C3 Creative Code and Content

C3 Creative Code and Content is a German content-marketing and communications agency group headquartered in Munich. It was created in January 2015 through the merger of two established players: KircherBurkhardt, a Berlin agency specialising in editorial and graphic design and corporate publishing, and the Burda Creative Group, the Munich-based corporate-media unit of the publishing house Hubert Burda Media. The merged company brought together a large client roster that has included Deutsche Bahn, the German armed forces (Bundeswehr), Volkswagen, Robert Bosch, Deutsche Telekom, Porsche, Allianz, Edeka and Haniel. C3 describes itself as a "narrative impact agency" whose ambition is to give brands and companies a relevant place in the lives of their customers. Its service range spans strategy and concept development, content creation, technology and platform expertise, marketing intelligence, paid digital media, performance marketing and SEO — more than 30 specialist disciplines under one roof. The group operates from five locations in Germany and the United Kingdom: Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Munich and London (7C3), and employs roughly 350 people. On the official website, C3 frames its work around themes such as "Content that matters", "Long Idea beats Big Idea" and "Organisations that last". It presents case studies for clients including Lufthansa, O2 Telefónica, Volkswagen, IKK classic, Bosch Home & Garden, Giesecke+Devrient, Continental Reifen EMEA, Porsche and Techniker Krankenkasse. Its consulting unit Cyan supports companies in transforming their marketing and communications organisations and in designing newsrooms, while the film-production label Hooray bundles moving-image creative, production and distribution. Ownership has evolved since the merger. Burda initially held 50 percent of C3, with founders Lukas Kircher and Rainer Burkhardt holding 25 percent each; Burda's stake later rose to 85 percent. In early July 2021 Burda bought out the two founders and took full ownership of C3. The Swiss agency Arnold.KircherBurkhardt AG in Zurich, in which KircherBurkhardt held 50 percent, remained an independent company but trades under the C3 brand as C3 Creative Code and Content (Schweiz) AG. C3 and its predecessor agencies have won numerous national and international awards, including Best of Content Marketing, the German Brand Award, iF Design Awards, Astrid Awards and Mercury Awards.

C3 Creative Code and Content was formed at the beginning of 2015 by merging two agencies with complementary profiles. KircherBurkhardt was founded in Berlin in 1999 by the graphic designer Lukas Kircher as an agency specialising in newspaper and magazine design (editorial design). When Rainer Burkhardt joined in 2002, the range expanded to corporate magazines and the agency was renamed KircherBurkhardt. Its notable clients included Robert Bosch GmbH (employee magazine Bosch Zünder), Deutsche Bahn (employee magazines DB Welt and the international DB World) and the Bundeswehr (Y – Das Magazin der Bundeswehr). The Porsche customer magazine Christophorus was handled together with the Stuttgart agency Headline GmbH, in which KircherBurkhardt took a stake; in autumn 2010 Headline became the independent KircherBurkhardt Stuttgart GmbH. The Burda Creative Group GmbH (BurdaCreative) was a full-service provider for content marketing and corporate publishing within the media group Hubert Burda Media, focused especially on business-to-business customer magazines. Its best-known clients included Allianz Global Investors (Project M), Amway, Citroën (Passion), Deutsche Telekom (Electronic Beats), DHL (Mein Paket), Edeka (Mit Liebe), Franz Haniel & Cie., Clarins, Media-Saturn-Holding (Turn On) and Sennheiser. It was founded in 1994 by the former Handelsblatt journalist Manfred Hasenbeck as Yukom GmbH in Munich. To raise growth capital, Hasenbeck partnered with Burda, turning the independent Yukom into the still-independent BurdaYukom GmbH. After Hasenbeck left, the Burda group renamed the company Burda Creative Group GmbH, with former publishing manager Christian Fill as managing director. At the start of 2015, the Munich-based Burda Creative Group and the Berlin-based KircherBurkhardt GmbH merged into C3 Creative Code and Content GmbH, headquartered in Munich. Burda initially held 50 percent of the new company, while the two managing directors Lukas Kircher and Rainer Burkhardt each held 25 percent. The client portfolios of KircherBurkhardt and Burda Creative were bundled under the C3 roof, including Deutsche Bahn, Bundeswehr, Volkswagen, Robert Bosch, Telekom, Porsche, Allianz, Edeka and Haniel. The Swiss agency Arnold.KircherBurkhardt AG in Zurich, in which KircherBurkhardt held 50 percent, remained an independent company but traded under the C3 brand as C3 Creative Code and Content (Schweiz) AG. In July 2021, Burda bought out the two founders Kircher and Burkhardt and took 100 percent ownership of C3. By then Burda's stake had already risen from 50 to 85 percent, with the founders' shares reduced to 7.5 percent each. C3 positions itself as a narrative impact agency that combines more than 30 specialist disciplines, from strategy and concept development through content creation, technology and platform expertise to marketing intelligence, paid digital media, performance marketing and SEO. The agency group employs around 350 people at five locations in Germany and the United Kingdom: Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Munich and London (7C3). Its consulting unit Cyan supports companies in the organisational transformation of their marketing and communications functions and in designing newsrooms, and the agency also has its own film production label, Hooray, which combines creative idea, production and distribution. Both predecessor agencies and C3 itself have received numerous national and international awards. In industry creative rankings, KircherBurkhardt was last ranked first and BurdaCreative among the top five; in 2015 C3 Creative Code and Content ranked first with all three industry services. Awards include the iF Design Award 2021 (2× winner), the German Brand Award (1× winner, 1× gold), Best of Content Marketing 2020 (5× gold, 19× silver), Best of Content Marketing 2016 (11× gold, 25× silver), Astrid Awards 2016 (2× gold, 26× silver, 3× bronze) and Mercury Awards 2016 (3× gold, 1× silver, 2× bronze).

• 2021

  Burda buys out founders Kircher and Burkhardt and takes 100 percent ownership of C3.

• 2015

  KircherBurkhardt and Burda Creative Group merge to form C3 Creative Code and Content GmbH, headquartered in Munich; Burda holds 50 percent.

• 2015

  C3 Creative Code and Content ranks first with all three industry creative-ranking services.

• 2010

  Headline GmbH in Stuttgart becomes the independent KircherBurkhardt Stuttgart GmbH.

• 2002

  Rainer Burkhardt joins; the agency expands into corporate magazines and is renamed KircherBurkhardt.

• 1999

  Lukas Kircher founds KircherBurkhardt in Berlin as an editorial-design agency.

• 1994

  Burda Creative Group's predecessor Yukom GmbH founded in Munich by Manfred Hasenbeck.

Narrative impact agency combining strategy, content creation, technology, media and intelligence to give brands a relevant place in customers' lives.

• Content ecosystems and platforms

  Digital content platforms and newsrooms for brands such as Lufthansa Insights, Porsche Newsroom and G+D Spotlight.

• Content campaigns

  Campaign work for clients including IKK classic, Volkswagen and Techniker Krankenkasse.

• Cyan consulting unit

  Supports companies in the organisational transformation of marketing and communications and in designing newsrooms.

• Hooray film production label

  Moving-image unit combining creative idea, production and distribution.

• IKK classic: Blut ist Blut. Mensch ist Mensch.
• Frauen spielen Fußball. #keinfrauenfussball
• Techniker Krankenkasse moving-image campaign on the quarterlife crisis

1. 1C3 Creative Code and Content | C3c3.co
2. 2Corporate Newsroom für Giesecke+Devrient | C3c3.co
3. 3C3 (Medienagentur) – Wikidatawikidata.org
4. 4C3 Creative Code and Content – Wikipedia (German)de.wikipedia.org