Irish directory enquiries firm seeks marketer

Irish telephone directory enquiries provider Conduit is looking for a marketing director.

The appointee, who will be based in Cardiff, will oversee the launch of the company’s UK directory enquiries service.

The task will be to build familiarity for the service’s telephone number and brand. Marketing will use both aboveand below-the-line channels. The company is already looking for advertising and media agencies for its business, which is estimated to be worth about £15m.

Conduit, founded in Dublin in 1996, is looking for someone with a consumer goods marketing background or experience of working in a high-growth environment.

The move coincides with deregulation of the directory enquiries market in the UK, and rumours that BT is set to buy beleaguered Scoot, which has just launched its own directory enquiries service.

Scoot, majority owned by Vivendi Universal, has seen its share price slide to less than one per cent of its value at the height of the dot-com boom. The company invested heavily in brand-building activity as it tried to establish itself as an online alternative to Yellow Pages.

But it came under pressure after a string of cashflow problems and renewed competition from the renamed Yell, which was sold by BT at the end of 2000. Yell, now owned by a venture capital group, is expected to float on the UK stock market in July. BT refused to comment on a possible acquisition of Scoot.

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