Bill Marsteller: Burson-Marsteller Co-Founder, Ad Executive

Bill Marsteller (William A. Marsteller) was an American advertising executive who co-founded the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller with Harold Burson in 1953. A University of Illinois journalism graduate, he built the Chicago business-to-business agency that became Marsteller Inc., retired in 1979 when Young & Rubicam acquired both firms, joined the Advertising Hall of Fame that year, and died in 1987 at age 73.

What are the key facts about Bill Marsteller?

Bill Marsteller was born in Champaign, Illinois, earned a journalism degree from the University of Illinois in 1937, and moved from newsrooms to industrial marketing to agency leadership over a career that shaped how business-to-business companies buy communications.

The facts above come from the Advertising Hall of Fame inductee profile and the American National Business Hall of Fame biography, which reprints a contemporary obituary.

How did Bill Marsteller build his early career?

Bill Marsteller built his early career by moving through journalism, insurance and industrial companies before taking an advertising job that taught him how manufacturers buy and sell. The Advertising Hall of Fame records that he began at the Champaign News-Gazette in Illinois, then worked at the Chicago Daily News, the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company and the Edward Valve Company.

He next joined the Pittsburgh Equitable Meter Company. As its advertising manager, he devised a new name for the business, the Rockwell Manufacturing Company, and rose to become a vice president. That name is the one that later anchored a client relationship with a young New York public relations firm.

At Rockwell, Marsteller pushed the market-research department, which was a fairly new function in industrial companies at the time. That emphasis led to an idea: a small market-research firm built for industrial clients. The idea took him to Gebhardt & Brockson, a Chicago advertising agency that he purchased, and that purchase became the foundation of his own agency business.

The path from reporter to marketing executive helps explain the agency he built. Marsteller treated clear writing and hard market data as parts of the same job, and the industrial companies he served wanted both.

How did Marsteller Inc. grow into a leading B2B agency?

Marsteller Inc. grew by adding public relations to an advertising agency and then buying other firms to widen its client base. The Advertising Hall of Fame notes that Marsteller incorporated a public relations operation into his business, which aided the growth of the company.

The agency was primarily industrial at first. It purchased Richard & Company in 1955, moved into corporate public relations and consumer advertising, and bought the Zlowe Company to expand into consumer industries. Wikipedia's company history of Burson places the Chicago agency, then called Marsteller Gebhardt and Reed, in operation in 1951 before it was renamed Marsteller Inc.

The two sources describe the agency's early names a little differently, which is common for firms that changed names and partners in their first years. Both agree on the direction: a Chicago agency serving industrial clients, with public relations built into the offer.

How did Bill Marsteller and Harold Burson start Burson-Marsteller?

Bill Marsteller and Harold Burson started Burson-Marsteller in 1953 by combining Burson's New York public relations agency with Marsteller's Chicago advertising agency. Burson had opened Harold Burson Public Relations in New York in 1946, and the two men met in 1952 when Marsteller needed public relations help for a client account.

The agencies shared the Rockwell account and later an account for Clark Engineering Equipment Company, according to Wikipedia's Burson company history. The 2020 New York Times obituary of Burson says the pair agreed over breakfast at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan to team up and name the new agency Burson-Marsteller.

The firm opened on March 2, 1953, with offices in New York and Chicago. A Business Wire announcement of Burson's death says it offered integrated communications services to business-to-business clients and is believed to be the first to do so. The Horatio Alger Association describes the new firm as a public relations company allied with, but separate from, Marsteller's advertising agency.

The partnership gave each founder what the other lacked. Marsteller brought industrial advertising clients and a Chicago base, and Burson brought a public relations practice and a New York base. Readers who want Burson's side of the story can read the profile of Harold Burson.

How big did Burson-Marsteller become under its founders?

Burson-Marsteller became one of the largest public relations firms in the world, with about 2,500 employees in 50 offices, according to the Public Relations Society of America's tribute to Harold Burson. The American National Business Hall of Fame biography notes that the agency's crisis work included the 1982 Chicago Tylenol response, which it describes as a gold standard for crisis management.

Marsteller's role in that growth was structural. He supplied the model of an agency that paired advertising and public relations for business clients, and he kept the Chicago operation tied to the New York one. The firm's later chairman Bob Leaf built out its international office network, which helped make Burson-Marsteller the largest public relations agency in the world in the 1980s.

What did Bill Marsteller contribute beyond the agencies?

Bill Marsteller contributed management writing and university giving in addition to his agency work. He was a well-known writer and speaker, and the memorandums he sent to his staff became the basis for two books, The Wonderful World of Words and Creative Management, according to the American National Business Hall of Fame.

The Advertising Hall of Fame adds that Burson-Marsteller worked with many universities under his leadership to encourage students to enter advertising and communications. The University of Southern California, Northwestern and Syracuse were among the schools that received significant funds from the agency. Marsteller also contributed to the James Webb Young Fund and to Barnard College.

What happened to Burson-Marsteller after Marsteller retired?

Burson-Marsteller kept growing after Bill Marsteller retired in 1979, the year Young & Rubicam acquired both Marsteller Inc. and Burson-Marsteller. Harold Burson stayed on as chief executive until 1989, when he became founder-chairman, according to his New York Times obituary.

Young & Rubicam later became part of WPP, which now owns the Burson name. In 2018 Burson-Marsteller merged with Cohn & Wolfe to form Burson Cohn & Wolfe, and in July 2024 that firm merged with Hill & Knowlton to form the agency that trades simply as Burson. The Everything-PR Burson agency profile tracks the firm today, and the WPP public relations history covers the holding company that owns it.

What can PR professionals learn from Bill Marsteller?

Public relations professionals can learn four practical habits from Bill Marsteller's career, each tied to something he documented doing.

1. Pair public relations with the client's marketing goals, as Marsteller did when he added a public relations operation to his agency and then partnered with Burson for business-to-business clients.
2. Invest in research early, as Marsteller did at Rockwell, where his push for market research led to the idea of a research firm for industrial companies.
3. Write to teach your team, as Marsteller did when his staff memorandums grew into two published books.
4. Fund the next generation of communicators, as Burson-Marsteller did with significant gifts to universities such as the University of Southern California, Northwestern and Syracuse.

For more founders who shaped the profession, browse The Architects, and for the leaders working today, see the PR Leaders Directory.