Burrelles: More Than Just “The Clipping People”
By: Jenny Frenkel
We can’t exactly pinpoint when public relations was founded — but the “PR Toolkit” was forever changed when Frank Burrelle leaned over to tell a couple of very busy Wall Street execs that he would monitor the news for them. Burrelle’s Press Clipping Bureau was started in 1888 with Frank, his wife Nellie, and their friends clipping articles at home and delivering them to clients. Eventually their book of business developed, and they realized they needed a bigger kitchen table.
After the Burrelles had both died, Frank’s long-time best friend and business partner, Frederick John Wynne, took over the company, but died soon after. His two sons, Arthur and Harold, tried to sell the clipping business — but to no avail. (This was during the Great Depression.) Luckily for them, PR had become a booming practice with pioneers like Ivy Lee, Edward Bernays and the rise of agencies. Media monitoring was becoming much more vital. So much so that by 1935, Burrelle’s had achieved full newspaper coverage, and started monitoring magazines by 1940. As the current President of the company, Cathy Del Colle said it best:
“Everybody needs to have a PR department, everybody needs to know what’s being said about them in the news — not even [about] their own company — but their competitors, their industry [too]… just to be current and knowledgeable about what is going on…”
— Cathy Del Colle, President, Burrelles
So, the Wynne’s took what they had and moved the clipping business to New Jersey. They eventually settled on an office in Livingston, NJ in 1956. This office boasted a large open room, with slanted desks, where “readers” — women “dressed to the nines” and in their “Sunday best” — sat clipping articles for a few cents apiece. (Eventually the “Reader Room” expanded to offices in Maine as well as in Utah.)
At the time, Burrelle’s had the second largest subscription base to the Library of Congress, which meant sometimes articles for clients overlapped. The company kept multiple copies of each and every publication from across the country in their impressive mail room to be able to meet larger demand. Readers would spend hours flipping through these newspapers, checking articles for mentions, cutting these articles out, and marking them with handling instructions in their famous red and blue pencils. Readers would then handoff their findings to editors who would review and edit the clippings to make sure they were adhering to the guidelines that each client gave. Once the process was complete — the clippings would be shipped out twice a week to the client. Johna Burke, Global Managing Director of AMEC and former CMO of BurrellesLuce recalls receiving these clippings back when she was with U-Haul:
“In the ’90s, as the Public Relations and Investor Relations Director at U-Haul, I saw more than my fair share of newspaper clips from Burrelles. Like clockwork, a few times a week, we would receive our clips in the mail. I employed one person who’s primary role (approximately 60 percent of their time) was to sort through the clips, photocopy them and then distribute to the appropriate executives and business unit leaders apprising them of the news regarding their product(s) and service(s)… Companies like Burrelles were always open to making the customer experience easier and evolving with market needs… [for example] marking keywords on the clips with blue pencil — enabling us to use a single clip for multiple business units without the confusion of the purpose of the article…”
— Johna Burke, Global Managing Director, AMEC
Burrelle’s successfully shaped itself year after year to meet advancements in media and technology — and that is just one reason why the company has stayed relevant, reliable, and resourceful since 1888.
In 1970, broadcast and wire service coverage were added to their menu of services. They monitored both T.V. and radio, watching and listening for keywords. For radio, they were sending transcripts to clients, and for T.V., they would send transcripts or VHS tapes. In 1984, Burrelle’s incorporated fax machines into their work as well, offering “Express” — a service that sent daily headlines and brief summaries of news directly to execs via fax machines.
Using and perfecting these methods certainly prepared Burrelle’s to be the first company of its kind to monitor the internet. In 1994 they introduced “NewsAlert”, their official internet monitoring service based on electronic newspapers, wire services, and broadcast content. At the same time the company had entered its first use agreement with a publication, making Burrelle’s a leader in copyright compliance within media monitoring services. With internet capabilities available, they could now expand digitally, which eventually allowed them to build an online media directory system with the help of Fay Shapiro, CEO of CommPRO.biz and once the Editorial Director at Bacon’s Information Systems (now Cision US.) She reflects on her time at Burrelle’s:
“My partner in crime was Kay Guindon. She ran the editorial department. Together, we developed the [online media directory] system and I guided the sales process. Through my work with our developers, to the outreach to Burrelles clients, this whole process was quite the adventure. I have such respect for everyone involved in the development and launch of the system… Burrelles has always been about reinvention and growth. The organization has consistently brought in forward-thinkers to drive their progress.”
