Specialist will seek the goods

By PETER GRIFFIN

A specialised database analysis division has been set up by direct marketing company Robbins Brandt Richter, which plans to open an Australian office. The aim of the fledgling division, Dataguru, is to tap companies' IT systems for information to better help them in their marketing strategies.

Dataguru consists of three information specialists headed by US database expert Pam Pearson.

RBR has been in the direct marketing game since 1991 and has organised major marketing campaigns for the likes of Telecom and NZ Post.

But Pearson said Dataguru was a response to seeing businesses invest millions in database systems only to find they were no smarter about their customers or the effectiveness of their own sales plans.

Dataguru would pitch its services at chief executive level rather than at marketing managers or the company's IT department.

"The era of the chief information officer as the powerbroker of information has ended," said Pearson, who worked at database specialist Epsilon and has been consulting to major US corporates.

"We're a hybrid of management consultants and marketing agents."

Dataguru describes its services as "data originating, manipulation and analysis" - using customer relationship management (CRM) databases and sales data to tailor more effective marketing campaigns.

As a wholly owned subsidiary of Australian Stock Exchange-listed Photon Group, RBR will run Dataguru as a transtasman service.

Photon's chief executive, Matthew Bailey, said major companies such as British retailer Tesco were starting to use the information they held on their customers and products more effectively.

"We're starting to see other retailers around the world follow similar themes," he said, adding that there was a huge market in helping other companies make better sense of their data.

"The companies have all this information that they don't know what to do with. It may be information they have collected on something like Fly Buys."

Photon moved to full ownership of RBR from its 51 per cent stake earlier in the year in a cash-and-share deal with RBR's shareholders.

The sale price was not disclosed but, in the 15 months to June 30, RBR turned a profit of $566,000 on revenue of $6 million.

RBR, which describes itself as the country's largest independent direct marketing firm, has traditionally worked with advertising agencies all over the world and will tap new sales channels open to it through the Photon group.

RBR managing director Trevor Moodie said the management of the agency retained independent control under a management contract but would work increasingly on marketing projects with Photon.


Moodie had met Pearson through RBR's "Boston connection" - its relationship with major direct marketing firm Alan Rosenspan.

Bailey said New Zealand was a good base for RBR to expand its overseas presence.

Photon, which is made up of about 14 advertising and marketing companies, has made good progress since it listed on the ASX in April.

With a list price of A$1.80 per share, the share price is now trading around A$2.70. Photon turned a profit of A$11.9 million ($13.14 million) on sales of A$54.3 million for the three months to September 31.



Photon Group

RBR