Metro daily belongs to Agora (a publisher of Gazeta Wyborcza). It’s the largest free daily in Poland, at the same time it is third in terms of readership within all Polish national dailies (both paid and free). The newspaper has just won the young readers newspaper of the year award.

Magda Bulak began her presentation with statement that Internet is essential, but rumours about the death of press are premature. Having this said, she introduced everyone to the latest service, which was built upon:

• complex publishing know-how
• expertise in logistics
• biggest network of hand-outers

mTarget is reaching beyond the paper. It provides a wide range of marketing tools such as BTL (“below the line”), targeted distribution, small events, street surveys, and custom publishing. It is a unique offer in Poland. mTarget services are carried out together with press campaigns in the free daily Metro. Separate client-branded mTarget actions are also organised. mTarget helps to target the message and target the product

Examples of mTarget services:

1. Series of events for PKP Intercity (railway transportation service in Poland). First, a half wrap advertisement was produced around the newspaper. Next, in 11 cities of Poland PKP Intercity’s offer was promoted. Special animators were doing polls among the consumers.

2. Product sampling Zywiec Zdroj – beverages. mTarget carried out a targeted mass sampling of chilled bottles of their new product. Logistics included nine refrigerating vehicles and a team of 200 street distributors wearing client branded t-shirts. Within two hours, 100,000 bottles in strictly selected locations of the largest cities of Poland were handed out.

3. The “Ice Age 3” movie premiere was supported by an advertising wrap covering the nationwide issue of Metro and a flash mob organised by mTarget. During the event, a large model of an iceberg with the figure of Scrat (the cult character from the movie) was placed by the client in the centre of Warsaw. A group of 15 mTarget animators dressed in t-shirts promoting the movie snatched the Scrat’s nut and carried it around the streets.

4. Metro for Berliners. A special edition of “Metro” was published, fully in German, and was distributed on the streets of Berlin. The idea was to invite the Berliners to Warsaw. Metro for Berliners contained advertisements of Polish institutions, cities, brands, all translated to German for this special newspaper edition.

Reaching your audience directly is very important. mTarget can do that, as well as target the message precisely.

Forum4Editors: How do your editorial offices cooperate with their advertising departments?
Griet Ducatteeuw: The walls between the editorial and the advertising departments have always been high at Corelio. It’s because we believe that the credibility of our newsbrands (print, website, mobile,…) are our most important assets towards the future. Nevertheless, advertising budgets are crucial for surviving. Sometimes the advertising department sees opportunities in creating new editorial content, sometimes the editorial department can only realise new projects when sponsoring our advertising money is found. So in a way, we’re doomed to live together, and sometimes, it’s a love-hate relationship

At Corelio, we created a special division within the advertising department, called ‘Creative Lab’. Its goal: to be the bridge between advertisers and the editiorial and marketing department. Creative Lab follows very closely what’s going on in the editiorial and marketing department and what the desires of the advertisers are. From time to time, we can create nice ‘marriages’.

But, let it be very clear. In every discussion, it’s the interest of the reader that wins. Because we believe that a good and credible editioral product, with loyal and engaged readers, is the best thing we can offer to the advertisers.

Would you give any advice to the marketeers about what they should or should not do in order to cooperate fully with the editorial office?
Griet Ducatteeuw: The goals of the marketeers and the editiorial office are simply the same, so we have every importance in full cooperation. We both want satisfied readers, growing audiences, interesting profiles. The best thing marketeers can do, is know the audience very well. Know what they like and don’t like about the newsbrand, on every possible platform.This knowledge is very important for the editiorial office. At Corelio, the marketing departments are integrated on the same floor as the editiorial room. We believe there cannot be enough communication between those two departments. A marketing idea, not carried by the editiorial room, will never have the impact we dream of, and vice versa.

What is the future of advertising in print and online? Can the drop in print circulation be replaced by the rise in price of print advertising? Will the unefficient advertising online be replaced by advertising on tablets?
Griet Ducatteeuw: What is the future of… It’s a question no one can answer. There is no crystal ball. All we can do is monitor our markets closely and make sure we can be flexible and move fast. For many media companies, this alone is a big challenge…
I’m convinced that print advertising will still be very important for us for many years. It’s up to us to keep convincing the advertisers of the strenght of the print medium, this throughout research. And advise them how they can use the print medium even better. Online advertising will offcourse continue to grow. It offers the possiblity to communicate more and more one-to-one, or at least one-to-many. This is good news for us: it’s complementary with the possibilities of print-advertising. Advertising on tablets is still very young. The speed of its succes will depend on the speed of the succes of the tablets themselves. At Corelio, we recently launched an iPad app for De Standaard. Our advertising department immediately found some nice advertising budgets for the launch. This shows that the advertisers are eager to experiment. But it’s too early to predict what the tablets will represent in the online media mix of the advertisers. Better make sure the advertising people are well trained, because the knowledge and techniques of the online products is very different  than the knowledge of the print product… Specialism is very important here.

