FAQs

Brunner is an independent, integrated marketing agency with offices in Pittsburgh and Atlanta. We put marketing intelligence at the center of everything we do — connecting strategy, creative, media, and data through Unified Intelligence into programs that drive measurable business results. From established national brands to emerging challengers, we work across industries including quick-service restaurants, healthcare, consumer health, B2B, building materials, and retail.

We have offices in Pittsburgh, PA and Atlanta, GA. But our team members are all over. We’re not going to let geography get in the way of bringing you great talent.

Independence means our only priority is your business. We make decisions that are best for our clients and our people. There are no holding company conflicts, no competing client rosters at the parent level, and no incentive to recommend a channel or vendor for any reason other than performance. Every decision we make is accountable directly to your results — not to a network structure above us.

Unified Intelligence is Brunner’s operating philosophy — and the architecture behind how we work. It connects data scientists, data engineers, strategists, and creatives into a single, continuous loop where every insight informs the next decision. Rather than treating strategy, creative, media, and measurement as separate workstreams, Unified Intelligence runs them in parallel — so your program gets smarter with every cycle, not just at the end of a reporting period. It is powered in part by MAXIMUS, Brunner’s proprietary marketing intelligence platform.

We’re always looking for more good people to add to our roster – check out our Careers page to learn more and find recent postings.

We customize our approach to meet your needs. Whether you’re looking for a full-service agency, someone to help you produce some wicked creative, and experienced web design and development team, or a media team that activates on insights – we want to work with you. Tell us a little about where you want to grow and we’ll take it from there. Contact us to get started.

Our Work section features case studies across industries and disciplines — from brand campaigns and media programs to data-driven performance work.

Brunner is an independent integrated marketing agency founded in Pittsburgh in 1989. The agency offers expertise across brand development, creative, media, marketing intelligence, website design and development, and communications — all connected through a proprietary intelligence platform called Maximus. Brunner operates as a fully independent agency with no holding company structure, which allows the leadership team to remain actively involved in every client engagement.

Brunner was founded in 1989 and has operated as a fiercely independent agency for over three decades. The agency is headquartered in Pittsburgh with an office in Atlanta.

Independence means Brunner’s leadership team is directly involved in every account rather than overseeing an organizational structure from a distance. Clients work with the same senior team throughout the engagement rather than experiencing turnover after the pitch. Brunner’s average client relationship is 7.5 years — more than three times the industry average — and the agency’s 89% client retention rate reflects a model built on consistent performance rather than contract obligation.

Brunner’s Net Promoter Score is 85+, which is significantly above the agency industry average. It reflects the quality of client relationships and the standard of work the agency maintains across all engagements.

Yes. Brunner has worked with national and global brands across a wide range of categories, including retail, healthcare, food and beverage, financial services, home improvement, and consumer packaged goods. Clients have included The Home Depot, UPMC, Dick’s Sporting Goods, GNC, Nationwide, PPG, YellaWood, and Google, among others.

Brand research measures how your brand is currently perceived in the market — awareness, preference, positioning, and competitive standing. It matters before advertising because it reveals the gap between how you see your brand and how the market does. Campaigns built without that insight risk reinforcing the wrong message or reaching the wrong people.

Brunner’s audience research services include segmentation, persona development, awareness and attitude studies, customer satisfaction and NPS research, concept testing, shopper insight, voice of customer studies, usability and customer experience research, and decision journey mapping. The goal is a complete picture of who your audience is, how they decide, and what it takes to move them.

Market research focuses on the category — size, competitive landscape, white space, and opportunity. Audience research focuses on the people — their behaviors, attitudes, motivations, and decision journeys. Both are necessary. Market research tells you where to play. Audience research tells you how to win.

Market research consulting helps organizations interpret existing research, identify insight gaps, and build a plan to fill them. It’s particularly useful when a company has data but lacks the analytical framework to act on it — or when strategic decisions are being made faster than new research can be commissioned.

Research at Brunner isn’t a deliverable — it’s a foundation. Every finding from brand tracking, market sizing, or audience segmentation feeds directly into the brand strategy, positioning, messaging, and communications planning that follow. The research and the strategy are built in the same system, so nothing gets lost in translation.

Audience development is the process of turning research data into actionable audience segments — and then connecting those segments to the creative, media, and messaging decisions that reach them. It goes beyond defining who the audience is to mapping how they decide, what they need to hear, and where they’re most likely to act.

Brand strategy development is the process of defining how a brand will be positioned in the market, what it will say to specific audiences, how its portfolio will be structured, and what standards will govern how it shows up across every touchpoint. At Brunner, brand strategy development begins with the business question and builds a framework rigorous enough to guide every downstream marketing decision.

