Cision Brings PR, Social Media Management and Digital Consumer Intelligence Together with Category-Defining Acquisition of Brandwatch

CHICAGO and BRIGHTON, England, March 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cision, PR Newswire's parent company, announced on February 26 that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Brandwatch, a global leader in digital consumer intelligence and social media listening, for $450 million. This strategic move will combine two leaders in their respective industries and will bring to customers the substantial benefits of their complementary capabilities to deliver the future of PR, marketing and digital customer engagement.

The forces of digital transformation reward those organizations and boardrooms that listen to and quickly capitalize on digital insights from their consumers. Leading companies are quickly adapting and using these insights to create tailored, authentic communications and direct connections with customers at scale. This paradigm shift to real-time, customer-centric PR, marketing and customer care strategies will continue to accelerate and differentiate those companies that take action.

Cision is a leader in news distribution and media monitoring and analysis with a media contact database of approximately 1 million journalists and media outlets and over 75,000 customers. Brandwatch works with thousands of the world's most admired brands, using the latest in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to bring structure to and derive meaning from the voices of the billions of people using social media.

Cision and Brandwatch are a compelling combination. Together, they will provide brands and organizations with consumer and media intelligence to devise more effective customer engagement strategies from PR and marketing to research and product development. Whether teams are connecting with journalists and influencers, launching social campaigns, developing brand messaging or conducting deep research into consumer behavior, they will have real-time insights and long-term trend analysis to guide them.

"The continued digital shift and widespread adoption of social media is rapidly and fundamentally changing how brands and organizations engage with their customers," said Abel Clark, CEO of Cision. "This is driving the imperative that PR, marketing, social and customer care teams fully incorporate the unique insights now available into consumer-led strategies. Together, Cision and Brandwatch will help our clients to more deeply understand, connect and engage with their customers at scale across every channel."

"We have always built Brandwatch with ambition. That was recognized by Forrester, who recently named us as a leader in our space," said Giles Palmer, founder and CEO of Brandwatch. "Now is the time to take the next step – joining a company of significant scale to create a business and a suite of products that can have an important global impact. We are excited to join Abel and the Cision team to supercharge our work and bring even more value to our customers."

Brandwatch was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Social Listening Platforms, Q4 2020.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021.

Macquarie Capital acted as an exclusive financial adviser to Brandwatch on this transaction. Cooley LLP acted as legal counsel to Brandwatch.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP acted as M&A legal counsel, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP acted as financing legal counsel and Latham & Watkins LLP acted as regulatory counsel to Cision.

About Brandwatch
Brandwatch is the world's pioneering digital consumer intelligence suite. The company's AI-powered deep social listening and content marketing analytics products help over 2,000 of the world's most admired brands and agencies make insightful, data-driven decisions. Brandwatch includes leading content marketing platform BuzzSumo in its portfolio. Brandwatch has 10 offices around the world and is headquartered in Brighton, UK.

About Cision
As a global leader in PR, marketing and social media management technology and intelligence, Cision helps brands and organizations to identify, connect and engage with customers and stakeholders to drive business results. PR Newswire, a network of over 1.1 billion influencers, in-depth monitoring, analytics and its Falcon.io social media platform headline a premier suite of solutions. Cision has offices in 24 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA and APAC. For more information about Cision's award-winning solutions, including its next-gen Cision Communications Cloud®, visit www.cision.com and follow @Cision on Twitter.