Officeworks reappoints Initiative as media agency

After a closed review, Initiative has successfully renewed its national media planning and buying communications contract with one of Australia’s leading every-channel retailers, Officeworks. The renewal continues a partnership that started in 2008.

Initiative drew heavily on its knowledge and experience in the review period to forecast tangible efficiencies and effectiveness for future Officeworks media investments.

Says Shaun Briggs, managing director, Initiative Melbourne: “We treasure our long-term relationships and it was a privilege to be able to put forward our future-facing vision for Officeworks. We have an amazing base of trust to launch our output into the next phase to help Officeworks remain competitive in an increasingly challenging market. The team is highly motivated and detail oriented, allowing our senior leaders and strategists to really add-value to the strategic questions put to us by Officeworks. This is a great case study of arriving at a shared value equation with a client.”

Says Karl Winther, national marketing manager, Officeworks: “As we enter a new stage for our marketing we wanted to ensure we had the right media-agency partner to deliver to our goals. Over the past 10 years and through the review process, Initiative have proven themselves to be genuine partners and have put in place a team focused on delivering strong commercial outcomes. The Initiative team, like all other team members at Officeworks, are focused and aligned with our purpose:  To help our customers Make Bigger Things Happen.”

Earlier this year, Officeworks was awarded two Effie awards; a silver in the ROI Category for its ‘Back to School’ activity in which Initiative brokered a media-first News integration with Network Nine, and Bronze for long-term effectiveness in which Initiative delivered the media channel-planning, strategy and execution. Since the Officeworks and Initiative partnership started in June 2008, Officeworks has grown from $1.3B – $2.1B in sales.

Says Melissa Fein, CEO of Initiative Australia: “Officeworks is seen as the gold-standard for our people, product and processes in our national agency. We recognise the need to have dynamic people matched to our clients’ needs and moreover, to deliver a product that is world-class.”