Brunner’s brand strategy services include brand positioning, brand architecture, messaging framework development, audience segmentation, go-to-market planning, and brand guidelines. Every service is connected — so positioning informs messaging, messaging informs segmentation, and segmentation informs how and where the brand activates.

Brand strategy defines what the brand stands for, who it’s for, and how it should be perceived — it’s the foundation. Marketing strategy defines how that brand will be activated in the market — through which channels, to which audiences, at what moments. At Brunner, both are built together so the strategy and the activation stay aligned from the start.

Audience segmentation in marketing is the practice of dividing a broad audience into distinct groups based on shared behaviors, attitudes, or needs — and then tailoring the brand’s message and media to each group. Effective segmentation connects directly to brand strategy: the brand’s core position stays consistent, while the expression adapts to what each segment needs to hear.

Brunner’s approach to brand strategy consulting starts with the business question — not the creative brief. We align on what the brand needs to accomplish, assess the market and competitive landscape, define the positioning and architecture, and build the messaging framework that carries it forward. Then we stay in the work — connected to the creative, media, and intelligence teams who will activate the strategy.

A brand needs a new strategy when the positioning no longer reflects where the market is heading, when audience needs have shifted, or when the brand has outgrown its original architecture. A refresh addresses expression — visual identity, tone, messaging — without changing the underlying strategy. Brunner helps clients determine which problem they actually have before recommending a path forward.

Communications planning, or comms planning is the process of defining what a brand says to specific audiences, through which channels, and in what sequence — before content is created or media is placed. A strong comms plan connects brand strategy to channel activation through a shared message architecture that keeps every execution aligned, regardless of who’s producing it or where it runs.

Integrated marketing planning, message mapping, channel strategy, decision journey mapping, content audits, and content strategy. Every service is built from the brand strategy and audience insights that precede it, so the plan that goes to market is grounded in something real.

Content strategy is the framework that governs what content gets created, for whom, at what stage of the journey. Content marketing is the execution of that framework. Without a strategy, content marketing is guesswork.

Integrated marketing planning is the discipline of aligning audience insight, brand messaging, channel activation, and calendar sequencing into a single, coordinated plan. When marketing is truly integrated, every channel reinforces the others — and the brand builds across the customer journey rather than resetting with each campaign.

Strategic content consulting starts with what you have — auditing existing content, assessing performance, and mapping gaps against the audience’s decision journey. From there, we build a framework for what comes next: what to create, what to retire, what to optimize, and how to govern the process so quality and strategic alignment scale with volume.

Creative campaign concepting is the process of developing the central idea that will drive an advertising or marketing campaign — from the initial creative territory through the concepts that will be evaluated, refined, and ultimately produced. At Brunner, campaign concepting is a strategic process: it begins with audience insight and brand positioning, uses those inputs to define the creative territory, and pressure-tests every idea before it advances.

Campaign concept development is the structured process of moving from a strategic brief to a campaign idea — and then from that idea to the full campaign architecture that will carry it across channels. It includes brief development, ideation, concept exploration, pressure-testing, and the development of the platform the campaign will run on.

Brunner’s ad campaign development starts with the strategic foundation. Every idea is evaluated against the brief and the media environment it will live in. The result is campaign work that connects to people and to business outcomes.

A campaign platform is a central creative idea flexible enough to sustain a brand’s marketing over time — across channels, markets, and campaigns — without losing coherence or impact. It matters because single campaigns fade. Platforms compound. A strong campaign platform gives the brand a creative territory it can own, not just a moment it can occupy.

A strong creative brief for campaign concepting defines the audience with specificity, articulates the single insight that makes the brief worth responding to, states the brand’s position clearly, and sets the criteria by which ideas will be evaluated. At Brunner, brief development is a discipline — the brief is the first creative act, and weak briefs produce weak concepts.

Integrated campaign concepting means the central idea is built to work across every channel from the start — not adapted after the fact. Ideas are evaluated for how they connect to intelligence and how they will perform in video, social, search, display, and any other media channel in the plan before a single execution is produced. The concept and the channel strategy are developed together.

Brunner’s creative design is full service, starting with brand identity and design systems, and carrying through cross-channel advertising designs, web and UX design, motion graphics and animation, social media content, out of home and print production. Every execution considers the medium, the campaign and the brand framework it sits within — so nothing exists in isolation.

A design agency focuses primarily on visual execution — assets, and production. A creative agency like Brunner operates at both the strategic and executional level: shaping the brand identity, concepting the campaign idea, building the brand system, designing the required assets and creating the content that goes with them. Design at Brunner is always connected to the intelligence and strategy behind it.

