Cision

Last updated
Cision Ltd.
Cision
Company type Private
Industry Technology
Predecessor
Founded1867;157 years ago (1867)
Headquarters,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Cali Tran (CEO)
  • Prasant Gondipalli (CFO)
  • Paul Dumas (CHRO)
  • Heather Bunyard (CIO)
ProductsMarketing and public relations software & services
Services
Number of employees
6,300
Parent Platinum Equity
Subsidiaries
Website www.cision.com

Cision Ltd. is a public relations and earned media software company and services provider. The company is incorporated in the Cayman Islands [1] and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. In addition to offering Cision-branded services, the company owns a portfolio of companies including PRNewswire, PRWeb, Bulletin Intelligence, L'Argus de la presse, Help a Reporter Out (HARO), CEDROM-SNI, Prime Research, and Canada Newswire.

Contents

Products and services

Cision provides public relations services to businesses. [2] [3] The company offers social media monitoring and engagement and media publicity services. [2] [3] [4]

Cision's software is distributed in seven languages. As of June 2014, it was used by more than 16,000 annual subscribers worldwide, [4] including commercial businesses and governmental, educational and non-profit organizations. [2]

Software

The company offers three web-based packages: the "CisionMarketing Suite", the "Public Relations Suite" and the "Government Relations and Political Action Committee Suite". [4] The Cision "Public Relations Suite" allows users to distribute press releases, access a database of bloggers and journalists (with no option to opt-out), and monitor and analyze news and social media sites. [5] The company's "Government Relations Suite" manages government contacts, analyzes lobbying activity, facilitates communication with elected officials and provides PAC compliance software for filing reports to the FEC and state elections commissions. [6]

Services

Through a series of acquisitions, the company provides services in PRWeb, HARO, North Social, Eureka, Vocus, and Media Insight Suite which Cision has continued to operate under the existing brand names.

PRWeb is an online press release service. [7] [8] PRWeb services are available through the "Vocus Marketing Suite," the "Vocus PR Suite" or as a separate service.

History

In 2011, Cision AB sold its Finnish subsidiary Oy Cision Finland AB to M-Brain Group. [9]

On September 15, 2014, Cision announced the acquisition of Visible Technologies, a social media analytics company. [10]

On October 14, 2014, Cision AB and Vocus announced a "friendly merger" of the two public relations companies. [11] Cision based in Sweden will relocate its headquarters to Chicago and so will Vocus based in Maryland, United States. [11] The company will be based in Chicago and the combined entity will be known as Cision. [12]

During 2015, Cision also acquired the UK company Gorkana. Gorkana offered monitoring, journalist databases and analysis services. [13] On December 15, 2015, Cision agreed to acquire PRNewswire from UBM plc for $841 million (approx. £575 million). [14]

On June 29, 2017, Cision went public via its reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company Capitol Acquisition Corporation III. [15]

On December 26, 2017, Cision agreed to acquire PRIME Research. [16] The acquisition was completed on January 24, 2018. [17]

On January 31, 2020, Platinum Equity completed its acquisition of Cision Ltd for $2.7 billion making it private again. [18] In September 2020, Cision named Abel Clark as CEO, replacing interim chief Brandon Crawley. Prior to the appointment, Clark was CEO of TruSight. [19]

Cision announced the acquisition of Brandwatch in February 2021 for $450 million. [20]

Brandon Crawley returned as interim CEO in February 2022. [21] In April 2022, Cision acquired Streem, an Australia-based realtime media monitoring company. [22] In November 2022, Cision acquired Factmata, a media monitoring and analytics technology company. [23]

In January 2023, Cali Tran joined as CEO. [21] [24] In June 2023, Cision launched CisionOne, an AI-powered platform. [25]

