Leading the Way
Catalina Marketing Corporation was created in 1983 when five friends in related fields of marketing, retailing and scanner-based technology had a breakthrough idea while sailing to Catalina Island off the California coast. The group included: Mike O'Brien, Brian Yeatman, Tom Mindrum, Mike Scroggie and George Off. The founders believed that there was a more effective and efficient way to access and influence consumers than television, radio and free-standing inserts. They further believed that communications informed by actual consumer behaviour would be more effective than traditional media; the problem was how to deliver individualised communications efficiently. The ground-breaking idea, that eventually became the Catalina Marketing Network®, used scanner-based technology to retrieve and respond to consumer behaviour. Twenty years later Catalina Marketing continues to be a pioneer in behaviour-based marketing services, applying the principles of behaviour-based marketing to direct mail, consumer research and online applications.

A Vision Becomes Reality
The founders, driven by their vision and the breadth of their collective experiences, invented the system that would enable manufacturers and retailers to identify customers based on actual purchase behaviour and distribute customized incentives at the point-of-sale. Today that system is called the Catalina Marketing Network® and is installed in over 21,000 grocery stores in the US, Europe and Japan. A similar idea, the Health Resource Network®, provides similar access to consumers through over 17,500 retail pharmacies in the US.

Changing History Forever
Since the installation of the first stores in 1984, Catalina Marketing has grown at an impressive rate. The company has expanded its range of behaviour-based marketing services and the industries in which they are applied.

• In 1995, Catalina Marketing created Health Resource, a division that reaches pharmacy patients with condition-specific health information and direct-to-patient advertising in the US.
  
• In July 1998, Catalina Marketing acquired Market Logic, an innovative syndicated direct mail company - the first to offer direct mail targeted based on frequent shopper card data. Market Logic now operates as Catalina Marketing Direct Marketing Services in the US.
  
• In August 1999, Catalina Marketing acquired Alliance Research. With this acquisition, retailers and manufacturers could now combine attitudinal and behaviour data to even better understand their consumers. Whereas the Catalina Marketing Network® could identify what consumers are doing and respond accordingly, the addition of consumer research capabilities means marketers can overlay individual attitudinal information with behavioural data and begin to form a complete picture of consumer behaviour – the what and the why. Alliance Research now operates as Catalina Marketing Research Solutions in the US.
• Catalina has been operating in the UK since 1993 and works on some of the UK’s leading loyalty programmes to deliver targeted communication at the point of sale

Today, Catalina Marketing offers more than 250 million communication opportunities every week. Company revenues have grown steadily each year, rising from $6.5 million in 1988 to $446.9 million in 2002. Most importantly, Catalina Marketing has opened up a line of communication between consumers and marketers that will continue to result in new and innovative ways of communicating with your customers.