Advertising design covers the visual execution of campaign concepts across paid media formats — print, out-of-home, digital display, social advertising, and broadcast. At Brunner, advertising design begins with the campaign concept and ends with camera-ready or upload-ready assets built to the specification of each channel and format.

A design system is the complete visual framework that governs how a brand appears across every touchpoint — including identity elements, typography, color, iconography, photography direction, and usage rules. Consistency at scale doesn’t happen by accident. Without a system every new team, vendor, or campaign risks visual drift that can erode brand recognition over time.

Brunner’s digital design practice covers UX-centered website design, display advertising, social content, email, landing pages, and digital out-of-home — built for the platform and the audience behavior specific to each format. Every digital asset is designed with performance in mind: optimized for the feed, the screen size, and the moment of attention it needs to earn.

At Brunner, design and campaign concepting are part of the same creative system — not sequential handoffs. Concept development informs design direction from the start, and design thinking informs what concepts are feasible and powerful across channels. The result is campaign work where the idea and the execution are inseparable.

Brunner’s video production services include production management, commercial ad development, digital video production, social video content, stop motion and animation, post-production and editorial, and multi-format delivery. We’ve even been known to write an original song or two. Every production is managed from brief through final delivery — with strategy and creative connected throughout the process, not handed off at the shoot.

Commercial ad development is the full process of bringing a broadcast or digital commercial from concept to final delivery — including scripting, storyboarding, casting, pre-production planning and location scouting, crew assembly, set design, production, and post. At Brunner, commercial development begins with the strategic brief and ends with a deliverable built to perform in the channel it’s designed for. Everything is important, from pre-production to handoff, because decisions made before the cameras roll are just as important to the quality and efficiency of a shoot.

Digital video production requires a modified approach because the viewing context, attention window, and platform behaviors are fundamentally different. Brunner produces digital video built for the platform it will live on — optimizing format, pacing, and message structure for how people actually watch in each environment, rather than adapting broadcast spots after the fact. Every placement is planned so your campaign feels consistently connected.

Multi-format delivery is the practice of producing all required versions of a video asset — varying lengths, aspect ratios, and platform specifications — from the same production, with delivery built into the plan from the start. It matters because assets adapted after production, without that foresight, lose coherence and impact. At Brunner, the :60, :30, :15, and :06 cuts, plus social and digital extensions, are planned before the shoot begins.

The production team is involved in the creative concepting process — not brought in after the concept is approved. That means every production decision is made with the strategy in mind: casting choices, locations, pacing, music and lyrics, voiceover and post-production all serve the brief, not just the aesthetics. The idea that gets produced is the idea that was concepted.

Advertising production development covers all pre-production activity: script development, storyboarding, location scouting, talent sourcing and casting, crew assembly, production design, and logistics planning. At Brunner, pre-production is treated as the most important phase of the process — because decisions made before cameras roll determine the quality and efficiency of everything that follows.

Brunner’s services include copywriting, long-form resource and website content (ebooks, case studies, research reports, blogs), social content, email, and video scripts, as well as content and video production management. Every service is built from the brand strategy, audience insight, and intelligence that precede it and optimized for search — so the content produced is connected to the message and the audience it’s meant to move.

Content strategy defines what to create, for whom, at what stage of the journey, and through which channels. Content creation is the execution of that strategy — the writing, production, and development of the actual content. At Brunner, both disciplines are connected: the content strategy informs every content brief, and every piece of content is evaluated against the strategy that commissioned it.

Advertising copywriting covers the words behind every paid placement: headlines, body copy, calls to action, and scripts for TV, audio, digital, and out-of-home. Each piece is built to perform within its channel’s own constraints while staying connected to the campaign’s core message.

White papers, case studies, bylined articles, guides, and reports: long-form pieces built to establish authority and move a reader further down the funnel than a single ad or post ever could, grounded in the same audience insight that shapes everything else we produce.

Website content is one of the highest-impact inputs to both search engine visibility and brand perception — because it’s the most visited content a brand produces and one of the primary signals search engines and AI use to evaluate authority and relevance. At Brunner, optimized website content is written for humans first — clear, purposeful, and brand-consistent — and structured for SEO and answer engine optimization from the first draft.

For clients managing large content programs, Brunner provides content production management: editorial calendars, contributor briefing standards, voice and quality guidelines, workflow design, and performance tracking. The goal is a system where content scales — in volume and across teams — without the brand standard slipping in the process.

Brunner’s UX process starts with user research and consumer insights before any design decisions are made. We establish who the site needs to serve and what they need to accomplish, then move through information architecture, wireframing, usability testing (optional), and UI design in a structured sequence. Each stage is connected — research informs structure, structure informs wireframes, wireframes support visual design, and the final design system is built to hand off cleanly to development. The process is consultative and collaborative, involving client stakeholders at key decision points rather than presenting finished work for approval.

