Media Square posts loss while Illuminas shines

UK— Media Square has posted a 23% drop in revenue for the full year period ending February 28 2010, but its research agency, Illuminas, has seen an increase in both revenue and profits.

Illuminas CEO John Connaughton (pictured) was unable to give exact figures but said that he was “reasonably happy” after the agency “managed to grow profits and revenue in a tough environment”.

He said that the US side of the business had had a “particularly good year” while operations in Asia were “progressing nicely”. The UK and Europe had been “pretty steady”, over the course of the year, he said.

The good performance has spilled over into the first quarter of the new year, Connaughton said. “The first quarter has been very very good, and we are above budget in all our offices,” he said.

Group-wide revenue was £47.3m, compared to 2009’s restated figure of £61.2m, and headline operating loss was £0.9m, compared to a profit of £2.3m last year.

Chairman Roger Parry said that the drop in revenue was due to “the general reduction in marketing budgets brought about by the recession, partly under-performance by a number of our agencies which resigned unprofitable accounts and partly the disposal of non-core agencies”.

He said that operating expenses had been reduced over the course of the year, which included reducing property and overhead costs by housing some agencies together, and that “further cost reductions will be coming into effect in the coming months”.

But Illuminas should be unaffected by the cuts, according to Connaughton. He said: “We are within budget. There’s no fat to be cut from us.”

We hope you enjoyed this article.
Research Live is published by MRS.

The Market Research Society (MRS) exists to promote and protect the research sector, showcasing how research delivers impact for businesses and government.

Members of MRS enjoy many benefits including tailoured policy guidance, discounts on training and conferences, and access to member-only content.

For example, there's an archive of winning case studies from over a decade of MRS Awards.

Find out more about the benefits of joining MRS here.

0 Comments


Display name

Email

Join the discussion

Newsletter
Stay connected with the latest insights and trends...
Sign Up
Latest From MRS

Our latest training courses

Our new 2025 training programme is now launched as part of the development offered within the MRS Global Insight Academy

See all training

Specialist conferences

Our one-day conferences cover topics including CX and UX, Semiotics, B2B, Finance, AI and Leaders' Forums.

See all conferences

MRS reports on AI

MRS has published a three-part series on how generative AI is impacting the research sector, including synthetic respondents and challenges to adoption.

See the reports

Progress faster...
with MRS 
membership

Mentoring

CPD/recognition

Webinars

Codeline

Discounts