Harte-Hanks Buys Australian Agency

San Antonio, USA-based marketing and MR group Harte-Hanks, Inc. has acquired its established Australian partner Communiqué Direct, exercising an option acquired in June 2003. Financial terms have not been disclosed.

Communiqué Direct, founded in 1992 and based in Frenchs Forest high-tech business park in Sydney, provides a range of marketing and information services for the Asia-Pacific b2b sector. The two companies have worked together since 1998, generally for high-tech clients of Harte-Hanks.

Communiqué Direct's core activities include phone and Web-based qualitative fieldwork, as well as database and direct marketing activities. The latter include list development, lead generation and inbound/outbound services.

Harte-Hanks Senior VP Gary Skidmore says that during the past six years, his company has 'relied upon Communiqué Direct to help us serve our clients as they reach out to prospects and customers in many regions of Asia and the Pacific... The company's attention to detail matches the best-of-breed offerings that we seek to extend in our own company'.

David Blythe, MD of the Australian company, says that the synergy between the two has enabled them to 'provide seamless service to several high-tech companies... Our market research, multi-lingual contact center and intelligence-gathering abilities fit well with the offerings that Harte-Hanks provides to its business marketing clients'.

Harte-Hanks uses research and analysis to power its Direct Marketing offer which tailors solutions for specific vertical markets. Harte-Hanks Shoppers is North America's largest owner, operator and distributor of shopper publications, producing more than 900 separate editions with circulation in excess of 11 million in California and Florida each week. Its home page is at www.harte-hanks.com

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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