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PMP Group, once a jewel of the Murdoch empire, disappears with Ovato rebranding

ASX-listed printing and marketing services firm, PMP Group, has announced it will consolidate operations under a new name, Ovato.

The rebranding will see the last echoes of Rupert Murdoch’s Australian magazine empire built during the 1970s and 80s disappear with the PMP name.


Murdoch was forced to divest the then Pacific Magazines and Printing group which included titles such as TV Week and New Idea in 1991 as his empire struggled to restructure $US7.6b in debt that nearly bought News Corp down.

PMP included Pacific Magazines, which was in turn was sold to what is now Seven West Media in two tranches over 2001 and 2002.

In 2017 the slimmed down group merged with fellow printing and marketing services business IPMG which included the notorious Offset Alpine Printing which came to prominence in 1993 after the insurance payout from a fire at its Sydney printing plant enriched a wide cast of colourful Sydney businesses characters including Rene Rivkin and jailed Labor minister Eddie Obeid.

The restructure affects the company’s 20 brands which include Gordon & Gotch, Spectrum Group, Offset Alpine and Australia’s oldest book printing business, Griffin Press, with the company’s ASX listing code changing from PMP to OVT.

CEO Kevin Slaven, said: “Our rebrand gives us the opportunity to focus on our clients and their needs directly, around our promise of turning audiences into customers.

“While each of our businesses will come under the single brand, our work and commitment with all our clients will remain constant.

“One significant new capability is our exclusive partnership with Quantium, a best-in-class data and analytics business. This will link our residential distribution capabilities and household data with their extensive data-cloud and AI platform.

“For the first-time, this will allow us to deliver enhanced targeting and measurability to our print channels and campaigns, enabling our customers to see analytics and ROI metrics that are more akin to digital advertising.”

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