A&B’SHISTORY(LONGVERSION)
Alâeddin Asna, who chose a field which was not in existence in our country yet, graduated from the Department of Communication Arts of the Michigan State University in the U.S.. He returned to his country as the first public relations specialist of Turkey.
In 1972, he was among the founders of an association, which established the rules of a new profession: Public Relations Association of Turkey.
The business world started to recognize a brand new profession, business grew, Betûl Mardin joined the company, A&B Public Relations moved to Teşvikiye.
Alâeddin Asna also continued his academic career. He withdrew from the company partnership and management in 1995 due to his duty as the dean of Marmara University Faculty of Communication.
Sibel Asna taking over the company, continued services under the brand “A&B Communications”.
In this period, A&B suggested a different kind of service to its clients: Integrated Communication Services.
It started to develop his knowledge and human resources in a way to provide communication-oriented management consultancy.
Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the company changed its structure in 2004 and decided to distribute shares to its employees: A&B İletişim A.Ş. was born.
In 2005, it established a strategic partnership with the London-based Bolton & Quinn (Link) Art Communication Consultancy Firm and carried out many international projects. This strategic partnership continues to evolve today.
In 2006, in line with the demands from the business world, a sister company was established: Artı C Communication Corp. The purpose of its establishment was to generate and implement ideas for organizations, to carry out independent projects and short-term projects with high quality standards.
August 4th, 2015 was a very sad day for A&B. Prof. Dr. Alaeddin Asna, the founder passed away.
In November 2015, another sister company was established: Yardımsever (Benefactor) Ltd. Its objective was; undertaking all volunteer works of A&B, communicating with NGO’s, and create knowledge regarding social initiatives. In this context, a team of experts in digital media and social networks was established.
The company put Turkey’s first philanthropic search engine into service: yardimicinara.org. Using Yandex’s infrastructure, yardimicinara.org, calls people to support various organizations with the slogan: “World changes with one click!”
In 2016, after his death the foundation of “Prof. Dr. Alâeddin Asna Vocational Conference Series” were laid with the aim of disseminating his teachings and to bring new perspectives to the profession.
In order to draw attention to the concepts of responsibility and sustainability; A&B formed the content of “Alaeddin Asna Golden Baguette Award” anew. The award is organized by Turkey Public Relations Association (TUHID) within the context of The Golden Compass PR Awards.
Alâeddin Asna Consistency and Continuity in Corporate Responsibility Award, which will be given only to the project owner institutions, has been added to the competition categories of the Golden Compass since 2016. In order to spread the vision and values of Mr. Asna, who has introduced Public Relations as a discipline and profession to Turkey, the award aims to support institutions which have internalized the concept of responsibility.
Conference series, initiated at Marmara University in 2017, continued with Ankara University Faculty of Communication in 2018, Eskişehir Anadolu University Faculty of Communication Sciences in 2019 and Ege University in 2020, themed “New Times and Public Relations. (web link)
Hence “The output of education and the needs of the communication sector do not meet each other” and ” a regular study examining the direction in which the profession has evolved was absent”; with these conferences series A&B aims to be instrumental in the formation of a system in the sector, of which elements hear, understand and support each other.
In 2017, Artı C evolved into Sibel Asna – Artı C Strategic Communication Consultancy to provide strategic positioning and communication-oriented governance services.
In August 2017, Yardımsever (Benefactor) Ltd. changed its structure after partnering with environmental scientist and social entrepreneur Dr. Uygar Özesmi and started to provide communication and governance consultancy to civil society and social enterprises.
A&B evolved into a new structure after the second half of 2018. Business line leaders and senior employees all took part in the development and management of A & B within the framework of their competence and experience and had a voice and authority.
A & B Communications became the sole and official partner of Response Navigate; a crisis communications network of which central offices are located in London and Singapore and specialized in international shipping, the harbor and offshore areas in October 2018.
The successful crisis communication projects it has managed so far played an important role in Navigate Response, which operates a global network of 42 offices in 28 countries and has a team of experts in the maritime field, to choose A&B.
At the beginning of 2019; desire to develop new communication methods through common wisdom and workshops emerged. With the aim of creating bold projects that will cover all and more of the contemporary communication disciplines; efforts to create cooperation opportunities with brave, creative and realistic young teams with similar values like A&B were initiated.
When the global epidemic started to spread around the world in February 2020, we continued to work and took new responsibilities without making ourselves and our stakeholders a clear target against this virus.
We aim to shape our future plans by walking together, as supporters and alongside our stakeholders in the evolutionary stages of the world after this epidemic.