Simplifying service offerings is no easy task, but IVE has managed to do just that, whilst at the same time expanding its product portfolio through the strategic acquisition of Salmat Marketing Solutions. Delivering clients an expanded, simplified and integrated service offering – that’s one of the main drivers for IVE this year as it continues the evolution of its business model. Following a number of strategic business moves, IVE has simplified its integrated offering so clients can better understand what its specialisations are and how they all come together.
Recently, IVE retired its 14 existing brands and unified them under one consolidated IVE brand as part of this simplification process. “With our unmatched breadth and depth of offering, we’re well placed to navigate our clients through the complex marketing maze from idea to execution,” IVE chief marketing officer Rob Draper said. “What the brand simplification has effectively done, is help clients understand how we can do this, in a manner that’s digestible and easy to understand.”
The messaging is simple. IVE is one unified company with four core offerings. These are: data-driven communications, creative services, production and distribution, and for larger clients who want all of their marketing activities managed and simplified – integrated marketing. Each core offering is made up of specialist services. The most recent of which is IVE’s distribution service that has joined the range through the strategic acquisition of Salmat Marketing Solutions (the business has been specialising in this space for more than 40 years).
IVE’s full list of specialist services now includes:
Creative services:
- Visual
- Motion
- Digital
- Personalised
- Structural (3D)
Data-driven communications:
- CX data and insights
- Marketing technology
- Omni-channel deployment
- Retrieval and data enrichment
- Tele-fundraising
Production and distribution:
- Retail display
- Premiums and merchandising
- Integrated logistics
- Distribution
Integrated marketing:
- Resource management
- Supply chain
- Business intelligence
All under one roof
According to Draper, having all of its offerings under the IVE banner brings benefits for both clients and the business. “The more fragmented marketing becomes, the more benefits our integrated service offering will bring for our clients,” Draper said.
“Clients shouldn’t need to deal with the complexity of managing multiple businesses that all operate individually, and then try and coordinate them together. We’re already set up to do this, which means we can spend more time providing our clients with guidance on the best solutions for their specific needs and executing these flawlessly for them.” IVE CEO Matt Aitken said the revised go-to-market strategy also enables a personalised approach.
“Each client tailors what they use from IVE’s broad array of specialist services in a way that meets their individual requirements,” Aitken said. And this strategy of having all of IVE’s core offerings and specialist services seamlessly integrated with each other seems to be working. According to IVE, 73 per cent of its 2,800 clients now use more than one of their integrated services. Two such examples are Chemist Warehouse and Clark Rubber.
Chemist Warehouse said it has further streamlined its processes following IVE’s revision of service offerings. “We’re really excited by the expansion and integration of IVE’s services,” Chemist Warehouse group marketing manager Lia Heim said. “Being able to use IVE for our printing, retail display, integrated logistics and distribution requirements in one streamlined, integrated manner makes our lives a lot easier and our retail marketing a lot more effective.” Clark Rubber general manager Damian Lucas echoed the same benefits as Heim.“We now use IVE to print and distribute our retail catalogues and supply our retail staff uniforms in an integrated manner. It’s fantastic; It saves us time, creates cost efficiencies, improves accountability, and simplifies the procurement of these key services,” Lucas added aquisition completes retail strategy
Having a stellar distribution strategy has also been a key focus for IVE. The company beefed up distribution following a strategic acquisition of Salmat Marketing Solutions, which was announced in November last year and completed in January. The deal, worth $25 million, also includes the acquisition of Reach Media NZ Limited, Salmat’s catalogue distribution business in New Zealand. Both businesses will operate as part of IVE’s production and distribution offering.
IVE has long utilised Salmat’s distribution service but this deal allows the former to own its own means of distribution and pass on the benefits to clients. “These acquisitions complete the final phase of our strategic roadmap over recent years to further expand and strengthen our offer to the retail sector,” Aitken said.
“The combination of Australia’s largest letterbox distribution business with IVE’s broader print, data, and integrated marketing services provides an exciting opportunity for our clients to enhance returns on their marketing spend through our highly-integrated offer.
“Importantly, the significant capital expenditure program over the next 18 months to automate catalogue collation will support the ongoing sustainability of the national walker network resulting in a strong distribution channel delivering improved ROI for IVE’s retail clients.”
Integrating services
Having the Salmat business arm in the mix with some of IVE’s other service offerings such as print services, data analytics and marketing is expected to further enhance the delivery of retail print, production and distribution in Australia. “Our clients are excited by this development,” IVE general manager of distribution Craig Amos said. “It makes life easier for them having to only deal with one point of contact, giving them faster speeds to market and ultimately, improved ROIs on what they’re distributing.”
IVE is also pumping a further $25 million to $30 million in a capital investment program, which aims to bring first to market technology and sustainability to the catalogue collation process prior to letterbox delivery, for the existing 14,000 strong Australian walker network. “Catalogue collation is an important initiative to improve walker satisfaction and retention,” Amos said. “Currently, collation in the field takes up a significant portion of a walker’s time and increasing catalogue volumes into our mid-week delivery window means this will increase. Our investment in collation, along with other walker focused technology, will create a more robust and sustainable walker network. For customers, collation will improve speed to market, enable targeting to a section level, and provides the ability to target other products going into households.”
IVE has certainly set itself up for an exciting year ahead. With a new market-leading retail offering and simplified integration of all of its services, what the business does within this space is one to watch. “It’s great see IVE evolving with the changing landscape and continuing to lead the way as it has done since 1921,” Draper concluded.
Contact IVE at info@ivegroup.com.au for
more information on IVE’s services.
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