its founder, Kay H. Imm, heralded as the godmother of the Korean PR industry, two years ago at age 91. The firm, though, has not wavered from Imm’s staunch commitment to being the trendsetter in the Korean PR industry that she created it to be in 1989. KPR’s continued success is built on creating value for clients through integrated communications and content created through collaboration, new ideas and technology. That, combined with the firm’s deep understanding of Korean media and business, has fueled continued growth and a reputation as a full-service player in the competitive Korean marketplace.

Locations

KPR is headquartered in Seoul, where it employs 145 staffers.

Performance

With 2023 fee income of just over $30 million—up by a very healthy 27% after the Covid doldrums ended—KPR ranks just one place outside the top  100 on our global ranking of PR firms and among the top three from the Korean market. The firm’s leadership in the digital arena once again proved a strength, although growth came from many areas including purpose-driven and CSR work. The firm is proud of its many long-tenured clients and continues to wok with Applied Materials Korea, Google Cloud, GS Caltex, Hankook Shell Oil, Hyundai Motor Group, Incheon Metropolitan City, Kia Corporation, Lenovo, Siemens and more, while new business came from the likes of AutoStore, CJ Olive Young, fintech company Dunamu. Korea International Cooperation Agency, Lotte World, Moleskine, POSCO International, Seoul Metropolitan Government and WWF Korea.

People & Culture

You can’t look at KPR’s culture without noting the lasting influence of agency founder Imm, who came into the office every day. Her commitment to the firm’s people, elevating women in the workplace and improving the world through communications remains very much alive under Jooho Kim, who was named KPR’s president after five years at the helm of collabo K, the firm’s integrated marketing unit. In June of 2023, managing director Brian Yi, previously the head of the issue and crisis management team, was named to head the agency's newly established ESG strategy group and in December, KPR established a new consumer communication division and named senior executive director Jin Choi as its leader.

Thought Leadership & Work

With its Digital Communication Research Lab providing clients with digital news and information and delivering a digital communications trend report, and its new K Public unit offering specialized services to the public sector, KPR continues to innovate. Impressive work in the past year includes “Made Cooler by Hyundai” for Hyundai Motor Company and “#CaptureBackChallenge: My First Dishwasher for My Family” on behalf of LG Electronicsm both of which are nominated for SABRE Awards. New initiatives include an AI Task Force to study how to use AI for design, advertising, PR and examine the ethical use of AI, and created Weenidy, a design resource service platform.

— Paul Holmes

Backstory

Founded a little more than two decades ago as WeissCom, a biotech-focused healthcare specialist, the firm was renamed W2OGroup in 2010, by which time it had established itself as an integrated healthcare communications group with multiple acquisitions spanning advertising, digital, data and analytics and more. Early in 2021, there was another evolution, to the Real Chemistry brand, with an attendant focus on “the real chemistry between people and the brands born to change their lives.” Not surprisingly, the growth story has been the dominant narrative around Real Chemistry with the firm’s proliferation of non-traditional services also serving to set it apart from the competition. But Real Chemistry continues to be, at its core, a healthcare PR firm—the largest in the world.

Locations

US offices include Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. There are additional offices in Toronto, London and Manchester in the UK, and Zurich, Switzerland.

Performance

The pace of Real Chemistry’s growth slowed in 2023, reflecting the challenging economy but a 7% increase in fee income is still very respectable for a firm that now reports $595 million. Real Chemistry works with all 30 of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, and with 30% of the world’s top 50 blockbuster life science brands as well as 20 of last year’s 70 FDA approvals. The firm now has seven $20 million clients in its portfolio and there was $25 million in new revenues from entirely new brands. Another indicator of progress: Real Chemsistry divided its business into six practice areas in 2023—integrated communications, medical, activation, targeting, analytics and insights, and advertising—and a growing number of the firm’s top clients work with several of those specialties. Key clients include AstraZeneca, Diageo, Incyte, Madrigal, Novartis and Sobi, while there were new assignments from Bayer last year, as well as wins such as Repare Therapeutics, Sutro Biopharma, Vilya, and Waters. 

People & Culture

Shankar Narayanan is now two and a half years into his tenure as CEO, and he has an integrated communications leadership team that includes veteran global president Jennifer Gottlieb, group president and chief strategy officer Emily Poe, president of earned media Jennifer Paganelli and health equity lead Jewel Jones, while new hires in 2023 included chief client officer Rachi Govil and president Christine Abbott, both from BCW, and crisis and corporate reputation leader Steve Behm from Edelman. A new employee recognition program, SPARK (Shoutouts. Praise. Appreciation. Recognition. Kudos) celebrats employees who are living the agency’s values. The firm has also expanded its gender-neutral parental leave policy, and its benefits for our working families including its Progyny fertility benefits, elder and other dependent care. Team members are able to find community in 10 global business resources groups that offer a range of educational and social activities throughout the year. 

Thought Leadership & Work

Two acquisitions over the past 12 months have strengthened Real Chemistry’s capabilities in data-driven marketing and predictive analytics (TI Group) and medical communications (AvantHC), two areas where the firm has been differentiating itself, and there are new practices focused on crisis, science visualization, and the emerging biotech sector. The investment in AI continues apace, with new offers including a partnership with generative AI expert writer.ai, an AI enabled trend tracker, and a portfolio of predictive AI targeting tools from Swoop, acquired back in 2021. The firm now has a database of close to a million physicians, advocates and media, enabling to track and predict everything from early adopters to undiagnosed patients. The work, meanwhile, is gaining recognition throughout the industry, with integrated campaigns such as the “Not So Bloody Mary” hemophilia campaign from ad subsidiary 21 grams; “Seeing Red,” a heavy-menstrual bleeding campaign for Bayer; and the “Science Will Win” podcast series for Pfizer.

— Paul Holmes