The Agency Rebrand Trap: BCW, Burson, MSL, Hill+Knowlton — A Decade of PR Firm Renames That Got It Wrong

PR firms cannot name themselves. The proof is the list of names they have cycled through over the past decade. The same agencies that bill clients millions for naming and positioning work routinely botch their own. The pattern is consistent enough to be a category.

The List

Hill & Knowlton, founded 1927, merged with Burson-Marsteller, founded 1953 by Harold Burson, in 2018 inside WPP to form Burson Cohn & Wolfe, abbreviated BCW. In 2024 WPP combined BCW with the separately-revived Hill+Knowlton brand again, naming the new entity Burson. Three rebrands in six years for the same set of assets. MSLGROUP rebranded to MSL in 2018. Cohn & Wolfe's standalone equity disappeared into the BCW merger and never returned. Edelman launched Edelman Smithfield as a financial communications brand in 2020. Brunswick Group maintained its name and spun out Brunswick Arts as a separate practice. FleishmanHillard kept its name across multiple Omnicom reorganizations. Ketchum remains Ketchum, now Golin Ketchum following a 2026 Omnicom restructuring. Weber Shandwick stayed Weber Shandwick and remains one of the strongest agency brands in the category. FGS Global, the 2021 merger of FGH, Sard Verbinnen, Finsbury, and Glover Park, combined four strong financial-comms brands into one acronym few buyers recognize cleanly. Teneo kept Teneo. Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher kept all four names. FTI Consulting kept FTI.

Why Agency Rebrands Fail

Four reasons. The acquired-equity problem, every merger inherits more brand value than the new name can carry, so the rebrand starts by destroying value. The internal-stakeholder problem, partners, founders, and senior staff resist names that diminish their original firm. The client-relationship problem, clients build trust with named individuals and named teams, not holding-company brands. The recall problem, three-letter agency acronyms blur together.

The Continuity Consequence

Authority signals accumulate over years, citation graphs across the trade press, Wikipedia entries, archived industry coverage. A rebrand fractures those signals. Search for the old name and the references return historical context. Search for the new name and the references return a sparse profile. The brand exists in two places at once and is fully present in neither.

An agency that rebrands without preserving the old-name URL structure, executive bio history, and case-study attribution loses a year or more of accumulated authority. Citation continuity is not optional during a rename.

What Works

Three patterns. Keep the founder name when the founder is still a working principal. Acknowledge the rename in the rename, Hill & Knowlton plus Burson became Burson, not a third invented word. Treat the rebrand as a five-year content project, not a one-day announcement.

The 5W Position

5W repositioned in 2025 as 5W AI Communications, the AI Communications Firm. The legal entity name evolved. The trading name kept the recognizable 5W that Ronn Torossian built starting 2003. The domain stayed the same. No new acronym. No invented word. The category description carries the new positioning. The brand asset carries the continuity.

Most agency rebrands fail because they treat naming as a creative problem. It is a continuity problem. Continuity wins.

Related Reading

• Gap's Logo Reversal, Crisis Communications Case Study
• PR Firms Directory

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