JUNE 2011 - AdGroup sponsors the 'Harrogate Racers' Team at the worlds famous Knaresborough 'Bed Race'.
APRIL 2011
City Of York Council has appointed Community Partners to market its prestigious outdoor sponsorship and smaller format advertising opportunities.
The initial portfolio being offered is made up of brand new, larger sponsorship signs at the Roundabouts, new sponsorship signage at the 'Welcome to York' signs that surround the city &, for the first time, advertising at the incredibly well used 'Park & Ride' car parks that surround York.
Community Partners specialises in providing Councils with useful extra revenues by developing their potential with their portfolio of sponsorship & advertising opportunities on Council owned property
These opportunities are then professionally & attractively presented primarily to the local business communities to help them to significantly raise their commercial profiles.
"The numbers of visitors, shoppers, commuters & York residents who can see these signs... every single day.... is quite staggering", said Mike Brennan, Community Partner's Managing Director.
" We've been doing this type of work for a number of years now as we started with Roundabout sponsorship in Portsmouth in 2005 (and developed from there) . Last year we started operations in Harrogate and if you add this to what we already have in Leeds, then you can see that what we now have in York makes a very interesting regional addition that should appeal to both York businesses & those businesses that want to appeal to the famous Golden Triangle market, as well.."
David Walker, Head of Procurement at City of York Council said " I'm looking forward to this arrangement providing a number of significant benefits for our council: We will hopefully be improving our revenues in these tough times, improving our actual sponsorship infrastructure & developing a more cohesive and professional showcase for York businesses to actually promote themselves and raise their profiles, at key points in and around our beautiful City."
Community Partners is part of the AdGroup, which was established in Harrogate in 1986. The main focus had been in bus advertising through its Adbus division but, after this was sold in 2006, Community Partners started to grow as a company focussed and specialising in developing Council owned sponsorship & advertising revenue streams. Another group company is Airport Partners that handles the advertising & promotions contracts at 24 Regional Airports, including locally Leeds Bradford, Newcastle, Durham Tees Valley & Doncaster Robin Hood Airports.
Former CBS Outdoor Director Mike Brennan buys into
Community Partners
Mike Brennan formerly Sales Director at CBS Outdoor, has bought a significant shareholding in Community Partners. Mike has been appointed Managing Director of the re-organised company, whilst former MD & founder Andrew Walker now becomes Chairman & CEO.
Mike ran the direct and regional business of CBS Outdoor for 10 years, building the regional sales force to a team of over 100, making it the largest outdoor advertising sales force in the UK. Before that he worked for JC Decaux for 8 years.
Brennan says; "The reason I have joined this interesting business is that I see that there is a real opportunity for growth in this market and having previously seen and been instrumental in the major growth in the local and regional market for CBS (formerly Viacom). Over the last 10 years, I had realised that this was a key sector that was still fairly underdeveloped and with the right people I can see great returns for Public Sector organizations, such as Local Authorities, at a time when they certainly need more revenue. I've also known Andrew Walker & Adgroup for many years and they are a good team to buy into and work with."
He continues "More and more advertisers are now using online advertising and high profile and localised sponsorship/advertising are actually a natural fit to those businesses that want to stand out from the crowd & shout out that they have a local presence, and with the ever increasing price of fuel more people are shopping closer to home and this is where advertising and sponsorship locally really pays off, not only increasing brand recognition, but more importantly direct response."
Andrew Walker said "This appointment of a respected & real industry heavyweight should help Community Partners to grow a lot bigger in next few years. Mike has joined us because he can see the opportunities...watch this space ! "
NOVEMBER 2010
Community Partners has been appointed to market & manage the sponsorship of the Welcome to the City of York signs on all the main roads into the City of York.
"This is an important win for our company & the product may well be sold as a prestigious solus deal, as the offering is literally unique in York'" said Andrew Parker, of Community Partners.
"The contract with York City Council starts next Spring, however we will be putting proposals to a number of larger companies over the coming months"
Community Partners Ltd is part of the AdGroup, based in Harrogate, and specialises in raising revenues for Local Authorities & other Public Bodies through marketing their potential sponsorship & advertising sites.
DECEMBER 2009
Community Partners has been appointed to market the advertising & sponsorship opportunities at the roundabouts and other sponsored landscape areas managed by Harrogate Borough Council.
