John Brown Media is one of the world's largest content marketing agencies. While originally formed as a magazine company, the company creates multichannel content for various brands, wit

including social media, film and audio, mobile. Based in

Ladbroke Grove Ladbroke Grove () is an area and a road in West London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, passing through Kensal Green and Notting Hill, running north–south between Harrow Road and Holland Park Avenue. It is also a name given to ...

in London, the company was formed in 1987 by John Brown, who had previously run

Virgin Books Virgin Books is a British book publisher 90% owned by the publishing group Random House, and 10% owned by Virgin Group, the company originally set up by Richard Branson as a record company. History Virgin established its book publishing arm ...

. The business was launched with two magazines: the adult

comic a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

magazine '' Viz'', for which John Brown had secured the rights, and ''HotAir'',

Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic Airways, and w ...

's inflight title. In 1989 John Brown acquired the comics fanzine ''

Speakeasy A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an illicit establishment that sells alcoholic beverages, or a retro style bar that replicates aspects of historical speakeasies. Speakeasy bars came into prominence in the United States d ...

'',Freeman, John
“WebFinds: Looking back on Speakeasy, a comics magazine that crashed and burned,"
DownTheTubes.net (FEBRUARY 27, 2014). converting it to a proper magazine. In mid-1991 it launched the comics magazine '' Blast!''."From Hither and Yon...," ''The Comics Journal'' #147 (Dec. 1991), p. 27. While going on to publish several other newsstand titles, however, it was the

customer magazine A customer magazine is a magazine produced by a business as a means of communicating to its customers. It is a branch of custom media, a product that broadly shares the look and feel of a newsstand or consumer magazine but is paid for in part ...

side of the business that grew most dramatically, with early clients including

Debenhams Debenhams plc was a British department store chain operating in the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1778 as a single store in London and grew to 178 locations across those countries, also owning the Danish ...

IKEA IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been t ...

, the Dorchester, and

Eurotunnel Getlink, formerly Groupe Eurotunnel, is a European public company based in Paris that manages and operates the infrastructure of the Channel Tunnel between England and France, operates the Eurotunnel Shuttle train service, and earns revenue on ...

. (John Brown shut down both ''Speakeasy'' and ''Blast!'' by the end of 1991.) In 2001 the company disposed of its consumer titles (including ''Viz'') in a £6.4 million deal with I Feel Good (IFG), a company belonging to ex-'' Loaded'' editor

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...

, to concentrate on customer communications, and quickly absorbed Citrus Publishing. This helped move establish John Brown as the UK's largest customer publishing house. In 2004,

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Andrew Hirsch (formerly of

Pearl and Dean Pearl & Dean is a British cinema advertising company, founded in 1953. Pearl & Dean is now owned by Willowbrook Investments Ltd, and controls advertising at many UK cinema sites including multiplex operators Empire, Showcase and AMC; the company ...

) initiated a successful

management buyout A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...

. A broadening of the group's activities and a number of acquisitions followed as did board appointments in marketing and strategy. In 2008 the senior management team restructured all the acquired businesses to trade under the single John Brown banner. In 2006, specialist catalogue publishing agency CodeLondon was acquired. In 2007, digital communication agency Fingal was acquired. In 2007, a South African office was opened in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

. In 2008, a company rebrand was undertaken with all companies trading under the John Brown name. In 2016, John Brown Media hired Stefano Hatfield, the former editor of ''

Campaign Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed *Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme * Bl ...

'' and the I newspaper as global editorial director. In 2011, Hong Kong agency Kleio was acquired and rebranded as John Brown Hong Kong. In 2013, offices were opened in Dubai, with a US office opened in 2015. In 2015, John Brown Media joined the

Dentsu Aegis Network Dentsu International (previously Dentsu Aegis Network) is a multinational media and digital marketing communications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Japanese advertising and public relation ...

. John Brown currently produces around 100 publications and projects.

References

External links

* Marketing companies established in 1987 Magazine publishing companies of the United Kingdom {{UK-media-company-stub