WHILE a sense of gloom pervades the local advertising industry, the news from the marketing industry is much more positive.
WHILE a sense of gloom pervades the local advertising industry, the news from the marketing industry is much more positive.
Market Equity CEO Brent Stewart said his firm was enjoying strong growth, particularly from its eastern States operations.
Apart from its Perth head office, the firm, ranked number one in the latest WA Business News Book of Lists list of marketing and market research companies, has offices in Sydney, Adelaide, Darwin and Canberra.
Mr Stewart said the advertising industry was facing a number of issues, including the fragmentation of media and questions over how the advertising industry charged its clients.
“At the same time both globally and locally marketing firms seem to be still very much going ahead,” he said.
Mr Stewart said some of the growth in his business was coming from clients wanting customer relationship management and customer satisfaction services. Marketing management was also a big area.
“There has also been a lot of interest in market segmentation. It’s sort of the de-massing of marketing,” he said.
“It’s about people focusing on customers as individuals rather than a group. I think that’s healthy.”
Mr Stewart said a lot of his firm’s growth was being driven by entering into marketing partner-ships with its clients.
“It gives us a closer look at their business and, as they’re growing, so are we,” he said.
Market Equity is celebrating its 10th year in the marketing business.
Image 7 Group managing director Brad Entwistle said he was bullish about the future of his industry.
“We are flat out at the moment and would be even more flat out if we took all of the opportunities shown to us,” he said.
“Strictly speaking we are a communications firm.
“We do everything in communications except advertising. We do a number of trade publications, have two digital video editing suites. That’s as well as working with our clients on any of their corporate needs.”
However, Mr Entwistle said he had noticed that the business of communications had become more legalistic, largely due to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s recent focus on corporate communi-cations.
Conbata general manager Daniel Moir is also positive about the future, which is not surprising considering his business has received a huge fillip from what could be considered an unlikely source.
Emirates Airlines’ decision to fly to Australia has been a boon for Conbata, a business that specialises in Arabian Gulf marketing services.
“The region is quite close to Australia now,” Mr Moir said.
“We have an office in Dubai that provides us with research. We are one of the longest serving Australian companies in the region.”
While the firm’s head office is in WA, Mr Moir said some of its largest clients were based in Melbourne and Sydney.