Do you believe in Wired’s Chris Anderson recent statement, claiming the traditional World Wide Web is dead – long live the apps? What is your view on that thesis?
Griet Ducatteeuw: ‘Print is dead’, or ‘The WWW is dead’ … provocative statements that are usefull to make the discussion going.  It’s hard to imagine that the ‘World Wide Web’, that has become such a big part of our lives, will disappear.
For media companies, apps are a very exiciting and difficult challenge: it boils down to having a smart platform-strategy that creates complementary platforms instead of cannibalizing media.  A tough challenge…
And this while we are still struggling with our print/webstrategies… What content to put where ? Free or paid ?
At Corelio we chose to already invest in experimenting with apps. We believe it’s important to learn abouts apps and create the experience and knowledge within the company. Because it’s clear that the tablets and apps are here to stay… So let’s be prepared!

Thank you very much and see you in Kraków!

Griet Ducatteeuw is the Sales and Marketing Manager at Corelio and member of the INMA European Board

In a personal message to the European Conference of INMA and OPA Europe starting this week in Krakow (29 September to 1 October 2010), the President sends his best wishes for a successful debates.

“Under the heading Transformation, inspiration, innovation, you will analyze your industry’s transition from single medium to multi-media and the implications of this for your marketing, circulation, revenues, and means of gathering, writing and editing”, writes Herman Van Rompuy.

He adds: “It is also fitting that this conference takes place in the historic city of Krakow, one of the greatest centres of European history and culture, just before next year’s Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union. This will be the first time since Poland acceded to the European Union that it will chair the Council, and it will do so just when, at the same time, the former Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek chairs the European Parliament. It can be said that Poland is taking an ever more prominent place in our institutions!”

The President of the European Council is delighted that the importance of your conference has warranted strong support from the Polish authorities, including the Mayor of Krakow Jacek Majchrowski and the Marshal of the Malopolska Region Marek Nawara.

More info on the conference

More than 310 editors and managers of leading news media from Europe and the world will arrive this week to Krakow to discuss the future of print, internet and mobile media as well as share their experience in how social, technological and market developments affect consumers and advertisers, and how to meet their expectations. The conference is already sold out, but you still can follow it online at forum4editors.com and at Twitter.

Since September 29 to October 1 they will discuss the future of print, internet and mobile media as well as share their experience in how social, technological and market developments affect consumers and advertisers, and how to meet their expectations.

Among keynote speakers will be CEO of the publishing group Mecom David Montgomery (UK), publisher of the most-read newspaper in the world Dainik Jagran - Shailesh Gupta (India), vice-president of Gannett Digital Media Josh Resnik (USA), vice-president of Google for Southern & Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa Carlo d’Asaro Biondo (USA), international content director of Microsoft Peter Bale (UK). Editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, Adam Michnik will give opening remarks.

During this three-day meeting speeches will be given also by: representatives of The New York Times of the US, El Pais of Spain, Corriere della Sera of Italy, Segodnya of Ukraine, Aftonbladet of Sweden, L’Equipe of France, Independent of the South Africa, Montreal Gazette of Canada and news agency RIA Novosti of Russia.

Polish and Krakow media executives and reporters will attend as well. In addition to Adam Michnik their experience will share the editor of “Dziennik Polski” Piotr Legutko, vice-president of Polskapresse – publisher of “Polska Gazeta Krakowska” Grzegorz Haftarczyk, directors Artur Karda and Tomasz Krawczyk from Media Regionalne (the owner of mmkrakow.pl local news portal) and Jakub Krzych of Krakow, founder of an innovative internet ad network AdTaily.com, which is storming the UK market.

In total conference participants will present more than 100 different newspapers, websites, information services and media companies. They come from almost every country of Europe, as well as from Australia, South Africa, the United States, Canada, India and even Nepal.

Participating in the event will provide an opportunity to get to know Krakow, Malopolska region and Poland. Many of media executives will spend the weekend here after the conference.

Mayor of Krakow Jacek Majchrowski will host the welcome party at the Wielopolski Palace. Then participants will be able to visit the newest Krakow museum – built under the city’s mediaeval Market Square listed by UNESCO as the World Heritage Place.

