Burson-Marsteller Brussels

Practices & Specialities

Media

Politicians are obsessed with what the media is saying about them and about their political decisions…

Politicians see the media as a key source of information – in fact, more important than information provided by lobbyists, according to research commissioned by Burson-Marsteller. (Source: The Definitive Guide to Lobbying the European Institutions)

Our research also reveals what EU decision-makers read. Senior Commission officials, whose mandate is to think EU-wide, rank the Financial Times as the best source of information on industry. However, MEPs – who tend to give priority to their constituency or national base – opt primarily for a national newspaper. Officials in the permanent representations also use their national newspapers as an information source, but not as much as the Financial Times.

Skilful delivery of the right message to your target audience – across any medium – can mean the difference between winning acclaim for your product or position on an issue, and negative coverage that can define your company for years to come. Credible, influential and universal, traditional news media and new online media are indispensable channels for reaching your audience.

Today, working with the media is becoming ever more complicated due to:

• an enormous increase in the total volume of media;
• the growing power of new media: blogs, specialist news websites, webcasts and social media;
• much faster media reaction times – news is updated minute-by-minute;
• the fact that media crises can spiral out of control much faster;
• the difficulty in identifying bona fide journalists (or ‘influential’ bloggers); and
• the need to ‘optimise’ news and press releases required for search engines.
• Burson-Marsteller Brussels’ approach to media services is to tailor them to our clients’ specific needs and objectives – and, if necessary, integrating them into a public relations or public affairs campaign.

Our specialists, many of them award-winning former journalists, come from every media discipline and ensure the right story gets in the right place to most effectively influence the political environment.

Our media services include:

• Media relations
• Editorial services and media outreach
• Press conference organisation
• Media crisis management
• Digital media
• Media training
• Media monitoring
• Media advertising campaigns (creative and placement)

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