Cision Ltd. is a

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. Pu ...

and earned media software company and services provider. The company is incorporated in the

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory, and the largest by population. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located so ...

and headquartered in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

. Cision offers a portfolio of services including

PRNewswire 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, ...

, PRWeb, Brandwatch, Connectively and Canada Newswire.

Products and services

Cision provides

services to businesses. The company offers

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

monitoring and engagement and media

publicity In marketing, publicity is the public visibility or awareness for any product, service, person or organization. It may also refer to the movement of information from its source to the general public, often (but not always) via the media. The sub ...

services. Cision's software is distributed in seven languages. , it was used by more than 16,000 annual subscribers worldwide, including commercial businesses and governmental, educational and non-profit organizations.

Software

The company offers three web-based packages: the "CisionMarketing Suite", the "Public Relations Suite" and the "Government Relations and Political Action Committee Suite". 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. 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.

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 A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

names. PRWeb is an online

press release A press release (also known as a media release) is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing new information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public releas ...

service. 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. On September 15, 2014, Cision announced the acquisition of Visible Technologies, a social media analytics company. On October 14, 2014, Cision AB and Vocus announced a "friendly merger" of the two public relations companies. Cision based in Sweden will relocate its headquarters to Chicago and so will Vocus based in Maryland, United States. The company will be based in Chicago and the combined entity will be known as Cision. During 2015, Cision also acquired the UK company Gorkana. Gorkana offered monitoring, journalist databases and analysis services. On December 15, 2015, Cision agreed to acquire

from

UBM plc 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 p ...

for $841 million (approx. £575 million). On June 29, 2017, Cision went public via its reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company Capitol Acquisition Corporation III. On December 26, 2017, Cision agreed to acquire PRIME Research. The acquisition was completed on January 24, 2018. On January 31, 2020, Platinum Equity completed its acquisition of Cision Ltd for $2.7 billion making it private again. In September 2020, Cision named Abel Clark as CEO, replacing interim chief Brandon Crawley. Prior to the appointment, Clark was CEO of TruSight. Cision announced the acquisition of Brandwatch in February 2021 for $450 million. Brandon Crawley returned as interim CEO in February 2022. In April 2022, Cision acquired Streem, an Australia-based realtime media monitoring company. In November 2022, Cision acquired Factmata, a media monitoring and analytics technology company. In January 2023, Cali Tran joined as CEO. In June 2023, Cision launched CisionOne, an AI-powered platform. In July 2024, Dow Jones & Co. filed a lawsuit against Cision for a breach of contract. Guy Abramo was named CEO on January 15, 2025, replacing Cali Tran.

References

External links