Mediazest Regulatory News (MDZ)

MediaZest Plc ("MediaZest", the "Company" or "Group"; AIM: MDZ) Trading Update MediaZest, the creative audio visual company, is pleased to provideshareholders with a general update on trading. Highlights: * Successfully executed on multi-national contract with Coca-Cola for FIFA World Cup; * Significantly improved revenue for year ended 31 March 2014 to its highest level since 2008; * Increased investment in sales and marketing has created a strong pipeline of projects; * Growing strategic relationships with blue chip customers such as Samsung, O2 and Pfizer; * New strategic relationship with SFD; and * Repayment of shareholder debt following successful fundraising in December 2013. 3 LARGE PROJECTS January through May 2014 saw the Group focus on the delivery of three largeprojects: First, Coca-Cola provided the company with the largest of these by way of acontract to supply large scale audio-visual installations for the FIFA WorldCupTM Trophy Tour presented by Coca-Cola. This took the Company to 48 countriesover the last 8 months and involved working closely with brand experiencepioneers, Ignition Inc. The Company also worked with Coca-Cola's head officeteam in Atlanta, USA and provided engineering support and installation teamleadership at all 48 events. The contract was completed in May 2014 and basedon its successful delivery, the Group hopes to work with both parties again inthe future whilst acknowledging that by their nature, high profile projectssuch as this only come along every few years. Second, the Board announced previously a large University installation projectwhich was delivered predominantly in the first half of 2014. This projectinvolved the Company's entire engineering workforce at various points duringdelivery and in total generated revenue for the company in excess of £400,000. Finally, the Company completed delivery of its second substantial corporatesector project in the period, by providing a highly advanced video wallsolution for a building refurbishment project at Bevis Marks, in the City ofLondon. Video footage of this installation can be seen on the Company's youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKWicPd7cQE&list=UUxXrI9QQVgLtSbNid_tgRIg The combined effect of these three projects in the financial year ended 31March 2014 has been to significantly improve revenue to approximately £2.9million (2013: £1.85m), its highest level since 2008. INVESTMENT IN MARKETING AND THE SALES PROCESS In December 2013 the Group completed a successful fundraising, and asrepresented a substantial proportion of shareholder debt was paid down withonly £200,000 remaining. The Company has also deployed funds in developingadvanced solutions in three key areas and most importantly begun to investagain in proactively marketing its services to the retail community. The impact of heavy investment in the sales and marketing process, has meantthat operating losses will remain at a similar level to last year's with asmall year on year increase once interest and depreciation is taken intoaccount. Whilst disappointing to show less progress on producing a positivebottom line, the Directors believe the investment in the sales process -including marketing initiatives - is absolutely crucial to generate longer termopportunities to enable Group progression. The core strategy continues to be the transition of the Company's revenue basetowards more ongoing, contractual-type business, and away from the dependencyon large scale projects which is difficult to predict and suffers the vagariesof timing. As such, efforts are being focussed on larger scale roll-outopportunities which naturally take longer to consummate than short termcampaigns. The Directors believe this strategy is now looking promising withthe future pipeline for FY 2015 and beyond looking much improved. In May 2013, the Group appointed an experienced Corporate Sales Consultant andthis was followed by further investment in a new sales/marketing executive andan additional Sales Consultant in autumn 2013. The Group also invested in abrand new showroom in London to demonstrate its unique technology offering.These actions have placed the Company in an improved position to grow revenuesbut involve short term investment to build pipeline and bring opportunities tofruition. The Company website has also been updated. It now incorporates the wholly ownedsubsidiary, previously known as TouchVision Limited and now renamed MediaZestInternational. In the first quarter of the calendar year, the Board decided it was time tobring both brands together; to reduce client confusion and paperwork; and toreflect the fact that over the years the two parts of the business have grownso close together as to become inseparable - sharing clients, senior staff,delivery and installation. The new website reflects this change as well asshowcasing more up to date work. The largest single element of