IKON Communications

Ikon Communications, a leading media strategy and communications agency.

Overview of results

Unique media planning system
Aide to company growth
Connects to external industry standard data providers
Agile development

The Problem

Ikon was an ambitious media buyer looking to expand its client base and the potential of its workforce. Part of the strategy to achieve this required Ikon to improve accuracy, management and the efficiency of its media planning function.

It was important for Ikon to maintain control over the evolution of the system, so that it could respond to changes in the business environment and strategy.

Solution

With no off-the-shelf systems available to do what was needed, ‘Trademark’ was born. The Microsoft .NET based system developed provides media planning tools across all media, with a focus on media buying efficiency and management reporting.

Our developers worked closely with nominated, experienced and ‘champions’ of the product within Ikon has been key to the successful development of the system.

This principle has applied whether in the start-up ‘agile’ period of the development right through to the more highly specified recent enhancements to the system.

Outcome

The Trademark system has a number of key features which create business efficiency:

Consistent and user friendly interface
The development team utilised industry standard tools in creative ways to allow media planners to input, view and group their buying data

Connectivity
The system connects to a third part 3rd party industry database in order to provide straight-through processing of media bookings. This saves time by avoiding double-keying and also reducing keying errors.

Reporting and Reconciliation
The system stores all agency plans and buying information. This is then used to reconcile to actual market activity and evaluate buying performance.

The ‘Trademark’ system has been a key part of Ikon’s strong growth over the past 8 years. Further value for the investment has recently been realised with use of the system in new interstate offices.