UX and SEO are connected disciplines at Brunner. A well-structured site with clear navigation, logical content hierarchy, and fast load times sends quality signals to search engines — particularly as Google’s ranking criteria weight page experience more heavily. Our sites are designed with SEO integration in mind: information architecture decisions consider crawlability and keyword mapping, content structure supports heading hierarchy, and usability standards that keep users engaged reduce bounce signals that negatively affect rankings.

Yes, and not as an afterthought. ADA compliance and WCAG accessibility standards are built into Brunner’s UX process from the information architecture stage — not reviewed and patched at the end of a project. This approach is more cost-effective, produces a better experience for all users, and reduces legal exposure. Accessible design also correlates with improved SEO, as many accessibility best practices overlap with technical search optimization requirements.

A UX design system is a documented, reusable set of UI components, design patterns, and brand standards that govern how every page of a site looks and behaves. Without one, sites accumulate inconsistency over time as different pages get updated by different teams or vendors. Brunner delivers a design system as part of every UX engagement — so the visual and interaction standards established at launch remain enforceable as the site grows, and new pages or features can be added without degrading the experience.

Brunner’s platform recommendations are driven entirely by the client’s requirements, not by agency preference or existing toolset. We evaluate content model complexity, team technical capacity, integration requirements, performance expectations, and long-term scalability before recommending a platform. For organizations that need flexible, future-forward architecture, we also assess whether a composable or headless CMS approach is a better fit than a traditional monolithic platform. The goal is a recommendation you won’t have to undo in three years.

A headless CMS separates the content management layer from the presentation layer — meaning your content team manages content in one system while developers control how and where it’s displayed, across web, mobile, app, and any other channel. Composable architecture takes that further by assembling best-in-class tools for each function rather than relying on one platform to do everything. Both approaches offer flexibility and scalability advantages over traditional monolithic CMS builds, but they require greater technical maturity to manage. Brunner assesses whether the complexity is warranted by your actual requirements before recommending either approach.

It depends on the current architecture. For sites built on modern, API-connected platforms, AI integrations — such as intelligent search, personalization engines, content automation, or predictive forms — can typically be layered in without a full rebuild. For older or more rigid platforms, the integration may require more significant architectural work. Brunner assesses the current state before recommending an approach, and in either case, we build AI integrations to perform reliably at scale rather than as demonstration features.

Yes. Brunner offers web maintenance and support services that include proactive monitoring, security updates, performance optimization, and technical support with defined response SLAs. Our maintenance team works with the same codebase they built — which means faster resolution, fewer handoff errors, and a support relationship that understands the site architecture from the inside out.

Development, UX, and SEO are not separate workstreams at Brunner. UX design decisions inform the information architecture and interaction patterns that developers build to — so there’s no translation loss between design intent and built output. SEO requirements are incorporated into the technical build: URL structures, heading hierarchy, schema markup, page speed optimization, and crawlability are addressed in development, not added as a post-launch checklist. The result is a site that performs for users and for search engines from day one.

A successful website doesn’t just look good ― it grows your business. Brunner evaluates user behavior, conversion pathways, technical performance, and content effectiveness to continuously improve engagement and business outcomes. Every recommendation is tied to measurable goals, not just design preferences. Before every website launch or maintenance project, we review and optimize your site analytics to make sure you’re tracking what you need to understand how your site is working. We work with our data management team to establish baseline metrics and ensure all channels are connected and you’re ready to report on performance.

Timelines vary based on scope, integrations, content requirements, and stakeholder involvement. A simple website refresh may require only a few months, while enterprise platforms, ecommerce implementations, or complex integrations often require longer timelines. We establish project schedules based on business priorities and project requirements rather than forcing projects into a predefined process.

Website content is one of the highest-impact inputs to both search engine visibility and brand perception — because it’s the most visited content a brand produces and one of the primary signals search engines and AI use to evaluate authority and relevance. At Brunner, optimized website content is written for humans first — clear, purposeful, and brand-consistent — and structured for SEO and answer engine optimization from the first draft.

Paid search, also called search engine marketing or SEM, places your brand’s ads on search engine results pages when users search for terms relevant to your business. Advertisers bid on keywords and pay when a user clicks the ad. Effective paid search programs go beyond bidding — they require a campaign structure mapped to audience intent, compelling ad creative, aligned landing pages, and continuous optimization to stay competitive as costs and competition shift.

