The Guardian Australia is looking to continue its growth by scouting a brand partnership director and national sales director.
With the business crossing the two year mark and more and more international publishers entering the fray, managing director of the business Ian McClelland remains bullish about the growth the publisher will continue to see after well and truly cementing its place in the market.
McClelland told AdNews that the business has grown faster than anticipated this year and with the growth of its events business, now is the right time to grow the team.
“We're about 18 months, to two years, ahead of plan,” he said. “We found a fertile ground here for what The Guardian does editorially and commercially, the audience are really enjoying our storytelling and our independence, and our unique ownership structure.”
“Commercially we're forming great partnerships with agencies and brands and we're really trying to answer problems, as opposed to just selling them [clients] a product and coming up with effective marketing that hasn't been done before. I feel like it's the right time and right place for us,” he added.
The business, due to its continued commercial growth and expansion of brand partnerships has increased in revenue by 360% and McClelland doesn't want to stop there, with the business hoping to grow revenue by another 100% by the end of the next financial year.
“Double-digital percentage growth year-on-year that's the expectation,” he said. “We'd probably look for 80-100% growth again this financial year across all revenue channels. We're way ahead of market growth and we're still hiring people.”
Global player The Huffington Post is expected to arrive on Australian shores next month, however McClelland is unperturbed, rather he believes that the arrival of the newest member of the landscape could be good for the market and for The Guardian.
“It's good for us – the same thing happened in the UK,” he noted. “I think there were some concerns there, it's a quality and free publication, so obviously we're talking to the same advertisers and talking to the same audience, but it didn't end up being a threat in the UK.
“The two publications can very happily co-exsist in terms of editorial, and then commercially it's great. It just highlights to the market that there are alternatives to the incumbent traditional media here.”
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