Ivor Brayley – the story so far:
Experience is everything.
I started in printing, building myself up to Sales Manager of a medium sized printing company in Melbourne. Then I had the urge to start my own business, so I became a Print Broker… A Print Broker looks after ALL the printing requirements of a client, by placing that printing with the best printer for that job, from business cards to catalogues, posters and every thing in between. I had clients like, The National Party of Australia, Koala Shoes, Federal Pacific Hotels and GE Electrics.
After a couple of years of being a print broker a friend of mine invited me to join him in Grafton NSW and I became the Advertising Manager of the local newspaper ‘The Daily Examiner’. I worked on the paper for some 3 or 4 years before a friend invited me to join the Land Newspaper, who had started the Coastal Extra. This was a great opportunity to join a large Rural newspaper and also stay in Grafton. I had a territory of Taree in the south to Tweed Heads in the north. Also writing a column in the Extra, informing the readers of all that was happening on the coastal strip of northern NSW.
During my time on the Coastal Extra, I called on all the Agricultural companies on the coast plus, write about local shows and horse events and take photographs of same. I remember one day setting up the photograph of the prize winning bull at the Taree show with the then premier placing the grand champion ribbon around the neck of the bull…when I had set up the shot, I took a couple of steps back, only to find 15 other photographers waiting till I had finished, so they could take the same photo that would appear in The Land, such was the reputation of The Land newspaper.
After a couple of years on the coast I was promoted to head office in Sydney to head the Land Extra division and over the next twelve months we had successfully launched the Southern Extra, the Northern Extra and the Western Extra, with the Extra’s sales staff reporting to me in Sydney.
After a couple of years the Rural Press launched a new month Rural publication called FARM Magazine.
This publication was modelled on a USA publication called Successful Farming and they took some of the stories from that publication and published them in Farm Magazine plus they added stories of successful farmers from around Australia. The manager of FARM wanted me to move back to Melbourne as the Southern Australia sales manager looking after Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia. Again after a couple of years, I took over the Sales Managers roll, looking after all the states of Australia.
In the early part of the 1980’s Rural Press started a Magazine division called Publishing and Marketing Australia, or PMA for short and this division had a head office in Melbourne. I was appointed Advertising Manager looking after 10 Advertising Managers of publications like Farm Magazine, National Farmer, Hobby Farmer and other Trade Publications like Electrical World and Coal Miner plus several others.
For what ever reason Rural Press closed this division. So in 1987 I started my own advertising agency (IBA) specialising in Rural and Agricultural advertising and marketing. I started in Rural Advertising because at that time there was only one or two other agencies in Australia specialising in Agricultural advertising.
Between 1987 and the present we have kept our focus on Rural and Agriculture and our client list reflects that experience gained over my time in printing, publishing and advertising.
We stay close to agriculture with our 20 acre farm, growing grass for my daughters many horses and in 2013 we produced 900 small square bales of hay of a small 8 acre paddock… a great result…natural pasture hay with no soil improvements.
Back to the start, when I started with ‘Experience in Everything’. There are very few advertising agencies in Australia that own and operate a farm, let alone know where milk comes from. Speaking of milk, I also have been lucky enough to have travelled overseas with Lely Australia, one of my original clients, on many occasions, looking at Milking Robots and the latest trends in farming and machinery in Europe and at one field day in New Zealand, I was asked to demonstrate the Astronaut Milking Robot as I was one of few people in Australia and NZ, at the time, who knew so much about the workings of Milking Robots and the benefits they offered dairy farmers.
So in-conclusion, if you want or need a rural expert, you can look around until the cows come home…or just contact an agency who knows agriculture…IBA (Ivor Brayley Advertising