Modern search platforms offer powerful automation for bidding, targeting, and campaign management. We embrace automation where it improves the efficiency of paid search campaign management, but it only optimizes toward the signals it is given. Human expertise determines whether those signals are the right ones — whether the campaign structure is sound, whether the keyword strategy reflects actual buyer intent, and whether the budget is allocated toward outcomes that matter to the business rather than metrics that are easy to improve. We don’t surrender strategy to algorithms. Every account has a specialist actively directing the strategy that automation executes.

AI engine advertising refers to brand visibility and paid placement strategies within AI-powered search environments like ChatGPT search, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews. As more buyers use AI-generated answers to research and evaluate options, the ability to appear credibly in those answers — through both organic optimization and paid placement — is becoming a meaningful competitive advantage. Brunner is actively testing and building strategies for these environments alongside traditional paid search programs.

Brunner manages paid search campaigns across Google Ads — including Search, Display, Performance Max, Shopping, Video, Discovery, Gmail, and App campaigns — as well as Microsoft Advertising across Bing Search, Native, Display, and Shopping. The team holds platform certifications across all major managed channels including Search Ads 360, Skai, and Google Analytics.

Brunner’s paid search reporting is built around the business outcomes that matter — cost per acquisition, qualified lead volume, ROAS, and revenue contribution — rather than surface-level metrics like clicks and impressions. Reporting is connected to the broader intelligence infrastructure so paid search performance is visible alongside the full media picture, not in a separate dashboard that has to be manually reconciled with everything else.

The most common causes of paid search underperformance are poor campaign structure that does not map to marketing goals, keyword selection that targets volume rather than buyer intent, landing pages that are not designed to convert the specific audience the ad reached, and budgets that are set and left rather than actively optimized against current performance signals. Brunner’s intake process identifies which of these is at the root of a program’s issues before recommending a course of action.

Brunner provides end-to-end paid social media services across every major platform — including strategy and planning, media buying and campaign management, audience development and targeting, creative strategy and testing, and analytics and reporting. Every program is built around the client’s specific business objectives, with platform-certified experts managing execution from initial setup through ongoing optimization.

Brunner manages paid social campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, and Twitter/X. Platform selection is driven by audience behavior and business objectives — not by default inclusion. Brunner holds active certifications on all major platforms, including Facebook Blueprint, LinkedIn Marketing Labs, Snapchat Ads Manager, Reddit Fundamentals, TikTok Ads Academy, and Twitter Flight School.

Brunner measures paid social against the business outcomes clients care about most, not just platform delivery metrics. Depending on campaign objectives, that may include leads, sales, customer acquisition, engagement, awareness, or revenue contribution. Our measurement approach combines platform analytics, attribution modeling, incrementality analysis, and cross-channel reporting to understand both performance and business impact. Through MAXIMUS, clients gain visibility into how paid social contributes alongside search, programmatic, CTV, and other marketing investments.

Brunner treats paid social as a performance discipline, not a media placement service. That means strategy is built before a dollar is spent, creative is developed and tested specifically for each platform’s feed environment, audience targeting compounds over time as first-party data and lookalike models mature, and analytics are structured to drive decisions — not just report delivery. For clients like Penske, the result has been a consolidated, high-performing paid social program that outperforms what fragmented in-house or agency management produced previously.

Paid social works best when it is planned as part of a unified media strategy rather than in isolation. Brunner connects paid social audience intelligence to paid search, programmatic display, and OTT planning — so targeting, messaging sequencing, and budget allocation are coordinated across channels. Awareness built through broadcast or OOH is reinforced through paid social retargeting. Performance data from paid social informs creative and audience decisions across the full media mix.

These are four disciplines within modern search visibility strategy, each addressing a different environment where your audience finds information. SEO — search engine optimization — builds organic visibility in traditional search engine results. AEO — answer engine optimization — structures content to be cited directly in AI-generated answers from platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. GEO — generative engine optimization — builds multi-platform brand authority across the sources that generative AI engines draw from when constructing answers. AIO — AI optimization — combines AEO and GEO into a unified strategy for earning the AI-generated answer across all major platforms simultaneously. Each discipline is necessary; none is sufficient on its own.

60% of searches now end without a click — AI platforms deliver the answer directly, before a user ever visits a website. Gartner projects a 25% decline in traditional search volume by 2026, and the number one organic result has already seen a 34.5% drop in click-through rate when AI Overviews appear above it. A brand that ranks well in traditional search but is absent from AI-generated answers is losing influence at exactly the stage where buyers are forming their shortlists. A complete search strategy addresses both environments.

