Different and better.

As our blue chip portfolio proves, ‘brand experience’ has been around for almost four decades.

Back in 1970, yeah baby, we saw it as ‘business theatre’ and eventually came to call ourselves Australian Business Theatre (ABT). Today we are both different and the same as the ‘corporate event management’ company that opened its doors in 1970. Then, two people in one room. Now, over 80 in three offices serving the Asia Pacific region. Then, producing creative solutions and audio-visual programs. Today, still producing renowned brand changing experiences across an ever-expanding variety of communication touch-points and mediums.

Our passion still revolves around the following beliefs; our willingness to keep working at original ideas until they’re right in all their details; the standards we work do; the desire to form long-term working relationships with our clients; ensuring that our clients value us as much as we value them; an intrinsic commitment to quality and innovation; a quest to develop fresh ways for our clients to reach their target audiences, so that their messages are received, remembered and most importantly acted upon.

Here are some of the landmarks in our near 40-year growth:

In 2008, after consolidating our presence in Sydney and Beijing, our Melbourne office moved to a new state-of-the-art building – just 10 metres away directly across the street! We relaunched our brand as a Brand Experience Agency and evolved our brand identity.

In 2007 our total full-time staff grew by 40% to over 70 as we experienced our best financial performance ever. We put this down to clients moving marketing budget away from traditional avenues into experiential marketing - a trend we know will continue.

In 2006 we opened an office in Beijing, China assisting Australian clients to get a piece of the biggest marketing pie in the world as well as help Chinese brands take their brands to the west. ABT’s Sydney office more than doubled in size, (revenue and staff), as we continued to win major client contracts.

2000’s

We were increasingly recognised as an agency by our clients, with the ability to think strategically as well produce materials that connect with all audiences, across all mediums. Our in-house production capability and ‘hands-on’ approach is highly valued through a period of ‘brand communication/consultants’ saturation (the ‘all talk no action’ brigade!). In 2003 we became part of the Photon Group, realising our desire for further grow. Photon gave us the opportunity to invest in ourselves so we can continue to invest in satisfying our clients brand communication requirements. ‘Brand experience’ became the new marketing buzz – we find this amusing since it’s really what we’ve been doing since 1970.

1990’s

Despite the recession ABT continued to grow in size. Throughout the 1990’s, we rode the wave of Powerpoint, Multimedia and CD-ROM Production and, of course, the dawn of the Internet. By the late 90’s we had positioned ourselves as media-neutral with our ability and experience to communicate to all audiences through any medium. In 1996 we began our love affair with Asia and established an office presence in Singapore.

1980’s

Then named AVW, our Melbourne office moved into 3 Bond Street South Yarra where it remained until 2008. In 1987, we evolved into Australian Business Theatre (ABT) with a focus on event marketing and event production consultancy. ABT began to specialise in events, film & video, business presentations and design & print. The term ‘business theatre’ became a generic industry term and one we begin to become renowned for. In 1987, the Sydney office was established.

1970’s

ABT was first established in 1970 as the Audio Visual Workshop (AVW) in Melbourne producing audio-visual training programs (35mm twin dissolve slide projectors) and 16mm films. We built a reputation in the field of employee communications, business presentations and business-to-business communication. With ‘of the time’ technology we focused on the quality of the message not the medium; this is what began our obsession with developing cut-through creative and engaged communications.

So that’s how the ABT fun started!

Got any questions? Fire away; we love them.