The curtain has closed on one of the best known business names in Australia's farm sector communications game with 40-year-old Cox Inall Communications officially absorbed by Japan's biggest advertising agency.
Since 1983 Cox Inall, now renamed Dentsu Creative Public Relations, has been in the background as a media manager, agribusiness events facilitator and a popular choice for companies, governments and institutions with products and messages to sell to farmers.
In fact, original partners, Tim Cox and Neil Inall, laid the foundations for what became pretty much an industry model for ag-specific public relations services when they teamed up to focus on the farm sector's information needs.
Conveniently, the birth of Cox Inall and Associates coincided with the formation of numerous rural research and development corporations under Hawke Government Primary Industries Minister, John Kerin.
R and D corporations produced a wealth of farm-focused research and practical productivity themes and advice which needed to be properly communicated to levy-paying farmers.
We felt there were great opportunities to disseminate lots of good quality, interesting information
- Neil Inall, Cox Inall founder
"There simply weren't many media businesses with experience or specifically interested in agriculture at that time," recalled Mr Inall.
"Public relations companies tended to be rather generalist and more likely to concentrate on city-based companies and national issues.
"We felt there were great opportunities to disseminate lots of good quality, interesting research and commercial information to grain and livestock producers and other fast growing sectors like the cotton industry".
Big ag names
The partnership steadily grew to become a "go-to" publicity machine for corporate brands such as Case IH, Waratah, Monsanto, Syngenta, AWB and National Australia Bank, and big farm industry bodies, including the Australian Wool Corporation and its successor Australian Wool Innovation.
Cox Inall also branched into television in the 1990s, spawning the rural program, Cross Country, which aired weekly for 14 years, and The Weather Channel on satellite TV network, Austar.
Although Sydney-based, the two business partners milked their own close ties with the bush, also helping clients to empathise with rural issues, interests and markets.
Mr Inall, a Hawkesbury Agricultural College graduate who went from agronomy to a career in radio and television with the ABC's rural department, and at Rural Press, had first become friends with his business partner after meeting at their children's primary school.
Their partnership evolved from what was initially Mr Cox's marketing consultancy service promoting Thoroughbred horse studs and sales.
By the late 1990s the company boasted more than 65 staff, including its television production interests and an Indigenous communications and community engagement partnership, Cox Inall Ridgeway, which still exists as a Dentsu offshoot.
Dentsu's Australian and New Zealand chief public relations officer, Tim Powell, said the parent company's global PR and marketing business added a new dimension to the local agency's connections and capabilities when the Japanese took an initial investment stake in 2015.
Dentsu Inc is the world's fifth biggest advertising agency business with a network of public relations, creative advertising, media buying, research and technology capabilities spread from Japan to India, Europe and North America.
"As a significant trading nation, particularly with strengths in primary industry, resources and energy exports, Dentsu values Australia's ag sector," said Mr Powell, previously Cox Inall's managing director for 20 years.
"The company also appreciates our ag team's experience and connections with agribusinesses, industry groups and ecological issues like carbon management which has taken on a global business significance."
Team Dentsu
About 15 PR consultants work with Dentsu's agriculture and sustainability team, many of them from regional bases such as Emerald in Queensland or Coonamble and Mudgee in NSW.
Dentsu gained full ownership of the Cox Inall business in 2021, adding its own name to the brand.
However, the takeover wasn't obvious to most outsiders until the two founders' names were eventually "retired" a few months ago - almost 20 years after the veterans had actually stepped away.
We liked the bush. We liked being with country people, and getting government people and researchers involved with farmers
- Tim Cox, Cox Inall founder.
"I'm a bit sad the original name has gone, because the company has weathered a lot of changes and done very well," observed Mr Cox.
"People knew our brand and they knew it stood for a level of serious engagement between clients and their farmer customers.
"We liked the bush. We liked being with country people, and getting government people and researchers involved with farmers."
He recalled how early in the Cox Inall story the firm had co-ordinated industry events such as an annual cotton forum at Moree, where national business and banking executives, including Telstra's managing director, were lured to speak.
"Some of those bosses had never been to Moree, or rarely had direct contact with their farmer customers - it was a groundbreaking time for everybody," Mr Cox said.
"Neil's reputation and public speaking experience was also sought to lead industry seminars and workshops."
Down to earth
Mr Cox said the agency's down to earth approach to rural sector engagement and communication strategies probably opened opportunities for others to follow, observing today "it's become a very busy space".
Mr Powell agreed, noting land and water management issues, environmental policies and the wave of new era investment interest in agriculture and regional Australia had also made rural public relations increasingly complex.
A proliferation of self-managed digital publishers and websites had also fragmented traditional publishing and journalism models.
That created new opportunities for clients, but also some dangers around the credibility of the digital world as an information source.
"Everybody with a message to sell craves credibility."
Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
