BerlinRosen has long been an industry leader, renowned for their impressive campaign work and dedication to bettering the industry (and maybe even society alike). Among the year’s top accomplishments are the agency’s DEI efforts, externally and internally. They cemented Color Of Change as the leading group pushing Facebook to remove disinformation and flag hateful content. They also reached a major milestone for the Fight For $15 movement, winning $150B in raises for 26+ million workers, of which $76B has gone to workers of color and $70B to women workers. The agency’s team reflects their commitment to DEI: currently, 51% of BerlinRosen’s full-time staff identifies as BIPOC, and the agency also increased the diversity of their internship program by at least 50% BIPOC interns each season now.
Most recently, BerlinRosen made headlines as agency leadership announced a majority investment in Derris. Over the past year, the agency made some internal shifts, too; they shaped a new Influencer Engagement offering, expanding their team with Social Media Director Timothy Chun and VP Brittany Cummings. Alongside EVP Janna Pea, they lead this new service line, working with clients such as SUMMIT One Vanderbilt, Brookfield, Meatpacking District BID, Fulton Fish Market and RVShare. They also established a Branding practice area co-led by SVPs Michael DiGiacomo and Ximena Ramirez.
Leadership team
Valerie Berlin, Founder & Principal
Jonathan Rosen, Founder & Principal
Andy McDonald, Principal
Notable long-term clients
Audible, Bloomberg Media, Brookfield, Color Of Change, Cornell Tech, Nature Conservancy, SEIU, Samsung, Singapore Airlines, UNICEF
Recent client wins
American Cancer Society, BBC, Blink Charging, Bloomberg Intelligence, Daniel Boulud, GLAAD, Juilliard, Lincoln Center, Macy’s, Me Too Movement, Meatpacking District, Mozilla, New Georgia Project, UC Berkeley, Westfield, Wikimedia
How are you innovating and moving the industry forward?
“As BerlinRosen has grown over the past 15 years, we have established ourselves at the center of an emerging trend in the PR industry that we call corporate purpose. As consumers become more focused on the mission behind the brands they support, corporations and nonprofits alike are looking for pathways to shape and communicate their values and impact. Our deep work since our founding on the issues at the fore today—racial and social justice, climate change, LGBTQ+ rights, workers’ rights and more—positioned us to help clients navigate tough moments and provide authentic and meaningful engagement with internal and external audiences.”
Two key milestones stand out amid Lippe Taylor’s stellar year to date: their acquisition of Cheer Partners (a company that specializes in DEI consulting) and the re-launch of their sister agency, twelvenote (a new agency brand with complementary capabilities helmed by longtime leader Tracy Naden). The NYC-based agency also opened up a new Los Angeles office and laid the groundwork for offices to come in Chicago, Atlanta and Minneapolis (all of which now have half a dozen people on the ground). Lippe Taylor has also been hard at work on its own innovations, including the publishing of Friction Fatigue, a book that describes the agency’s approach to work and many insights from their own case studies (the book became #2 on the WSJ best-selling business books list this summer). Following the themes outlined in the book, Lippe Taylor introduced inCONCERT, a novel way of co-producing branded content with media companies. On the measurement side, they debuted a landmark study that is being published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, and debuted a redeveloped software stack to support their award-winning Hypatia measurement platform. Finally, their expanded digital and creative teams are paying off: through its growing content studio, the agency had two clients take their digital videos and turn them into television commercials.
Leadership team:
Maureen Lippe, Chairman
Paul Dyer, Chief Executive Officer
Notable long-term clients:
Nestle, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Citigroup, Abbvie, Spectrum, Kao, Godiva, Sanofi, P&G, Edgewell, and Galderma
New client wins:
Pinterest, Simply Good Foods, Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, Redesign Health, Impel Neuropharma, Clarus Therapeutics, and ConAgra
How is the agency advancing DEI in the industry?
“Lippe Taylor has created a number of Employee Resource Groups, [which are] employee-led groups that aim to foster a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace aligned with Lippe Taylor Group’s mission, vision and values. More than a third of our employees participate in at least one ERG. Every staff meeting features a DEI discussion, and we offer DEI-based trainings every month to raise sensitivity and allyship among employees. We implemented processes to evaluate influencer talent equitably, including a proprietary approach to "blind" casting based on data. Through our Black ERG, known as The Inkwell, we introduced the first and only Juneteenth celebration at this year's Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity offering Black American professionals the opportunity to still celebrate the holiday abroad as well as brands and business leaders who identify as allies, to learn and understand the holiday better.”