Brunner builds AI citation authority through two parallel tracks. The first is content structuring: answer-first content formats, FAQ and schema markup, question-led headings, and atomic paragraph structure that AI engines can extract and quote. The second is ecosystem presence: third-party citations, PR and media mentions, forum and community visibility, knowledge graph integration, and consistent brand entity signals across every platform that AI engines treat as trusted sources. AI engines only recommend brands they can verify across multiple independent sources — Brunner builds the consensus that makes your brand verifiable.

BrandEcho Score is Brunner’s proprietary AI share-of-voice metric. It is a composite 0 to 100 score that measures how frequently and prominently a brand is cited across the major AI search platforms — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and Google AI Overviews — updated monthly and benchmarked against a brand’s competitive set. The score is built from hundreds of brand-relevant queries run across each platform, with each mention weighted by platform authority, source type, sentiment, and position in the AI response. It gives brands a single, trackable measure of AI visibility and a clear picture of where they are losing ground to competitors.

Brunner’s AI Visibility Audit is a baseline assessment of where a brand currently stands across traditional search, AI-generated answer environments, and the generative source set. It covers technical SEO health, current AI citation frequency by platform, content structure readiness for answer extraction, entity presence and knowledge graph status, and competitive benchmarking via BrandEcho Score. The audit produces a prioritized roadmap — quick wins that can be implemented within weeks and long-term authority-building plays that compound over time.

Local search and AI search are increasingly related. AI-powered search assistants and voice queries are heavily local in intent, and the business listing accuracy, review signals, and local content authority that produce strong local search rankings are the same signals that AI engines use to verify local business credibility. Brunner’s local search strategy is built with both traditional local rankings and AI answer eligibility in mind, so local authority compounds across both environments rather than being optimized for one at the expense of the other.

Brunner provides end-to-end programmatic display, OTT, and connected TV services — including audience strategy, media planning, buying, and campaign management, brand safety and transparency oversight, creative trafficking, and performance measurement. Every program is tailored to the client’s specific goals and budget, with active optimization throughout the campaign flight rather than passive delivery management.

OTT (over-the-top) refers to video content delivered via the internet rather than through traditional cable or satellite, reaching audiences on smart TVs, streaming devices, mobile phones, and tablets. CTV (connected TV) is a subset of OTT that refers specifically to internet-connected television sets and streaming devices. Both offer digital-level audience targeting within a premium video environment. Brunner plans OTT and CTV together as part of a unified digital video strategy, integrated with linear TV and programmatic display to maximize cross-screen reach and efficiency.

Brunner vets every programmatic platform and inventory source before running client campaigns — selecting brand-safe, reputable environments and actively managing exclusion lists to prevent ads from appearing in inappropriate or low-quality contexts. A full-transparency reporting model ensures clients always know exactly where their ads were served and how each placement performed. Fraud detection and invalid traffic mitigation are built into every programmatic program, supported by Brunner’s use of FouAnalytics and related verification tools.

Linear TV builds broad reach among audiences still watching traditional television. OTT and CTV extend that reach to cord-cutters and cord-nevers — the growing segment of audiences who have reduced or eliminated cable and satellite subscriptions but who remain reachable through streaming platforms with television-quality content and attention. Brunner routinely tests OTT/CTV and linear combinations to identify the reach-efficient mix for each client’s specific audience, geography, and budget — with unified cross-screen reporting to measure incremental reach rather than duplication.

Brunner builds measurement frameworks tied to the business KPIs each client is accountable for — not just impression delivery and viewability metrics. Attribution modeling connects programmatic and CTV activity to downstream outcomes including site visits, lead generation, and revenue contribution. Incrementality analysis isolates the impact of programmatic and CTV from other channels in the mix. All performance data integrates with Brunner’s proprietary MAXIMUS intelligence platform for a unified cross-channel view of marketing performance.

Brunner plans, negotiates, and manages traditional media across linear television, cable, terrestrial radio, out-of-home, and trade publications — both print and digital editions. Each channel is planned within a unified media strategy, with buying and management handled by Brunner’s media team from initial planning through post-flight reconciliation and analytics review.

Broadcast television and radio reach audiences at a scale and with a sensory and emotional impact that digital channels cannot replicate on their own. At the top of the funnel, broadcast builds brand awareness, trust, and emotional resonance — the conditions that make every lower-funnel channel more efficient. Brunner uses broad coverage, engagement, and the versatility of broadcast formats to ignite brand lift, with tailored strategies built around the specific audience, market, and frequency goals of each campaign.

Trade media includes advertising in industry-specific print and digital publications, e-newsletters, and websites that professional buyers, specifiers, engineers, and category decision-makers use to stay current in their fields. For B2B brands and companies selling through trade channels, it reaches the people who determine what gets sourced, specified, and purchased — an audience that general consumer media does not efficiently reach. Brunner works across thousands of U.S. trade publications in 150-plus categories, selecting partners based on content alignment, audience engagement, and KPI fit.

