Quarry Integrated Communications

Quarry Integrated Communications is a privately held marketing communications and advertising agency headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It employs approximately 100 people in its headquarters and locations in Toronto, Ontario, and Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.

Bruce Bendinger identified Quarry as an early adopter of the practice of integrated marketing communications (IMC). Quarry has also been cited as a leading practitioner of IMC in a marketing textbook by Philip Kotler. Quarry’s offering includes customer experience marketing, and it has been cited as a leader in the field of personas development by Forrester Research. Quarry’s services include strategic insight and research, branding, advertising, public relations, sales force support and Web and digital media.

History

Robert M. Quarry founded the company in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada in 1973. In 1988, his son Alan Quarry became the company’s major shareholder. The company expanded through growth and mergers to include companies that specialized in advertising (R.M. Quarry Advertising), visual design (Accelerate Design, Ratchford Design), database marketing (dBasics), interactive design (Interchange) and technical documentation (Quintext). In 1998, the company opened its first office in the United States, a year that also saw the separate operating companies merge into one.

In 2008, Quarry celebrated its 35th anniversary. To mark the occasion, the organization hosted the annual E3 European Agency Network conference, the first such event held outside of Europe. Quarry is also a member of the Trans-Canada Advertising Agency Network.

Quarry is currently led by a five-person partnership with Alan Quarry serving as CEO and Ken Whyte as president.

The Quarry Builder System

Quarry uses its trademarked Demand Builder process to develop marketing campaigns for its clients.

The four-step methodology that underpins the Demand Builder has also been adapted for use in 1) lead generation and qualification, 2) online traffic generation, 3) sales-force readiness and 4) digital product design. These methodologies are called the Lead Builder, Traffic Builder, Sales Builder and Design Builder, respectively, and collectively constitute the Builder System.

Clients

Quarry deals primarily in the “considered-purchase” category, with the majority of its clients in the agribusiness, healthcare, financial services and technology sectors.