Business & Money | Monday 1 June, 2015 2:45 pm |

ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, the region’s leading public relations consultancy, has been named Middle East Consultancy of the Year 2015 at the SABRE Awards.

The SABRE Awards, which are presented by The Holmes Group, a leading provider of insights, knowledge and recognition to public relations professionals, chose ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller for its impressive growth in 2014 and its commitment to its thought leadership platform, Arab Youth Survey.

Sunil John, Founder and CEO of ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, said: “The recognition by the SABRE Awards is testament to the pioneering efforts of the ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller team. We dedicate this honour to our clients for their trust in our ability to deliver value through our public relations programmes.”

Commenting on the win, Paul Holmes, Publisher and CEO of The Holmes Group, said: “With a team of 150 professionals across 11 wholly-owned offices in the Middle East, ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller is clearly a major player in one of the fastest-growing regions in EMEA, and indeed fee income was up by 10 per cent last year, with more than $4 million of new business coming from the likes of Etisalat Group, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Foundation, RP Global, Abu Dhabi Financial Group, LinkedIn, the Dubai Chamber, FedEx, The Walt Disney Company, and the General Secretariat of the Executive Council in Abu Dhabi, among others.

“The firm’s work was equally impressive, including the Mustang Rises campaign for Ford Motor Company, which saw one of the iconic cars taken to the top of the Burj Khalifa to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its launch; the cause-related “Warriors in Pink” campaign, also for Ford; and special events such as the 2014 Government Summit for the UAE Prime Minister’s Office and the Downtown Dubai New Year’s Eve Gala for Emaar Properties,” he continued.

“But it might be fair to say that ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller does its best work on its own behalf: the annual Arab Youth Survey is now in its seventh year and has become a traditional and social media phenomenon—an authoritative examination of social, cultural and political trends among the region’s young people, generating multi-page features in leading newspapers and more than 35 million social media impressions in a matter of days with its finding that Arab youth in the region may be souring on democracy as ISIS rises and troubles continue.”

The Holmes Report selected the 2015 PR Consultancies of the Year following an extensive research process involving more than 150 submissions and 100 face-to-face meetings with the best PR firms across the region.