Profile: Plum Design & Advertising Ltd
itwales.com talks to Geoffrey Ainsworth, Account Director of Plum Design & Advertising Ltd, about a multi media company with "fruitful
ideas".
What products/services does your company provide?
Plum Design & Advertising Ltd (PDA) is an established design and advertising agency that provides a comprehensive range of marketing
communications services to companies and organisations in the consumer, leisure and tourism, manufacturing, trade and technical and
business-to-business sectors.
The precise service we provide is tailored to meet the individual marketing needs of each client but, broadly, our work covers the
full spectrum of promotional activities and embraces both traditional and new media.
Specifically this ranges from corporate and brand identity, sales and marketing literature, advertising and media planning, and
direct mail to packaging, display and exhibition design, and 3D modelling as well as a comprehensive range of multi media solutions
including website design, interactive CD ROMs, animation, digital presentations and video production.
What's unique/outstanding about your products/services?
We're IT literate, well resourced, hungry but not 'pushy', passionate about creativity and, importantly, willing to invest our time
to the success of a client's professional sales and marketing needs.
Whether a client is looking for online or through-the-line support our original, fruitful ideas continue to go hand in hand with
technical proficiency, a consistent and compelling style and a cost conscious approach.
What has helped to make PDA outstanding over the years has been our avowed aim to give a sharper, more responsive edge across a
client's entire marketing communications with work that is striking, communicative and faultlessly executed - we've never been afraid to
ask searching questions of a client; more than that, we have always sought to build constructive, professional long term business
relationships which, incidentally, are also far more profitable.
In a nutshell, we're 'thinkers' as well as 'doers'.
What's the history of your company?
Established in 1974 as Plum Design Associates by two experienced creative founding partners, Brian Evans - a true Welsh-speaking
Welshman - and Cornishman Shaun Hard. They both remain actively involved with the day-to-day management and direction of the company; I
am the third director, bringing to the company many years marketing and advertising experience, having a background in both client and
agency environments.
The fledgling business had its roots in Swansea with offices in the city centre for a number of years; in 1981 the company purchased
the freehold of a near derelict former grain store in Llangyfelach, just north of Swansea and close to Junction 46 of the M4, and after
sympathetic restoration and refurbishment converted it to offices.
'The Old Grain Store' continues to be the company's base today.
In 1990 Plum Design Associates was merged with its media-buying subsidiary - itself set up in 1985 - and formed into a limited
company under the name Plum Design & Advertising Ltd.
Traditionally, Plum Design had a strong though by no means exclusive 'technical' bias to its client base, which to some extent is
still the case today with a number of clients drawn from the engineering and manufacturing sectors.
What has served the company well right from those early days is its technical expertise - and over the past 10 or more years that has
been strengthened by its extensive IT skills and capabilities coupled with an enhanced creative reputation.
Right from the start the company's vision was to be valued as an essential partner by clients who prize smart communications
solutions that achieve goals, and that hasn't changed.
PDA has always put great emphasis on creating an environment where each client feels welcomed and valued, and that maxim has
certainly helped to set us apart over the past 28 years and doubtless will continue to do so in the future.
Where do you see your company going in the future?
Our single, driving ambition for the immediate future - and who can successfully look much beyond that with any certainty? - is to
continue as a leading edge design technology and marketing company pre-eminent in our field.
Our commitment to hard work, utmost good faith and absolute integrity in all our business dealings will also surely guide us wherever
we're going in the future, just as these have been guiding principles since the company started in 1974.
What one piece of technology (software/hardware/other) has benefited your company the most?
Older readers will remember that truly groundbreaking invention, the fax; that benefited the business considerably. But today the fax
is commonplace and somewhat humble, having been overtaken by the one piece of technology that has both transformed and benefited not just
PDA and similar businesses, but all our lives: the PC and with it digital technology.
The availability of broadband Internet has, unquestionably, brought significant benefits to us here at PDA, as has the latest
generation of digital cameras.
What one piece of advice would you give to start-up companies in your field?
Not only does this run the risk of sounding trite and clich
e9
d, it is also remarkably difficult to give merely one piece of advice, so here are two: the world is filled with opportunities, just
make sure you have the energy, the vigour and the determination to keep pursuing them; and while you're busy doing that never allow
yourself to forget you also have a business to run. In short, have fun and work hard, and keep a very tight grip of the finances.
What's been the key to your success?
Again, very difficult to identify or define one single key to our success - if only we could! As ever, it's a combination of factors
including, inevitably, an element of luck by being in the right place at the right time. Having said that, you need a good more than mere
luck to maintain a successful business for 28 years.
The one common factor that has sustained the company has been, and continues to be, the quality of our people - highly competent,
experienced, confident, articulate, energetic and enthusiastic. And this means we continue to produce work that is striking, distinctive,
memorable and professional and does a strong selling job for our clients.
To complement its people PDA has always invested heavily in equipment, technology and support, and today that means the latest
software, AppleMac G4s, PCs, notebooks, high end scanning and laser colour printing.
It must also be said that, in part at least, our success is due to the fact that we have never been complacent, we're always hungry
for work and never stop looking for new business; by the same token, and unlike similar companies that have come and gone, we have never
had a strategy for rapid growth or world domination.
Our maxim is simple and straightforward: if we're keeping busy, making a profit and having fun - then we're doing well.
For more information on Plum Design & Advertising and its full range of services visit:
plum-design.co.uk
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