investment in the marketing process has beenattendance at global trade-show, Euroshop, in partnership with SFD Ltd. SFD Ltdprovides shop mannequin and visual merchandising services to many largeretailers and fashion brands on a global basis. Led by James Abdool, MediaZestSales Director, the Company has built a strong relationship with SFD, and as aresult, MediaZest agreed to provide audio visual solutions for the SFD stand atEuroshop as the start of a partnership. Both businesses share similarphilosophies in terms of delivery excellence and are in discussions withcomplementary prospective clients. As such a natural partnership has developedwhereby both Companies seek to assist each other grow their respectivebusinesses by sharing client introductions and working hand in hand to produceunique full service solutions for retail clients. Effectively this also worksas an extension of the Groups "one stop shop" approach. This partnership, whilst relatively informal, has already shown promise withsmall window display projects already delivered for Marks & Spencer and H&M,both existing SFD clients. The work for Marks & Spencer has been shortlistedfor a Retail Week Interiors Award in the "Best Use of Design with Technologyin-store" category. The strategic relationship MediaZest enjoys with Samsung has also grown inimportance during the last six months. In addition to working on Samsungmarketing campaigns, both directly and through various agencies, Samsung andMediaZest have worked closely together in discussions with a number ofretailers. Utilising Samsung's technology and MediaZest's design, content andintegration skills this joint approach has been successfully used to pitch tolarge retail clients looking for in store solutions and the Board believes itwill generate business in the coming months. In addition to these two relationships, the business continues to generatefurther work from the likes of Kuoni, Fiat, O2, Pfizer and the University ofEssex amongst others. Following the success of the Coca-Cola project, the Boardhas invested in a further marketing campaign during the FIFA World Cup 2014 tolook to generate further business in similar experiential environments. Followup meetings to explore these opportunities will begin this month. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT The Board highlighted three specific areas in which it was developing uniqueproducts in the announcement of 13 December 2013. Of these, efforts have been concentrated on developing the audience measurementand hologram systems based on extremely positive feedback from potentialcustomers. MediaZest expects to launch the first version of the audience measurementservice, developed with Argus Global and termed "MediaZest Retail Analytics"this week to a wider customer base and expects trial deployments to beginshortly thereafter. The Company already has a large number of enquiriesexpressing interest in this product from demonstrating the Beta version in itsshowroom during client meetings. Further investment to develop this solution asinterest grows is likely to be necessary, but the Board believes this productto be particularly attractive to retailers on an ongoing basis and that it willassist in moving its revenue streams onto a more consistent basis. Designs for the hologram unit are now finalised, with a test build scheduledfor summer 2014 with launch anticipated shortly thereafter. OUTLOOK As noted, the pipeline is building well, and an enormous amount of work hasgone into targeting larger scale opportunities with the potential to roll outover the coming years and to deliver long term shareholder value. GeoffRobertson, CEO of MediaZest said "The Company has made substantial progress inthe last 18 months. Delivery of the large Coca-Cola project, University fit outand the Bevis Marks video wall project at the same time demonstrates howaccomplished our services are. The Board believes our ground-breaking work hastremendous reach in the marketing community and that as the UK and globaleconomy slowly recovers, retailers investing in digital signage for theirstores will multiply. The Group is perfectly placed to capitalise on that." Enquiries: Geoff RobertsonChief Executive OfficerMediaZest Plc 020 7724 5680 Gavin Burnell / Edward HuttonNominated AdviserNorthland Capital Partners Limited 020 7382 1100 Claire Louise Noyce / Niall Pearson / William LynneBrokerHybridan LLP 020 3713 4580 Notes to Editors: About MediaZest MediaZest is a creative media agency that specialises in providing innovativemarketing solutions to leading retailers, brand owners and corporations, butalso works in the public sector in both the NHS and Education markets. TheGroup supplies an integrated service from content creation and system design toinstallation, technical support and maintenance. MediaZest was admitted to theLondon Stock Exchange's AIM market in February 2005. For more information,please visit www.mediazest.com