Strategy Development and Message Development

The PBN Company works with our clients to develop highly sophisticated strategies for achieving their government relations and public affairs objectives. This includes analyzing issues from both our client’s and the government’s perspectives as well as the interest of industry allies, the news media and other third parties. It also includes simplifying complex policy issues into persuasive arguments to delivered to government officials, media, coalition partners and other audiences through talking points, white papers, open letters and other direct communications as well as through more sophisticated issues advertisements and digital media.

A key example is our work for the Coalition of Intellectual Property Rights, a public-private partnership dedicated to establishing transparent intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes in the countries of the Former Soviet Union that adhere to international standards. The PBN Company designed and executed a multi-pronged, multi-country government relations program which included multi- and bi-lateral negotiations; gap analysis with international protocols; legislative lobbying; outreach to the patent, customs and other regulatory authorities; and public educations campaigns in the economic and social impact of counterfeits and patent infringements. Today, most of the countries of the CIS have IPR regimes in line with international standards.

Direct Lobbying

The PBN Company develops and implements lobbying programs to influence specific regulatory and legislative initiatives that impact our clients' business objectives or operations. We also provide access to key government, executive and parliamentary decision makers. The firm builds coalitions and strategic partnerships for our clients seeking changes in government priorities, policies, laws and regulations. 

We have designed and execute numerous lobbying programs for our clients including Philip Morris in Ukraine on issues ranging from product labeling and taxes to counterfeiting and trademark violations; PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Russia on auditing law reform, administrative licensing mechanisms, and Self-Regulating Organization legislation; MTS in Ukraine on a range of telecommunications legislation; and for a number of pharmaceutical companies in Russia on federal reimbursement policies for essential medicines.

Monitoring and Analysis

The PBN Company monitors, analyzes and reports to our clients on a range of political, government and policy issues. This monitoring function includes tracking policy initiatives and stances of executive authorities, legislative and regulatory developments, as well as positions and activities of political parties, news media, NGOs and financial markets. The PBN Company also analyzes the implications and consequences of these issues on our clients and provides concrete and tangible recommendations for action in real time. The PBN Company has provided government relations and issues monitoring services to companies as diverse as Baltic Beverage Holdings, Enel, International Gaming Technology, BP, International Paper, NordStream, Rolf Group, PepsiCo, MTS, UkrEximbank, and Xerox, among many others.

Coalition Building and Grassroots Organization

The PBN Company builds coalitions with key government, business, consumer and other organizations that support our clients’ policy positions. These coalition-building activities include those at the highest level of government, business and media to very targeted grassroots activities with consumers, analysts, special interests and other audiences. The goal is to generate widespread, influential support for our clients’ agenda.

An example is the work that the firm did for GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s second largest pharmaceutical company. Our task was to ensure the Russian government applies effective and fair mechanism to make affordable, state-of-the-art HIV-AIDS medicine available to Russian patients. By developing compelling messages and outreaching to government leaders, the domestic pharmaceutical industry, the Russian medical profession and patient advocates we were able to enact legislation that ensured fair pricing for patients and patent protections for manufacturers.

Public Affairs

Gaining support and coverage in the media on public policy issues is critical to effective government relations and public affairs. The PBN Company works with the news media to generate news articles, editorials, letters-to-the-editor and columns that support our clients’ positions on policy issues. We employ strategic approaches to generate positive media coverage and positioning through news releases, interviews, briefings, news conferences, electronic communications and ongoing contact with international, national and regional media.  We have designed comprehensive public affairs programs on topics ranging from homeland security and immigration to healthcare reform and capital markets development.

Digital Media

The PBN Company’s digital media capabilities are particularly important to the firm’s government relations and public affairs assignments. We deliver our clients’ public policy messages through dedicated websites, electronic newsletters, e-mail messages, instant messaging and extranets. We use interactive media to coalesce and activate grassroots support on key policy issues. We monitor issues for clients using best of breed online media monitoring and data base search firms to monitor print and broadcast media as well as websites, blogs and other online platforms.

Capacity Building

The PBN Company also works with our clients to help build and develop their internal government relations capacity. This includes recruiting and training staff, institutionalizing government relations activities, and establishing benchmarks to judge successful. We have provided these services for clients as diverse as Visa International and Telenor to MTS and Philip Morris.