Performance improvement specialist agency P&MM has seen an increase in events and marketing that focuses on the individual consumer, rather than that of wholesalers and others in the supply chain.

Nigel Cooper, executive director of events and communications at Milton Keynes-based Motivcom, P&MM’s parent company, said: “We have seen consumer event business increase, rather than business aimed at the wholesaler and supply chain. Companies want to strengthen offers and incentives in order to maintain consumers' spending and loyalty, because increasingly the general attitude among consumers is to save more. One client moved millions [of pounds] into individual weekend breaks."

In accounts filed for the year ending December 31, 2011, P&MM’s turnover was down by £4m to £67m. Overall operating profit fell by £700k, but gross profit increased slightly to £12.6m. Cooper noted, however, that the drop in operating profit was not indicative of P&MM's performance: "P&MM is one of six companies within the holding company, Motivcom, and as it was the original business, that is where all the costs across the entire business sit. The individual performance of P&MM is not subject just to its own trading, but also to the varying costs of Motivcom in any one year.”

Costs which had impacted results included the March 2011 move into a new 2,800 sqm group head office in Milton Keynes, which came with fit-out costs of more than £700k.

For the same business year, parent company Motivcom posted a gross profit of £29.5m, an increase of six per cent.

Pictured: Nigel Cooper