Media: Behind the Hype - Has SMG Access lived up to its launch promise?

A year after its launch, SMG Access hasn't really made waves, Emma Barns writes

Launched a year ago, with hardly the most inspiring of names, SMG Access has not had quite the impact on the media that its launch hype predicted. In fact, some of the agencies we spoke to about it even needed reminding what the offering included.

Jumping on the cross-media solutions bandwagon last September, the media-owner Scottish Media Group created a cross-platform sales team to offer advertisers packages across its various companies. These include its Scottish and Grampian television channels, Virgin Radio, the Pearl & Dean cinema operation and the outdoor company Primesight.

It was quick to trumpet its pounds 1 million Unilever deal, which is using all SMG assets, and has been the team's greatest success.

However, other business seems to have been rather thin on the ground and Malcolm MacMillan, the director of SMG Access, admits that of its three other chunky deals - Texaco, United Biscuits and Cadbury - only Texaco ended up using multiple media.

'The fact that they didn't use more doesn't matter. Access was set up to add value to customer campaigns and now they can see what we are capable of,' he says.

Figures to show how much of SMG's revenue is coming through cross-media deals are unavailable as the company is in its close period ahead of its interim results.