"The prestigious and exclusive contract to sell the space is a major, and in some ways natural achievement for Community Partners, as we're actually a Harrogate based company and we know Harrogate and the surrounding district well." says Andrew Walker, Managing Director of Community Partners.
Although we've been trading in Harrogate for a number of years, most of our business currently comes from Scotland & the South of England. However we've done good business in Harrogate, Knaresborough, Boroughbridge, Pateley Bridge & Ripon before and we know the market well.
Living in Harrogate and attending business events like The Met Club in Harrogate has also kept us very up to date with the views of the local business community."
The current list of roundabouts and landscaped areas is likely to be expanded over the coming years to provide many more opportunities for potential sponsors.
NOVEMBER 2009
Harrogate based 'Community Partners' has been appointed as the advertising contractor to the prestigious Harrogate International Centre (HIC)
HIC chiefly comprises of the Conference Centre, the Exhibition Halls & The Royal Hall & this contract is to cover all the current display advertising sites on those properties. Every year over 300,000 people attend either Conferences/Exhibitions or Entertainment/Shows at HIC & last month HIC announced funding for a massive & exciting £13 million redevelopment of the site . This will complete in 2012 & is expected to bring further Exhibitions & Conferences to Harrogate.
It is currently estimated that the HIC events bring in over £20million per year into the Harrogate & its surrounding area & fund somewhere between 40- 50% of the incomes of the many Hotels, Shops & Restaurants in the area.
Community Partners was founded in 2006 & forms part of the AdGroup, that has been based in Harrogate since 1986. The company specialises in maximising advertising & sponsorship revenues to publicly owned bodies. Other contracts handled by the company include all the CalMac Ferries in Scotland & a number of roundabout/welcome sign sponsorship deals with Local Authorities including Leeds, Southampton & Portsmouth.
Andrew Walker, Managing Director of Community Partners, believes that it is a unique opportunity for local companies to target these visitors to Harrogate.
" Most of the delegates, exhibitors & visitors to the HIC are from other parts of the UK & come here with a reasonable budget for only a short time. Harrogate is a lovely town, in a beautiful & interesting area, & I think that local businesses who advertise should benefit enormously from publicising their products & services to these incomers."
DECEMBER 2008
On 31 December the 49.9% of Titan Bus UK Ltd & Titan Bus Ltd (Europe) were successfully sold to the co-owners of those companies; Titan Outdoor. This transaction draws to a close the old AdBus bus advertising involvement for the AdGroup & provides useful finance to grow its own companies in the interesting new business environment.
NOVEMBER 2008 - CityVision Media Ltd
The AdGroup has formed a new Digital Advertising company called CityVision Media Ltd, to promote large format, Digital advertising & sponsorship in City Centres. This Company will be spearheaded by recent appointment Deon Viljoen, who formerly headed Clear Channel in Uganda for 5 years. Deon moved to the UK in June and says "Uganda was a real challenge when I arrived, Clear Channel had recently launched in the country so existing relationships & best practices hadn't really been developed & most people hadn't heard of us. I'm really looking forward to this new challenge as the product is sensational. Adgroup is a really progressive company - focussed, ambitious, innovative, cash rich and a real investor in its people. We know what is required here, so watch this space..."
OCTOBER 2007 - Investors In People
Community Partners and Ad Group are delighted to have been recently re-accredited by Investors-In-People yet again. We have now achieved the “Investor In People” standard since 2001, highlighting not only our attitude towards the investment in and the development of our employees but also our continuous focus on improvement for our business partners and clients.
Leeds City Council
Community Partners has recently been appointed by Leeds City Council to manage their exciting Boundary Sign sponsorship scheme.
Community Partners will promote and sell the sponsorship for 28 Boundary Signs located on the key roads leading into the city. Further Boundary signs will become available over the next few months.
The expertise offered by Community Partners will raise substantial revenues from this sponsorship scheme and in co-operation with the Leeds City Council there will be a re-branding opportunity for the council that will raise the profile of their city to visitors and commuters.
The sponsorship signs, located directly below the Boundary Signs will match the two different sizes planned, and offer sponsors a superb opportunity of raising their profile through this form of outdoor media. Revenues will go towards the cost of re-branding the existing Boundary Signs and the costs for creating new signs where needed.
