PMP Limited

History

Our Mission Statement

At PMP, we’re dedicated to increasing return on marketing investment for our customers. Over the past decade, we’ve developed a suite of smart media solutions which help our clients create, target and deliver effective messages to their target audiences. It’s all part of our mission to leverage the finest technology and the best people to deliver better, customer-focused solutions for our clients than generate better business outcomes.

Our history

PMP Limited is a public company with annual revenues exceeding $1.3 billion, more than 3,000 staff in Australia and New Zealand and over 8,000 shareholders across the region.

In February 1992, PMP Communications became a public company and re-branded its various companies under the PMP Limited name. At the same time, the company divested its publishing interests to focus on its core business of providing consumer insight and printed communications solutions.

Today, PMP specialises in the areas of:

• Data-driven market and customer analytics,
• Marketing advisory services,
• Creative and photographic services, 
• Advertising solutions
• Pre-media,
• Asset management
• Printing, and
• Letterbox and magazine distribution

We deliver these services via specialised businesses which work together within the PMP Limited Group:

• Gordon & Gotch (Aus & NZ)
• Griffin Press (Aus)
• Pacific Micromarketing (Aus & NZ)
• PMP Digital (Aus)
• PMP Distribution (Aus & NZ)
• PMP Print (Aus & NZ)

The following provides a brief history of each of PMP's current major operating brands:

Gordon and Gotch          

The oldest brand in the PMP group, Gordon & Gotch was formed in 1853 when Alexander Gordon, a 63-year-old Scotsman gave 24-year-old Englishman John Gotch a job selling newspapers and drumming up advertisements. Gordon offered Gotch a partnership if he could sell as many newspapers in the goldfields as he sold from his market shack under which they both slept at night.

The newly formed newspaper-delivery business flourished with offices established in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Auckland and London before the end of the 19th century. The state-based businesses amalgamated in 1919 and Gordon and Gotch today is one of the region's largest distributors of magazines to newsagents and other retail outlets.

Griffin Press         

Griffin Press was established in 1858 as The Advertiser Printing Office and steadily built a reputation for fine book printing. The company expanded in 1931 when the general printing plant of The Register was acquired by The Advertiser and rapid growth followed after World War II. In 2006 Griffin Press relocated to a new site in Salisbury, the relocation was apart of a multi million dollar upgrade of print, binding and prepress systems for Griffin Press. Signalling a positive outlook for book production and book publishing in Australia.

Pacific Micromarketing         

Pacific Micromarketing opened its doors in West Melbourne in July 1996 and established a New Zealand office in November of the same year. In 1997, Pacific Micromarketing acquired the database marketing operations of Hermes Precisa Australia and in 1998 launched Mosaic MicroSegments, the most sophisticated target marketing system in the world.

In 2002 a 10-year agreement was signed with Experian, a global information solutions company and supplier of MOSAIC confirming Pacific Micromarketing's position as one of the region's most progressive suppliers of market and customer analytics.

PMP Digital         

PMP Digital started life in 1916 as Omega, a small process engraving shop in Melbourne that specialised in brass nameplates for doctors' surgeries. In 1928, a partnership change saw the business re-named Show-Ads Omega, a name it held until being rebranded PMP Digital more than seventy years later. The company has always been at the forefront of new premedia production techniques.

In the early 1950s, it pioneered the use of film; in the 1960s, installed the first powderless etching machine; by 1970, was using the Klishograph machine to scan artwork and engrave it in foil; and in the early 1980s, installed the first Chromacom that scanned transparencies and recorded them on disc. Show-Ads Omega was purchased by PMP in 1996 and has grown to become PMP Digital, a specialist in digital media services. In 2006, the businesses’ photographic studios split from PMP Digital to become Dimension Studios and focus entirely on photography.

PMP Distribution         

The PMP Distribution brand started life as the distribution businesses of Streetfile (addressed mail) and Progress Printers and Distributors (unaddressed mail). Progress began distributing catalogues for Myer Melbourne in 1968 - the first major retailer to use a delivery service. The network pioneered for Myer was completed in 1979 and now delivers over 2.9 billion items to home letterboxes across Australia and New Zealand each year. The addressed business - Streetfile, was established in 1991 and its first major client was the RACV.

For many years, Streetfile was actively involved in lobbying government to open up the heavily-regulated postal industry in Australia and New Zealand to greater competition.

PMP Print         

The brand name PMP Print was adopted when seventeen of PMP's printing companies (excluding book printer Griffin Press) were amalgamated in 2000. Up until that date, PMP's printing businesses operated under separate brand names and specialised in particular customer markets or geographic locations. For example, Wilke Color (est. 1895) specialised in magazine printing; Westernport Printing (est. 1889) specialised in newspaper printing; Mercury Walch (est. 1970) operated in the Tasmanian market and Prestige Litho (est. 1920 as H.Pole & Co) operated in Queensland.

Today, PMP Print is the region's largest commercial printing group producing a wide range of printed products, including catalogues, magazines, books, directories, newspapers, and publications for government departments and corporate clients.