While Burson Marsteller has been hired by Ennahda, the Muslim Brotherhood of Tunisia, the firm this week announced they had won awards in Malaysia, the largest Muslim country in the world. The firms’ local office, essence Burson-Marsteller was honored at the Malaysia PR Awards held in Kuala Lumpur.
The Awards panel of judges evaluated PR campaigns from January 2013 to March 2014 and essence Burson-Marsteller was recognized for their work on the following campaigns:
Gold for Crisis and Issues Management
Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2013 – Haze Crisis
Certificate of Excellence (Silver) for Ethical Healthcare
Pfizer Get H4rd
Honourable Mention for Enviroment Campaign
Schneider Electric Go Green In the City
A few months ago, the firm announced they were the Middle East PR Agency of year via the following announcement which appeared on the firms news page: “ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, the region’s leading public relations consultancy, has won ten awards at the 11th Annual International Business Awards 2014, including the prestigious Public Relations Agency of the Year in the Middle East and Africa, for the fourth year. The agency was awarded a record three gold, five silver and two bronze ‘Stevies’ (as the awards are most commonly known) for PR campaigns with its clients, including Emaar Properties, Ford Middle East and Art Dubai.” See more here.
As Everything PR previously reported, there has been controversy surrounding Burson-Marsteller’s representation of the Ennahda political party, and claims that Burson-Marsteller’s Norway office had rejected Israel as a client.
Fox News today featured the news that Sheikh Rachid al-Ghannouchi, the Burson client was invited to headline an event at Yale, “despite that he was a member of a group that endorsed the murder of U.S. troops, and he was banned from the U.S. for supporting Hamas.”
Sean Hannity of Fox News said “This guy shouldn’t be in our country,” explaining that al-Ghannouchi has called for the death of American soldiers and therefore is at war with the U.S.