Sue Burden

Sue obtained a degree in French from Manchester University and then started a career in marketing at the Milk Marketing Board, selling English cheese in France! She then moved into advertising, working for Lintas and other agencies on a wide variety of accounts including Gillette, Alberto-Culver, Max Factor, MFI and Toyota.

After seven years in advertising account management, Sue moved into the more cerebral challenges of Account Planning and she joined DMB&B (now D’Arcy) to work on Procter & Gamble, Qantas, The Australian Tourist Commission, Texaco, Scope and Mars petcare.

While at DMB&B, Mars asked Sue to work on secondment in France as Market Researcher on the Mars ice cream business and she subsequently became a Mars associate. During her seven years at Mars, Sue had a range of market research responsibilities, including M&Ms, Maltesers, Ice Cream, Brand Tracking, Ad Tracking and segmentation across Europe. Sue was a member of Mars’ Communications team, tasked to improve Mars’ communications expertise and she pioneered a greater use of qualitative creative development research early in the creative development process, before the creative brief is agreed.

In August 2002, Sue joined Diagnostic Research International as Managing Director of their London office. Diagnostic Research specialise in brand strategy and communications studies. In October 2004, Diagnostic Research International merged with Added Value and Icon Brand Navigation and Sue was a Director of Added Value UK. At DR and Added Value, Sue worked on advertising and brand development for General Motors, Motorola, eBay, Campbell’s, Expedia, Sky TV, American Express and Pilsner Urquell.

In November 2006, Sue moved to TNS to become UK Head of Brand & Ad Research.

Sue has been a member of MRS since 1987