Newspaper & Mailroom
IFRA Conference: Beyond the Printed Word 2008, 20-21 November, Novotel Budapest Congress & World Trade Center, Budapest, Hungary
Monday 24. November 2008 - Chairpersons: Theo Blanco, marketing director, Upsala Nya Tidning AB, Sweden, and Jennifer Carroll, vice president new media content, Gannett Co., USA; 220 participants from 23 countries
21 November – Day 2
## Building big media houses for total customer focus
# Theo Blanco, marketing director, Upsala Nya Tidning AB, Sweden
Since 1990, media spending has been increasing although press revenue has more or less remained the same. Circulation numbers are declining, but today we have more people reading than ever before.
Blanco said in order to increase customer focus it is necessary to build a total media house: For the customer who will need one call for all the media solutions he or she needs. Total customer focus is all about customer opportunity, customisation and service.
Advertisers want a reliable audience delivery, audience metrics, professional sales, a compelling environment, fresh ideas, multimedia, targeted audiences, results and measureable results.
## Cross-media campaigns in Asian markets: The excitement of 360-degree cricket
# Samad Ali, managing director, marketing and advertising sales, Jang Group of Newspapers, Pakistan
The Jang group publishes newspapers in Urdu and English in its daily and evening newspapers.
For a special cricket championship, the challenge was to turn the media offer into a 360-degree media solution covering all channels and combining and maximising all advertising opportunities. Cricket, a national sport, was used as a basis for developing a multi-media platform campaign.
Print opportunities included sponsoring images on the front page. On the Internet there was a specially created 20/20 page. Part of the package offered included television opportunities as well banners appearing during the transmission of the cricket games.
Ali said the results were outstanding. The Jang group firmly believes that the reader has to be offered as many opportunities to get the news they want and that advertisers have to have one contact within the newspaper group for all his marketing needs, and all channels have to be offered as one solution.
## Global standards for local markets
# Andy Flint, head of clients services, ABCe International, U.K.
With fragmentation and the use of different media so prevalent today, packaging media is a huge issue. The question is: “How can we measure the multiple media with consistency? Via Research, the sample approach or via counting , the census approach are the two methods to measure online?” Andy Flint sees the two methods complimentary. ABC works therefore with different partners in the U.K. that are specialised in each of the methods.
The aim of ABC is to reach consensus as a industry body and get all market players involved. The mandatory metric is “Unique Users/Browsers,” which corresponds with reach. “Visits” is another metric to measure frequency and “page impressions” to measure volume, whereas “hits” are meaningless.
ABCe offers enhanced certificates which add demographic survey information to web traffic figures. This information gives insight into who the users really are.
ABCe works closely with other measurement groups which measure broadband usage, especially regarding AV content, and mobile traffic over U.K. networks. This will give the industry more data and therefore more confidence in the figures.
## Mod My Motor
# Andy Phelan, Editor, Herald Express, United Kingdom
Phelan presented the “Mod my motor” project, which won first place in the smaller circulation category of the IFRA XMA-Cross Media Awards this year.
The project is a transformation of MTVs “Pimp My Ride” programme to the local market of the Herald Express in Torbay, Devon.
Mod my motor contest gave car owners the opportunity to get a fresh new look to their old cars. The lucky car owner was elected by the readers and users of the Herald Express. The cross-media advertising campaign attracted sponsors who advertised and also contributed with services to modernise the winners car.
People buy the paper to read the adverts, but that is not true for the online site, said Phelan. Great content and a great advertising campaign is a winning formula.
Before this cross-media campaign, Herald Express already had launched campaigns for a real estate agent. It was a contest similar to “The Apprentice,” in which 12 candidates compete for a job. The same advertiser then made a song and dance contest. The winner got a sales job.
Phelan emphasised: To make a campaign successful, full editorial support is necessary.
The newspaper earned 10,000 pounds in advertising revenue to date off Mod my motor and expects more to come. One lesson learned from the campaign was that the social networking about this project was taking place on other sites, not those of the Herald Express. Thus, social networking could be another element to this.
Phelan introduced the companys newest project, “Rock Stars,” a campaign for forming a rock band. The members of the band are elected by the readers/users.
## A short Hungarian classifieds flavour
# György Szabó, CEO, Sanoma Hungary
Internet penetration in Hungary is now at 46 percent. The Internet market still has a way to go to reach maturity, yet it is already the fourth-most important advertising media with high growth rates (around 44 percent) and a market share of 7 percent.
The two most popular sites belong to the German Telekom company. The third one belongs to the Sanoma Group. And these are indeed the dominant players in the Hungarian online market. Each of these sites attact more one million visitors per day.
Szabo said he expects auctions to be a very dynamic online business in the next years.
Sanoma has a broad online portfolio which includes horizontal portals, vertical portals and e-commerce sites. The sales department of Sanoma Hungary includes all media, i.e. online, print and TV.
Szabo presented some of the flagships in the Sanoma online portfolio. Startapró is one of them. It is the biggest classifieds site in Hungary. It cooperates very closely with Sanoma in the Netherlands, which also is successful in the classifieds markets.
One major challenge for Sanoma, said Szabo, will be to target and reach women. He predicts women will most likely overtake men in terms of Internet usage.