Media Consulta, which recently won the advertising and PR account of the Malta Tourism Authority, celebrated the fifth anniversary of its international network at Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin and welcomed former German Chancellor Dr Helmut Kohl as its guest of honour.

The event, which was covered by German television, was the high point of this year’s meeting between the managing directors and account directors of Media Consulta’s (MC) 44 network agencies worldwide (including those of the 27 EU member States). They met in Berlin for two days to discuss the further development and strategy of their collaboration. Among them was MC Malta’s managing director Andrew Warrington.

Five years ago, Media Consulta set up an international agency network in all member States of the EU and in the foremost business centres of the world – it is the only German agency to have done so to date.

“I offer my warm congratulations to Media Consulta on the fifth anniversary of its European network. I believe you can be very proud that your agency has established operations in all member States of the EU so as to communicate European policy to the citizens of Europe more clearly,” said Helmut Kohl in his congratulatory address.

Speaking to over 200 guests from politics and business, MC CEO Harald Zulauf gave a brief review of the agency’s history in Europe, which began in Germany in 1993. After a campaign for the introduction of value added tax in Latvia in 1997, the first EU-wide assignment followed in 2002 with the no-smoking campaign “Feel free to say No”. This coincided with the foundation of the MC Network.

Here the agency set new benchmarks for communication in the EU. For the first time, an integrated campaign was conducted including advertising, PR, events, on-line and television, bringing together all the instruments required to reach the diverse peoples of Europe. New tools were developed as well. For example, a boy band group was formed specifically for the campaign and they composed a song that successfully promoted the message of the campaign.

My Zulauf took the opportunity to announce the latest agency fee revenue figures for 2007. He said that fee revenue was to increase by a further 37 per cent in Germany, from EUR38.2 million to an anticipated EUR52.6 million. Furthermore, over 30 jobs are to be created this year at the company’s two offices in Berlin and Cologne. This takes the total number of employees of all MC network agencies worldwide in 2007 to 1,469, with a forecast turnover of EUR221 million. “In the last six months alone, MC has won 10 more national and international accounts. Once again, we are pleased to be doing justice to our reputation of being the fastest growing agency in Europe,” Mr Zulauf said.

In an exclusive interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday, the MC CEO also explained the reason for the difference between these figures and those published in the newspaper last week.

Mr Zulauf said this was because the American rating agency quoted did not work with MC and was simply not in possession of accurate balance sheets and current figures for MC.

Mr Zulauf explained that MTA, like all other clients and rating agencies working with MC, naturally had access to the verified balance sheet figures. This newspaper can confirm that Creditreform, considered to be Germany’s leading rating agency, puts MC well above average with a rating of 1.77 in a range of 1 to 6.

Besides, the ranking of the German Association of Communication Agencies shows MC to be the third largest German advertising agency in Germany (with a turnover of EUR38.2 million in 2006).

The network meeting in Berlin was seen as very useful by the clients and network-managing directors. “The opportunity to see the full scope of the MC Network and discuss ongoing MTA business was very beneficial for us,” stated MTA Communications and PR Director Kevin Drake, “especially in light of the fact that MC is now our international communications partner for at least the next three years.”

The head of the German MTA PR agency, Stefanie Schroeder, also expressed her great satisfaction: “We were really able to simultaneously co-ordinate the planned campaign measures for tourism in Malta with the agency representatives in all our core markets – which is an amazing advantage. It’s great that Malta can speak with a single voice abroad through the MC Network.”

Mr Zulauf also took the opportunity of the network meeting to emphasise the MC Network’s commitment to social causes. The managing directors of the MC Network unanimously resolved to allow the people of the Third World to share in some of the agency’s success and to support the UN Millennium Goals.

To this end, MC will support the UNICEF project “”Schools for Africa” and the Nelson Mandela Foundation by financing the construction of a school in Africa every year starting this year. “After all, school is the only opportunity to escape poverty for many children in Africa. Only those who have reading, writing and maths skills can hope for better prospects,” Mr Zulauf said.