MONTHLY SHAREHOLDER S NEWSLETTER

Transcription

1 MONTHLY SHAREHOLDER S NEWSLETTER Issue 4: April 2014 Welcome to the April issue of the UCP Monthly Newsletter, our fourth installment for this year. In it you will find the information you need as reported by the management of the various companies that fall under our holding company umbrella. This includes country overview and year end review. Country Overview: Sweden According to Staffan Slörner, CEO of Swedish Media Agencies, in a press release that came out April 8, 2014, Media Investments via Swedish media agencies increased 17 percent in March. The single largest media increase was in radio, which had a growth rate of 88 percent. TV, which started the year tentative, increased by over 36 percent, resulting in a cumulative increase for the quarter by over 15 percent. Investment growth is partly explained by the phasing of campaigns around the Olympics and the additional billing day of March. Year End UCP Annual Report: Analysis UCP s year end report came out April 10, In year 2013 the group had an increase of net revenues of 11.7% (15.8%) and an increase of gross profit of 8.7% (11.6%). Despite investment costs for both Tre Kronor Copenhagen and Tre Kronor Creative in 2013 the generated loss was limited compared to year Through the investment in starting up Tre Kronor Copenhagen the group has strenghten it s competitiveness and we are certain that it will give the group a positive return on investment in the future, in addition to the other new ventures in the pipeline f0r this year. The business has continued to grow in in 2013 and the aggregated media spend in the groups companies, including minority interest companies, has increased by 16% (+25.1 MUSD) to MUSD. For the month of March 2014, here is how the rest of our Tre Kronor Companies did (Tre Kronor Stockholm, Tre Kronor Copenhagen, Nyheter 365, HowCom, In Sight Media and Native Clicks- Spain).

2 Tre Kronor Stockholm Albert Säfström has joined Tre Kronor Stockholm as Content Manager. Coming from one of the best technical Universities in Stockholm, we look forward to seeing how far we can develop this ground breaking service. Our target is clear; content marketing is part of the future. According to the American Marketing Association, Content marketing is one of the hottest topics for B-to-B and B-to- C marketers today. It is the new currency that drives brand engagement in a world of empowered consumers. It is about sharing information, rather than pitching products. Great content fuels marketers efforts to reach and engage buyers at every stage in the buying process whether that content is a helpful how-to video, a sleek infographic or a well-crafted blog post. Tre Kronor is on the forefront of this. That is why in our content package to clients we include PR, content, native, strategies, production and distribution. For the month of March, we can proudly say that we lost no clients. But, we did win two Clients. A Great Day (a combination of makers of dream come true and a lottery), and Blixten & Co (a leading ticket booking company like Ticketmaster in the U.S.). As to our workload, our current clients have given our agency even more new assignments. Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), Green Hat, and Opus Capita (Finance services B2B) have added more work, and Rusta has asked us to focus on search & digital production. There were no awards won in April but we had good local PR on RTB/automatic trading for our team within the local area. Of note, COO Mia Forsgren was selected as moderator at the yearly conference held by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the leading global organization for online marketing. Overall, the company is doing great with a lot of energy thanks to new clients and assignments. With the future looking very bright, our ultimate goal is to become thee leading company within RTB, Search, Content and Insight. Tre Kronor Copenhagen A new Digital Director has just been hired. His name is Baltazar Ozonek and he comes from DUN (Dansk Udgiver Netværk) which is the biggest Real time bidding (RTB) network in Denmark. Prior experience for Mr. Ozonek includes work within MediaCom and Group M. Tre Kronor Copenhagen (TKC) had no losses or wins for the month of March but the existing clients are happy and keeping the agency very busy. TKC is aggressively pitching new business leads and recently had a very good meeting with potential clients in London. TKC has also entered a new business alliance in Denmark. It is called ImpactAlliance.dk. TKC is the sole media agency within the network and will now be using the network for generating new business leads.

3 Nyheter 365 March was a month with few new clients signing and low investments from some of the existing clients. But there is a positive momentum heading into April by in part to a new client aacquisition. Nyheter 365 won a top global client: Readly. Readly brings a new way of reading magazines to tablets and smartphones. Readly's mission is simple: To be on the cutting edge of the digital magazine revolution. Their expert management team has more than 25 years of experience in the publishing, digital gaming, and broadcasting industries. Readly has headquarters in the United States and Sweden, and an office in the United Kingdom. HowCom HowCom has won the following clients during March: PrimeWine Group, one of the leading Swedish importers dealing mainly in wine and high-end alcoholic beverages. In other important client news, their client, Comeon, has grown significantly in the competitive online gaming market after employing HowCom as their Marketing & Communications team. As a result, Comeon has increased marketing investments with us during Looking forward, HowCom has a positive view of 2014 with several clients on the horizon potentially heading our way and optimistic market growth slated for later this year. Native Clicks Spain For the month of March no new people were hired. But, Native Clicks did start campaigns with PAF directly and BBVA thru Mindshare. PAF continues during April. BBVA paused due to that the campaign budget ended. The client (BBVA) and Mindshare became really satisfied with the results and they are now able to use the BBVA case for internal references within Mindshare / M group to contact media planners. Native Clicks has also signed an exclusive agreement with MSN Spain letting Native Clicks use their space in the advertorial part. This is completely new in Spain and Microsoft together with Native Clicks Spain will go out with a Press Release about this collaboration. In the future they will also include a business case. With the Exclusive cooperation between MSN and Native Clicks Native Click CEO Patrick List believes that they will have a Concept/Offer that nobody has in Spain. There is no exact competitor although there are lots of companies selling their services within the Native Marketing concept. After

4 the press-release with MSN they predict that competitors will try to copy this. As such, they will have to increase the sales efforts to take advantage of being the first ones in Spain. Patrick is preparing a Sales seminar for the Microsoft Sales team. The idea is to educate them about the concept, the advantages and briefly how to optimize ad campaigns to reach the results that they want to achieve. In final note, there is a pending meeting with MSN Portugal to do the same thing there, as well as educate their team so they can sell the MSN/ Native Clicks concept to their customers. Spotlight On: Niclas Fröberg, CEO and Chairman of Tre Kronor Advertising & Media / UCP For over 20 years, Niclas has successfully worked his way from graduate of prestigious Stockholm University to the helm of top global advertising agencies, consistently working at the C-Suite level. When it comes to creativity, ingenuity, and outright innovative global advertising savvy, the name Niclas Fröberg immediately comes to mind to those in the business. His awareness and understanding of what is needed for a client to cut through the clutter to bring a brand front and center is second to none. Niclas' business acumen and problem solving directive allows him to immediately comprehend issues at hand with a roll up your sleeves focus. He is an asset to the international arena, continually demonstrating his marketing prowess by winning agency of the year awards year after year. In Sight Though no changes have been reported for the month of March, conversations and campaign results continue to point to In Sight as one of the leading performance marketing management, strategic research, and SEO specialists in Norway.

5 About United Communications Partners United Communications Partners is a communication group with its subsidiaries and operational focus in Europe and beyond, notably in the Nordic region. For more information please visit: Contact Us: United Communications Partners 291 Broadway, Suite 302 New York, NY info@ucpworld.com