Sensis seeks rejuvenation Lucy Battersby February 21, 2011...

Sensis seeks rejuvenation Lucy Battersby
February 21, 2011
.Telstra chief executive David Thodey has signalled a commitment to the telecom's under-pressure Yellow Pages company Sensis through an overhaul of the print directories business into a specialist in online-focused advertising and direct marketing.

Mr Thodey maintains Sensis is unique among online directories given it has some 600 staff who sell Yellow Pages advertising directly to business owners.

Sensis, in turn, can provide advertisers with marketing data and information about customer behaviour like a quasi-advertising agency, he said.

Advertisement: Story continues below ''What we have got to do, and there have been a few other companies around the world that have done it, is to lead our [Sensis] customers to the digital world,'' Mr Thodey told BusinessDay.

''We provide the [online] information to our customers and they pay us for that information.

''I think that is the new model, but it is a change of business model and that is the transition we are going through.''

Sensis recently signed a deal with search engine Google that will allow it to get more information about consumer searches and behaviour, and give its customers search priority.

The directory company, as with much of the media sector, faces a consumer shift in preferences away from traditional print-based data such as phone books to online and mobile search technology.

Sensis experienced an 18 per cent decline in profits in the first half of this financial year compared to the same period last year on slowing sales.

This month Sensis detailed plans to cut 120 employees.