Brunner’s traditional media buying process covers rate negotiation, placement selection, added-value inventory, reach and frequency delivery against TRP and impression targets, schedule monitoring, and invoice reconciliation. For trade media, it includes continuous analytics review tracking engagement, on-site actions, and lead generation — with optimization toward top-performing placements throughout the campaign rather than waiting until the flight ends.

Brunner plans traditional and digital media as a unified strategy. Broadcast awareness builds the brand recognition that raises paid search and paid social conversion rates. OOH creates contextual brand presence that drives search lift in priority markets. Trade media shortens the B2B sales cycle by establishing brand credibility before a direct response effort reaches the buyer. The audience intelligence infrastructure that informs Brunner’s digital targeting also informs traditional audience and market selection — so both sides of the plan are working toward the same outcomes.

Marketing mix modeling (MMM) is a statistical analysis technique that isolates the contribution of each marketing channel — paid media, owned channels, promotions, pricing, and external factors like seasonality and economic conditions — to overall business outcomes like sales and revenue. For a CMO, it answers the question every marketing budget conversation requires: what did each dollar produce, and where should the next dollar go? Brunner builds marketing mix models that translate that statistical output into clear budget allocation recommendations tied directly to business performance.

Multi-touch attribution tracks individual user journeys across digital touchpoints and assigns credit based on conversion path data. It is ideal for measuring digital channel sequences but cannot account for channels that do not generate trackable user events — like broadcast TV, radio, OOH, or trade media. Marketing mix modeling takes an aggregate, top-down approach using statistical regression across all channels and external variables simultaneously, making it the right tool for measuring the full marketing mix across both digital and traditional channels. Brunner uses both approaches within a unified measurement framework, applying each where it is most appropriate.

The full dataset required for a valid model varies based on your business — it may include paid media spend and delivery data across all channels, sales and revenue data, pricing and promotional activity, macroeconomic indicators, competitive spend data where available, and seasonality variables. Data history, quality and completeness at this stage directly determines the accuracy and usefulness of the model output. Brunner’s data sourcing and normalization process is built to identify and resolve gaps before modeling begins.

Model development timelines vary based on the complexity of the channel mix, the availability and quality of historical data, and the specific business questions the model needs to answer. Brunner scopes each engagement based on those factors and aligns on timeline and deliverables at the outset of the engagement.

Brunner’s MMM practice is integrated with MAXIMUS, Brunner’s proprietary marketing intelligence platform — which means model outputs feed directly into the same environment where live media decisions, budget planning, and performance reporting are already happening. That connection allows MMM findings to be operationalized immediately rather than waiting for the next planning cycle. Budget reallocation recommendations from the model can inform active campaign adjustments in real time, compounding the value of the analysis across every subsequent campaign flight.

A Brunner data management engagement typically covers four areas: data sourcing and integration (connecting your marketing platforms and first-party data into one governed environment), dashboarding and reporting (building role-specific views that surface the metrics your team actually needs), data visualization (translating performance data into clear visual narratives that drive decisions, not debates), and data hosting and infrastructure (maintaining the environment securely and at scale). The specific scope is built around your current stack, your reporting cadence, and the decisions your team needs to make faster.

Data management is the operational layer. It supports daily, weekly, and monthly decision-making — giving your team a live, accurate view of how programs are performing across channels. Marketing Mix Modeling is the strategic layer. It uses that historical data to quantify long-term channel contribution and inform annual or quarterly budget allocation. Both run inside the Maximus OS environment. Data management keeps the engine running between modeling cycles; MMM tells you how to tune it.

Yes. Brunner’s data management practice is built to integrate with the platforms your team already uses — including AWS, Tableau, Alteryx, Python-based environments, and Shiny applications. The goal is to connect and rationalize what you have, not replace it. Where gaps exist in your current stack, we can recommend and implement solutions that fill them without disrupting the tools already embedded in your workflow.

It depends on the complexity of your current data environment — the number of sources, the state of your existing infrastructure, and the level of governance already in place. For teams starting from a relatively clean but disconnected state, a foundational dashboard environment can typically be live within weeks, not quarters. Brunner scopes data management engagements in phases so your team has a working reporting environment as quickly as possible, with additional sophistication added as the infrastructure matures.

Brunner’s PR practice covers corporate communications, executive and internal communications, employee engagement, brand communications, media relations, message development, media training, thought leadership, strategic partnerships, and awards program management. The practice is run as an integrated communications discipline — not a standalone media outreach function — meaning PR strategy is built in coordination with the paid media plan, creative brief, and social strategy to ensure the brand narrative is consistent across every channel.

