Carat, the independent media specialist, has appointed Start Creative to design and develop its new website.

The appointment follows the recent global rebranding of the Aegis-owned company, and will see the media company gain an online presence in the UK market.

Head of public relations at Carat, Joe Rudkin, said of the pitch process: "During the pitch process Start stood out for the strength of their creative ideas and their track record for implementing cost-effective, out-of-the-box content management systems."

The website is to focus on targeting Carat's core business audience, with "regular updates, deeper content and greater user interaction." Carat already has a global online presence, which will accompany the new UK orientated website Start is planning to launch with Carat in May.

Account director of Start Creative, Stuart Ledden, said: "Beyond designing a results-driven site, our in-house content management system empowers Carat with the ability to refresh its online content quickly and easily, as well as managing workflow and approval across internal team structures efficiently."

Ledden added: "The system also provides a flexible, scalable solution for future online initiatives."

The appointment follows an announcement earlier this week that Aegis has beaten profit expectations for 2003.

Europe's largest media buying group reported pre-tax profits before goodwill for the 12 months to 31 December of £80.5 million, which comfortably surpassed the previous years figure of £71.4 million. Revenues increased 9.6 per cent to £648.8 million.

At the time, Aegis chief executive, Doug Flynn, said: "While we were helped by a modest improvement in our markets in the latter stages of 2003, this performance has been due to our steady investment in the business throughout this industry's deepest marketing services recession."

Meanwhile, the company claimed that Europe's advertising downturn had finally come to an end and predicted that global advertising will rise by 5.3 per cent in 2004.