A company’s success and influence are defined by its leader’s ability to identify a need, capture an audience, and adapt to environmental change to maintain a dominant market position. Thomas Burrell understood those dynamics when he first opened Burrell Advertising in 1971. He was driven by providing clients with financial value while creating a showcase for positive, progressive black images. “We depicted them as families that had lives, loves, passions, and emotions,” he said when the firm was named BE’s 2002 Advertising Agency of the Year. “The response was enormous simply because we had not seen ourselves in a positive setting. It gave people a wonderful feeling about the products being advertised as well as affection for the companies delivering those messages.”
As Burrell proved adept at crafting messages and images that delivered profits to clients, it faced the demands of a constantly evolving industry. Over a 30-year span, the firm had to repeatedly reinvent itself with every major development, from mainstream Madison Avenue firms invading the turf of African American agencies to major cultural shifts that drove fashion and entertainment such as the rise of hip-hop culture. As Burrell sought to stay competitive through the acquisition of more business from clients seeking to reach a targeted demographic and pursuit of general market accounts, the firm had to grow in size and scale to offer a full range of marketing services. To fuel this expansion, Burrell sold 49% of the firm to the France-based global media giant Publicis Groupe in 2000, and changed its name to Burrell Communications. “The term ‘advertising agency’ [is] outdated. It suggests that we limit ourselves to a little box of advertising agency tools to solve client problems—even if the tools aren’t ideal. We are marketing communications specialists. You tell us the problem, and we use the tools to help solve that problem whether they’re in the box or not.”
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