Brunner approaches event marketing as a brand experience discipline, not a logistics function. Planning and execution, venue and vendor management, and travel and logistics are all handled — but the work begins with the brand strategy and audience intelligence that defines what the event needs to accomplish, who it needs to reach, and what it needs to make them believe. Reporting, insights, and optimization are built into every engagement so the program improves over time and the investment can be justified at the executive level.

Yes — and the integration is a material advantage. When PR and event strategy are managed by the same team, working from the same audience intelligence and brand narrative, the tradeshow appearance generates the press release that feeds the social content that supports the paid campaign. The disciplines reinforce each other instead of operating in parallel with separate agencies and separate briefs.

PR performance is tracked through earned media coverage volume, share of voice, sentiment analysis, message pull-through, and tier-one outlet placement. Event performance is measured through attendance, engagement metrics, lead generation, post-event sentiment, and pipeline attribution where applicable. Both disciplines use Brunner’s intelligence infrastructure to ensure reporting is consistent with the metrics framework governing the rest of the marketing program.

Brunner’s organic social media practice covers social media strategy, editorial calendar development, content production, publishing, community management, and social listening. While distinct from paid social and influencer, we stay connected so brand voice, audience relationships, and the day-to-day presence feel authentic and build trust over time.

Paid social is a media investment — targeted, optimized, and measured against conversion and reach goals. Organic social is a brand investment — built around voice, community, and the quality of the relationship between a brand and its audience. Both are coordinated to reinforce each other and integrate with influencer partnerships.

Social listening is the practice of monitoring what people say about your brand, your category, and your competitors across social platforms — not just when they tag you, but across the broader conversation. At Brunner, social listening feeds directly into marketing intelligence to fuel content strategy, brand tracking, and communications planning, so your marketing responds to what the market is actually saying rather than what internal teams assume it believes.

Social media performance at Brunner is measured against business objectives, not just platform metrics. We track brand sentiment, community growth, content resonance, share of voice, and audience retention — and connect those signals to the broader brand tracking and intelligence infrastructure that informs the rest of the marketing program. Follower counts are a starting point, not the goal.

Brunner’s influencer marketing services cover the full program lifecycle: strategy and planning, influencer vetting and selection, celebrity endorsement management, content direction, stakeholder coordination, thought leadership development, and campaign performance analysis. Programs are designed to generate both immediate audience impact and durable brand content that extends across paid and owned channels.

Paid Social is a media channel — targeted, bought, and optimized for conversion or reach. Organic social is the brand’s own voice — managed for consistency, community, and credibility over time. Influencer marketing is a third discipline: it works by connecting a trusted creator’s existing audience relationship to the brand. The persuasion comes from the person, not the placement, which is why vetting and strategic fit matter as much as scale.

Vetting at Brunner goes beyond follower count. We evaluate audience quality and demographics, engagement rate and authenticity, content standard and production value, brand safety history, and relevance to the category and campaign objective. We use Tagger and Sprout Social to support data-driven decisions, but the final recommendation is always a judgment call made with the client’s brand standards in mind.

Content created through an influencer program has value well beyond its initial post. Brunner structures influencer agreements to include content licensing provisions where appropriate — so the video, photography, and testimonial assets produced can be repurposed across paid social, owned channels, and brand creative. A well-run program builds the brand’s content library at the same time it builds awareness.

Brunner’s CRM and marketing automation services cover platform strategy and consulting, CRM administration, third-party integrations, user journey development, lead management, database segmentation, email strategy and execution, and program measurement. The practice is staffed by certified professionals across Marketo, HubSpot, Eloqua, and Salesforce — and is connected to Brunner’s broader intelligence infrastructure so CRM data informs, and is informed by, the rest of the marketing program.

Yes — that is the most common engagement. Most organizations have the platform; the gap is in strategy, configuration, journey logic, and program discipline. Brunner’s team audits current utilization, identifies underperforming areas, and builds a practical roadmap for closing the gap between what the platform can do and what it’s currently delivering.

Brunner builds email programs around behavioral data, lifecycle stage, and audience segmentation — not send volume. The goal is relevance: the right message to the right contact at the right stage of their relationship with the brand. That approach improves deliverability, engagement rates, and downstream conversion, and it protects the database by reducing unsubscribe and fatigue signals over time.

At Brunner, CRM and automation are not managed in isolation. Audience segmentation data informs media targeting. Email performance signals feed into brand tracking and content strategy. Lead stage data connects to campaign planning and reporting. The result is a program where owned channel performance is visible across the full marketing system — not siloed in a separate platform dashboard that no one outside the CRM team ever sees.