Mark Carnegie-backed sales house Inception Digital liquidated
Media sales house Inception Digital has been liquidated, leaving dozens of stunned staff looking for new jobs and publishers hunting new sales partners.
The company was founded by current head of digital for the NRL Rebekah Horne and managing director Jade Harley in 2011, with serial investor Mark Carnegie the largest shareholder after sinking $1m into the business through one of his investment vehicles.
Founder: Rebekah Horne
It had been one of the country’s biggest independent sales houses, representing a number of big accounts including The Guardian Australia and Mashable’s local presence, as well as The New Daily and Inception Digital.
However, it is thought the company struggled for business after losing The Guardian in a phased transition to an in-house model last year, while US publisher Mashable took its sales in-house when it hired Philip Mackertich as its first local sales director in March.
Inception also “merged” with fashion and lifestyle magazine Oyster in May 2014. It is unclear whether Oyster has also been liquidated, but calls to the magazine went unanswered today.
Last month Inception quietly closed its office in Melbourne.
Media sales houses are generally used by smaller publishers to give them a presence amongst bigger media agencies, which may otherwise not have the scope to include them in media plans.
Liquidators Restructuring Solutions have been appointed to look at the future of the company. It is unclear whether staff have been paid or whether money is owed to external creditors, including publishers it worked with. A creditors’ meeting is set to be called in the next few days.
The New Daily publisher Paul Hamra told Mumbrella Inception accounted for around 15% of its revenues, with an in-house team already in place. He added they had already moved to appoint another sales house to represent it to agencies, and that he would expect any monies owed to be paid by the company.
The Carousel has said it will be taking advertising in house.
Largest shareholder: Mark Carnegie
According to ASIC documents Mark Carnegie’s company owns the largest number of shares in the business, with 499, although he ceased to be a director of the business last August.
Horne holds 251 shares and Harley 250. Commercial director Burbidge holds 56 shares in the business, the same as another investor, Alice Alexander.
Carnegie’s other media investments include a stake in ad agency Banjo and Macquarie Radio Network, both alongside former adman John Singleton.
Managing director Jade Harley
Calls to the Inception Digital offices went unanswered, while Horne and Harley did not respond despite repeated attempts to contact them. Carnegie hung up when asked about Inception Digital.
The company launched in mysterious fashion in 2011 with Horne, who had just begun a digital role with radio group DMG, at the time keen to downplay her role despite being listed as managing director. The former Network Ten head of digital has since added the title of founder and non-executive director of Inception to her LinkedIn profile.
Guardian Australia managing director, Ian McClelland, told Mumbrella while the publisher had a good relationship with Inception’s team it had made the move to an in-house model for several reasons.
“We just got to a size (in revenue) where it didn’t make sense to have an external sales house any more. Plus sales suddenly became very holistic (campaigns being a mixture of direct/programmatic/content/
“Inception Digital did an amazing job for us in our first couple of years. They performed really well and were a delight to work with. Jade Harley and Guy Burbidge, in particular, are exceptional media professionals and I have a lot of respect for them – they’ll both do well, whatever they go on to next.
“I guess the ‘network’ model doesn’t work anymore with the advance of DSPs and a shift to content. Perhaps they didn’t transition their business fast enough.”
Those sentiments were echoed by The New Daily publisher, Paul Hamra, when announcing the deal with Inception last August.
“Traditional display can be done through programmatic,” he said. “So having a traditional displays sales network, we’re better having an algorithm.”
Burbidge: “Innovative solutions”
At the time Inception’s Burbidge admitted to Mumbrella it was moving away from traditional display advertising, adding: “We’re just trying to find more innovative solutions for advertisers outside of the traditional display format.
“By that I mean we’re looking at content solutions that cover traditional editorial, video creation, creation of infographics, basically anything that’s not a traditional banner.”
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Sorry to hear this news this morning. Guy and the team have always been a pleasure to work with. Wishing them luck in their future endeavours.
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first Brand New Media, now Inception Digital…….will somebody stop the madness!
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Nice to see on this occasion that all those living in glass houses aren’t throwing stones.
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It is a tough time out there, across many sectors. I heard of another two digital agencies closing their doors today too.
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Inception represented us for a while and it was a dreadful experience. They relied on low quality staff/backpackers to do high level negotiations and always fell short. RIP Inception Digital.
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Really sorry to hear this news. I wish everyone the best.
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The team led by Jade Harley and Guy Burbridge at Inception Digital were always a pleasure to work with. All extremely talented and highly professional. It was a fantastic organisation for independent publishers such and its closure is a great loss to the industry. Independent publishers such as myself were represented in market and supported so well and I’m personally sad to see it close but wish them all well and know the staff will go on to do amazing things. Thank you to all of you!
Sad to hear. Jade is a media professional I have always held in the highest regard. she is a hard worker, super smart, and always has the best intentions. I have no doubt she will be a hugely valuable asset to whatever she applies her energy to next.
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What a nasty and untrue thing to say. I worked there for two years and call absolute, steaming bullshit on your comment. Have a great weekend Alison, whomever you are.
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There was always a lot of problems at inception. Had things been done better, I don’t think it would have ended like this.
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