See also

Related Research Articles

PR Newswire is a distributor of press releases headquartered in Chicago. The service was created in 1954 to allow companies to electronically send press releases to news organizations, using teleprinters at first. The founder, Herbert Muschel, operated the service from his house in Manhattan for approximately 15 years. The business was eventually sold to Western Union and then United Newspapers of London. In December 2015, Cision Inc. announced it would acquire the company. On January 1, 2021, Cision formally merged PR Newswire into the company, ending its status as a legal entity after 66 years. Cision plans to continue utilizing the brand name for the foreseeable future in the United States, as well as in Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UBM plc</span> UK-based media company

UBM plc was a British business-to-business (B2B) events organiser headquartered in London, England, before its acquisition by Informa in 2018. It had a long history as a multinational media company. Its main focus was on B2B events, but its principal operations included live media and business-to-business communications, marketing services and data provision, and it principally served the technology, healthcare, trade and transport, ingredients and fashion industries. UBM was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

CNW Group Ltd., also called Canada Newswire and CNW, is a commercial press release service owned by Cision. Cision Distribution services in Canada are powered by Canada Newswire. The service is offered stand-alone or as part of its flagship Cision Communications Cloud platform for PR professionals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BMC Software</span> American enterprise software company

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ketchum Inc.</span> American public relations firm

Ketchum Inc. is a global public relations firm, offering marketing, branding, and corporate communications services in the corporate, healthcare, food and beverage, and technology industries. George Ketchum founded the firm as a Pittsburgh-based advertising company in 1923. It later evolved to include a public relations practice. The firm is headquartered in New York City, with auxiliary offices and affiliates in North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The agency has been owned by Omnicom Group since 1996. Ketchum merged with Düsseldorf-based Pleon in one of the industry's largest mergers in 2009. It has been led by President and CEO Mike Doyle since 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hill & Knowlton</span> American public relations consulting company

Hill & Knowlton is an American global public relations consulting company, headquartered in New York City. The firm has over 80 additional offices in more than 40 countries. The company was founded in Cleveland, in 1927 by John W. Hill and is now owned by the WPP Group.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">WE Communications</span> Public relations and integrated marketing communications firm

WE Communications and commonly known as WE is a global public relations and integrated marketing communications firm often associated with its largest client, Microsoft. The firm was founded in 1983 by Melissa Waggener Zorkin.

Metrica is a global media analysis, media evaluation and PR planning consultancy and is now part of the Gorkana group. Headquartered in London, the business was founded in 1993. The company works in the fields of reputation management, public relations measurement and content analysis. Metrica is part of The Gorkana Group, which incorporates Durrants, Gorkana and Metrica.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brandwatch</span> UK business

Brandwatch is a social media suite company owned by Cision. Brandwatch sells two different products: Consumer Intelligence and Social Media Management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viralheat</span> Subscription-based software service

Viralheat was a subscription-based software service for social media management that helps clients monitor and analyze consumer-created content. It was first released in beta in May 2009. Viralheat raised $75,000 in seed capital in December 2009 and $4.25 million of venture capital from the Mayfield Fund in 2011.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">M-Brain Group</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vocus (software)</span>

Vocus was a public relations software company based in Beltsville, Maryland, United States, serving clients worldwide from 1992 to 2014. In addition to its web-based PR software suites, the company owns the online publicity services, PRWeb and Help a Reporter Out (HARO). Vocus was founded in 1992 by Rick Rudman and Bob Lentz and was a publicly held company until June 2014 when it was taken private by Chicago-based private equity company GTCR. The company operates additional offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. Since late 2014, the company merged with Cision AB to form Cision Inc. as the succeeding company.

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References

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  16. "Today's Stock Market News and Analysis from Nasdaq.com". NASDAQ.com . Retrieved 15 June 2018.
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  21. 1 2 Jay, Corli (31 January 2023). "Cision names new CEO". Crain's Chicago Business. Retrieved 13 February 2024.
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  25. Bach, Natasha. "Cision launches AI-powered platform CisionOne". www.prweek.com. Retrieved 2024-02-13.