Marek Nawara, Marshal of Malopolska region, will host the gala dinner in the Salt Mine of Wieliczka, the second oldest mine in the world and the second of the eight sites in Malopolska listed in the UNESCO registry.

Town Hall, the Marshal’s Office and Krakow media editors from „Dziennik Polski”, „Gazeta Krakowska”, „Gazeta Wyborcza Kraków”, Interia.pl and RMF FM jointly encouraged international media to arrive to Cracow and Malopolska. As a result INMA and OPA Europe for the first time organized its annual conference not in the West, but in the new European Union member state.

The cooperation with INMA brought international association as a partner of the recent museum’s conference in Cracow.

In order to create positive perception around the world during the conference breaks addtional information about the city and the region will be available at Town Hall and the Marshal’s Office’s stand at Park Inn Hotel. Companies like DTI, MatchWork, PaperView, Planeta Marketing will also present their technologies and merchandise.

Industry organizations – Polish Audit Bureau of Circulations (Zwi?zek Kontroli Dystrybucji Prasy) and Polish Readership Survey (Polskie Badania Czytelnictwa) – will present the Polish press. Along with Atex they are partners of the competition for innovative advertising campaigns in press. Winners will be announced during the conference.

Partner of the local media seminar – Media Regionalne – will establish multimedia newsroom, where journalists will cover the conference live in blogs, tweets and interviews on video.

U.S. Embassy in Warsaw also supports the conference.

Information about the organizers:

Newsmedia Marketing Association International – INMA was founded in 1930. This non-profit association promotes good practices and ideas among the news media publishers. World organization brings together over 5,000 members from over 80 countries. INMA headquarters located in Dallas (USA). The Association also has offices in Antwerp (Belgium) and New Delhi (India).

Online Publishers Association – OPA Europe was founded in 2003 and represents the interests of the leading web publishers across Europe. OPA’s headquarters is in Paris (France).

Two years ago in Vienna, Bernard Asselin spoke about the case of “Words Matter” marketing campaign which reached its goal by changing the perception of the newspaper. After this campaign, “The Gazette” was perceived as being more innovative, and less conservative (read more about this campaign).

This year in Kraków, Bernard Asselin will participate in the discussion about how to attract and quantify total audience across platforms. Before that, he answered some of our questions:

Forum4Editors: How does the editorial office of “The Gazette” cooperate with its advertising department?

Bernard Asselin: In the past years we have eliminated the silos not only between advertising and Editorial but also between Advertising, Editorial and Marketing. Every important project is now driven by a joint team composed of representatives of these departments. As long as everyone respects each other and understands the limitations, we have had tremendous success with different projects. And it’s more fun!

Would you give any advice to the marketeers about what they should or should not do in order to cooperate fully with the editorial office?

Bernard Asselin: Marketing should be able to show Editorial how they can benefit from their expertise because at the end of the day, the goals are the same: More readers, More revenues.
One of the most successful initiatives I have done at The Gazette was to meet every section Editors and ask them simple questions like:
1. You often have to take Editorial decisions, what would you like to know about your readers habits?
2. How do you think you can improve your sections?
3. What keeps you awake at night?
With all their concerns and ideas, we created a questionnaire and asked our 2,000 online panelists and in some cases we held Focus groups with readers and invited journalists to listen to the comments behind the one-way mirror! It worked so well that now consumer research is part of our culture!
Secondly, to have the Editorial people involved in the creative process of campaigns helps them understanding marketing and appreciating the effort made to support in most cases… their work!

The Gazette is well known for very creative campaigns and ideas of promoting the paper and its content. What’s next, what do you have in stock for the next couple of months?

Bernard Asselin: It’s a secret but I will tell you that we are finalizing a 2nd generation of our Words matters campaign. The ultimate convergence of the brand, words and content. More to come…

What is the future of advertising in print and online? Can the drop in print circulation be replaced by the rise in price of print advertising? Will the inefficient advertising online be replaced by advertising on tablets?

Bernard Asselin: The future of advertising is linked to the media consumers’ habits. Our challenge is to deliver the most efficient campaigns that will create results to our advertisers and we need to have all these tools in our toolbox for our clients to keep the maximum share of their ad budget. Print and online are only two platforms because we must be ready to become advertising solutions experts on the iPad, mobile, SMS, database and whatever new technology we’ll see. Revenue is a challenge but with the increased competition, keeping the relationship with the clients is even more challenging. At The Gazette, we already switched our focus from selling ad space to selling solutions and our sales force is already been selling multiple platforms for more than two years.

Thank you very much

Bernard Asselin will be one of the guest of this year’s INMA/OPA European conference in Kraków. Make sure you read the conference programme.