PR Newswire
London, July 6
MediaZest Plc ("MediaZest", the "Company" or "Group"; AIM: MDZ) Trading Update MediaZest, the creative audio visual company, is pleased to provide shareholders with a general update on trading. Highlights: * Successfully executed on multi-national contract with Coca-Cola for FIFA World Cup; * Significantly improved revenue for year ended 31 March 2014 to its highest level since 2008; * Increased investment in sales and marketing has created a strong pipeline of projects; * Growing strategic relationships with blue chip customers such as Samsung, O2 and Pfizer; * New strategic relationship with SFD; and * Repayment of shareholder debt following successful fundraising in December 2013. 3 LARGE PROJECTS January through May 2014 saw the Group focus on the delivery of three large projects: First, Coca-Cola provided the company with the largest of these by way of a contract to supply large scale audio-visual installations for the FIFA World CupTM Trophy Tour presented by Coca-Cola. This took the Company to 48 countries over the last 8 months and involved working closely with brand experience pioneers, Ignition Inc. The Company also worked with Coca-Cola's head office team in Atlanta, USA and provided engineering support and installation team leadership at all 48 events. The contract was completed in May 2014 and based on its successful delivery, the Group hopes to work with both parties again in the future whilst acknowledging that by their nature, high profile projects such as this only come along every few years. Second, the Board announced previously a large University installation project which was delivered predominantly in the first half of 2014. This project involved the Company's entire engineering workforce at various points during delivery and in total generated revenue for the company in excess of £400,000. Finally, the Company completed delivery of its second substantial corporate sector project in the period, by providing a highly advanced video wall solution for a building refurbishment project at Bevis Marks, in the City of London. Video footage of this installation can be seen on the Company's you tube channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKWicPd7cQE&list= UUxXrI9QQVgLtSbNid_tgRIg The combined effect of these three projects in the financial year ended 31 March 2014 has been to significantly improve revenue to approximately £2.9 million (2013: £1.85m), its highest level since 2008. INVESTMENT IN MARKETING AND THE SALES PROCESS In December 2013 the Group completed a successful fundraising, and as represented a substantial proportion of shareholder debt was paid down with only £200,000 remaining. The Company has also deployed funds in developing advanced solutions in three key areas and most importantly begun to invest again in proactively marketing its services to the retail community. The impact of heavy investment in the sales and marketing process, has meant that operating losses will remain at a similar level to last year's with a small year on year increase once interest and depreciation is taken into account. Whilst disappointing to show less progress on producing a positive bottom line, the Directors believe the investment in the sales process - including marketing initiatives - is absolutely crucial to generate longer term opportunities to enable Group progression. The core strategy continues to be the transition of the Company's revenue base towards more ongoing, contractual-type business, and away from the dependency on large scale projects which is difficult to predict and suffers the vagaries of timing. As such, efforts are being focussed on larger scale roll-out opportunities which naturally take longer to consummate than short term campaigns. The Directors believe this strategy is now looking promising with the future pipeline for FY 2015 and beyond looking much improved. In May 2013, the Group appointed an experienced Corporate Sales Consultant and this was followed by further investment in a new sales/marketing executive and an additional Sales Consultant in autumn 2013. The Group also invested in a brand new showroom in London to demonstrate its unique technology offering. These actions have placed the Company in an improved position to grow revenues but involve short term investment to build pipeline and bring opportunities to fruition. The Company website has also been updated. It now incorporates the wholly owned subsidiary, previously known as TouchVision Limited and now renamed MediaZest International. In the first quarter of the calendar year, the Board decided it was time to bring both brands together; to reduce client confusion and paperwork; and to reflect the fact that over the years the two parts of the business have grown so close together as to become inseparable - sharing clients, senior staff, delivery and installation. The new website reflects this change as well as showcasing more up to date work. The largest single element of investment in the marketing process has been attendance at global trade-show, Euroshop, in partnership with SFD Ltd. SFD Ltd provides shop mannequin and visual merchandising services to many large retailers and fashion brands on a global basis. Led by James Abdool, MediaZest Sales Director, the Company has built a strong relationship with SFD, and as a result, MediaZest agreed to provide audio visual solutions for the SFD stand at Euroshop as the start of a partnership. Both businesses share similar philosophies in terms of delivery excellence and are in discussions with complementary prospective clients. As such a natural partnership has developed whereby both Companies seek to assist each other grow their respective businesses by sharing client introductions and working hand in hand to produce unique full service solutions for retail clients. Effectively this also works as an extension of the Groups "one stop shop" approach. This partnership, whilst relatively informal, has already shown promise with small window display projects already delivered for Marks & Spencer and H&M, both existing SFD clients. The work for Marks & Spencer has been shortlisted for a Retail Week Interiors Award in the "Best Use of Design with Technology in-store" category. The strategic relationship MediaZest enjoys with Samsung has also grown in importance during the last six months. In addition to working on Samsung marketing campaigns, both directly and through various agencies, Samsung and MediaZest have worked closely together in discussions with a number of retailers. Utilising Samsung's technology and MediaZest's design, content and integration skills this joint approach has been successfully used to pitch to large retail clients looking for in store solutions and the Board believes it will generate business in the coming months. In addition to these two relationships, the business continues to generate further work from the likes of Kuoni, Fiat, O2, Pfizer and the University of Essex amongst others. Following the success of the Coca-Cola project, the Board has invested in a further marketing campaign during the FIFA World Cup 2014 to look to generate further business in similar experiential environments. Follow up meetings to explore these opportunities will begin this month. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT The Board highlighted three specific areas in which it was developing unique products in the announcement of 13 December 2013. Of these, efforts have been concentrated on developing the audience measurement and hologram systems based on extremely positive feedback from potential customers. MediaZest expects to launch the first version of the audience measurement service, developed with Argus Global and termed "MediaZest Retail Analytics" this week to a wider customer base and expects trial deployments to begin shortly thereafter. The Company already has a large number of enquiries expressing interest in this product from demonstrating the Beta version in its showroom during client meetings. Further investment to develop this solution as interest grows is likely to be necessary, but the Board believes this product to be particularly attractive to retailers on an ongoing basis and that it will assist in moving its revenue streams onto a more consistent basis. Designs for the hologram unit are now finalised, with a test build scheduled for summer 2014 with launch anticipated shortly thereafter. OUTLOOK As noted, the pipeline is building well, and an enormous amount of work has gone into targeting larger scale opportunities with the potential to roll out over the coming years and to deliver long term shareholder value. Geoff Robertson, CEO of MediaZest said "The Company has made substantial progress in the last 18 months. Delivery of the large Coca-Cola project, University fit out and the Bevis Marks video wall project at the same time demonstrates how accomplished our services are. The Board believes our ground-breaking work has tremendous reach in the marketing community and that as the UK and global economy slowly recovers, retailers investing in digital signage for their stores will multiply. The Group is perfectly placed to capitalise on that." Enquiries: Geoff Robertson Chief Executive Officer MediaZest Plc 020 7724 5680 Gavin Burnell / Edward Hutton Nominated Adviser Northland Capital Partners Limited 020 7382 1100 Claire Louise Noyce / Niall Pearson / William Lynne Broker Hybridan LLP 020 3713 4580 Notes to Editors: About MediaZest MediaZest is a creative media agency that specialises in providing innovative marketing solutions to leading retailers, brand owners and corporations, but also works in the public sector in both the NHS and Education markets. The Group supplies an integrated service from content creation and system design to installation, technical support and maintenance. MediaZest was admitted to the London Stock Exchange's AIM market in February 2005. For more information, please visit www.mediazest.com