– Fay Shapiro, CEO, CommPRO.biz
In 2003, after a quick period of major technological advancements — Burrelle’s merged with Luce — a competitor in media monitoring (also founded in 1888), acquiring their production, their staff and much more. They rebranded as BurrellesLuce and — in their usual fashion — continued to mold around changes in media by expanding to blog coverage (monitoring more than 50 million sites), and even launching a copyright compliance program for media relations professionals in 2008 — the same year they celebrated 120 years of excellence in media monitoring.
As developments in technology became larger and more convenient for businesses, sadly that also meant less people were needed in an office. Burrelles had phased out sending physical clippings years ago but agreed to keep that going for the few customers who requested it. And even though they have downsized to a few hundred employees — they still strive to add the “human element” to media monitoring that technology is missing. Editors review materials before it is sent to clients and continue to do so now working from home in our current environment.
In 2012, BurrellesLuce went further in proving the importance of print coverage and human editing when they acquired the U.S. print monitoring operations of Cision — solidifying itself as the only media monitoring service to still provide print coverage. “A lot of our clients are definitely still here today because of that print component,” says Del Colle in defense of the labor-intensive part Cision no longer wanted to do.
While Cision is on the list of competitors along with Meltwater and MuckRack; Burrelles, the media monitoring pioneer is not worried about its place in the PR world. “We’re all monitoring the same news, just in a different way,” says Cathy, “We are the only ones left that are providing that print image (pdf), which is so important. We are the only ones that edit print, edit web content, and edit broadcast content.” She maintains that computers can’t Boolean as well as Burrelles employees can.
Regardless, many of their current clients definitely enjoy receiving their content quicker. Burrelles created an easy to use online portal where everything is stored, reports can be generated, and metrics can be viewed all in one place. If there is a client that wants a custom measurement, there is a department dedicated to custom analysis, and yes — it is run by humans. They also believe partnerships are the future, adding in features from recent partner, Talkwalker, for social media monitoring. Burrelles even takes a page out of its own book, constantly monitoring the PR world so their own staff can stay informed and up to date on all they need to know (and FYI — they offer the same custom report for clients on any industry.)
Today, the company has once again rebranded to just “Burrelles” (because everyone called them that anyways) and is now known as a “tech-forward media intelligence services provider generating strategic data insights that help drive winning communications programs.” More importantly — they did not hit pause when the pandemic hit. In February of this year, Burrelles reinvented itself once again by launching an “AM Headline Briefing” Report, which pulls all the top headlines of top publications in the nation — delivering them straight to the client’s inbox.
When it comes to the future of PR, Cathy Del Colle isn’t too concerned about Burrelles since they have become professionals of adaptation, but seeing so much of the industry through headlines she did have some insight:
“I am sure there is going to be a ton of change. There [are] new ways for doing things, but now with COVID, things are going to be adjusted even more. Even as we get through and past the pandemic, there will probably be a lot more streamlining from office space to programs — that includes promoting clients, attending things on behalf of clients…a new way to adapt to change.”
— Cathy Del Colle, President, Burrelles
As for the future of Burrelles, Cathy wants everyone to keep this in mind:
“We are not just the ‘clipping people’, we’re the ‘media monitoring company.’ We do have a full suite of monitoring tools and analysis tools under our belt. People forget about that…we can promote things until we are blue in the face, they [still] see us as just the print clipping company. We are much more than that.”
About #PRHistory:
Introducing a blog from The Museum of Public Relations exploring stories of the many different #PRPioneers — from people to organizations, and even social movements. #PRHistory is vital for public relations students and professionals to understand the field and its influence over the years. Knowing the industry’s past certainly helps to shape its future.
