John Brown Media
John Brown Publishing, now known as the John Brown Group.
The John Brown Group is one of the world’s largest customer communication agencies made up from four distinct arms – John Brown which produces customer magazines; CodeLondon, a recognised name in the field of catalogues; John Brown Junior, a specialist in supplying children’s content, and Fingal working in online, motoring, PR and event management.
Fingal is the most recent addition to the group, coming onboard in 2007 to strengthen the company’s digital offering.
Based in Ladbroke Grove in London, the company’s history dates back to 1985 when it was formed by John Brown, who had previously run Virgin Books. John departed that company with the rights to an adult comic, Viz, which formed the basis of his own publishing company. It was the extraordinary success of this title in the late 1980s which propelled his business to success.
While initially publishing both "adult" consumer magazines such as Viz and Bizarre, and contract magazines for clients including the Dorchester hotel and Eurotunnel, the two sides of the business sat uncomfortably together, first prompting the company to dispose of its consumer titles in 2001, and then to absorb Citrus Publishing – another contract publisher. This move, along with winning several prominent contracts, established John Brown as the UK’s largest customer publishing house.
In 2004 CEO Andrew Hirsch (formerly of Pearl and Dean) initiated a successful MBO. A broadening of the group’s activities and a number of acquisitions (including Code) followed as did high profile board appointments in marketing and strategy.
Until the MBO JBP was considered to be one of the most employee friendly organisations to work for.
Today the company produces around 100 publications and projects for more than 50 clients including RBS, Waitrose, Sky, the DCSF, Woolworths, Orange, The British Heart Foundation and John Lewis. It has featured frequently at various publishing award ceremonies, both for the creativity of its work, and its own industry success, having being named Marketing Magazine’s Customer Publishing Agency of the Year. It has also stretched beyond its magazine origins with a growing range of communications services offered to new and existing clients.
External links
John Brown Group [1] Code London [2] Fingal [3]
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