Josh Resnik

Josh discussed Gannett’s local site redesign strategy and its development of other sites targeting niche audience segments, including the MomsLikeMe.com social network for moms and the HighSchoolSports.net hyperlocal sports site.

Purchase decision is made at home, so when they enter a store the decision is already made.

Medias today are too much more interactive. Consumers expect to shape the information, based on discussion. This is what drove Gannett to take a closer look into the niche sites.

Gannett has more than 100 sites. 46 million monthly unique visitors. 1,2 billion monthly page views. This publisher is number 10 publisher in the top 100 most important online publishers in the US.

Gannett cares about local brands. Some of them are very small and very niche. The brands are incredibly strong. They have 100+ community news and info sites. 30 million uniqu users a month from brands targetting hyperlocal audiences across the country.

Gannett’s sites target specific audiences:

• MomsLikeMe.com (www.momslikeme.com),a local social network for moms in 80 markets across the country – 750 thousands unique users monthly;
• HighSchoolSports.net (www.highschoolsports.net), the largest prep sports site in the country, reaching teens, moms and dads – 8,4 million unique users monthly.
• BNQT.com (www.bnqt.com), which operates the leading action sports network online, attracting millennials and extreme sports enthusiasts everywhere – 7 million unique users per month.
• Metromix.com (www.metromix.com), the local entertainment and nightlife guide reaching the young urban market

Gannett would not start these niche sites without deep market research. For instance, before starting the Momslikeme.com, a special resarch was done, which brought the following results:

• 81,1% momes like sites showing local info
• 78% review products on blogs
• 72% go online to shop
• 67% use social networking services.
• 81% of moms report using social referrals to influence their purchasing decisions
• 80% moms make household spending decisions.
• Knowing that, a site for moms was created, where they can exchange ideas, opinions, share thoughts. The site connects moms with each other in local community.

Being local is very important to Gannett. Among their new properties is a project with hyperlocal data from combined databases brought together on the map. The users can search 4,5 mill public records, event callendars, and user submitted events.

Josh Resnik spoke about mobile as well. It is now being seen not only as success with consumers but also with advertisers. Gannett recognizes video as a great growth area. The iPad app is also a huge success:

Gannett is very successful with its integrated campaigns:

• highly community focused
• direct brand participation
• drove purchases and brand engagement
• 4% increase purchase intent
• 3,5% increase product usage

They are offering the advertisers reach and re-targetting. Trying hard to make the ad smart, contextual, behavioral, event- based and with premium placement.

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).

in.gr opening page

During the afternoon brainsnack session of INMA/OPA Outlook 2010 conference speakers have only 7  minutes to speak about their ideas and experience. It was held by Nikos Gouraros, Business Development Director of Digital Business Unit in Lambrakis Press (Greece), Joachim Dreykluft, the News Editor Online in Gruner + Jahr Wirtschaftsmedien (Germany), Alastair Machray, the Chief-Editor of Liverpool Echo (United Kingdom), and Robert Whitehead, the Director Marketing in Fairfax Media.
First to talk about the experience, advice, pitfalls on integrated newsrooms was Nikos Gouraros. Lambrakis Press holds the leading and most widely diversified position in the mass media industry in Greece. They were the first media sector company to be listed on the Athens Stock Exchange’s main market in 1998. Lambrakis publishes four newspapers and 24 magazines.

They also develop and run www.in.gr, the largest news and information portal in Greece. Lambrakis Press has 75% of Greek internet traffic. They want their readers to enjoy, participate, communicate, be informed.

According to Nikos Gouraros, newsmedia companies need to redefine themselves. They should look at companies like Google or MSN – they no longer call themselves software companies, they are media companies, and therefore a competition to newspapers.

The next speaker, Joachim Dreykluft, told the attendees about his experience and thoughts of why the integrated newsroom is necessary for news publishers. “One Brand, all Media” – this was the basic claim and idea when Financial Times Deutschland and FTD.de started back in spring 2000. An integrated newsroom was part of this from the very first day. But the crucial factors of success lie far beyond. They have to do with specialization, generalization – and diplomacy.

And even though FT.de’s model already sounds like one brand all media, it was not good enough, according to the speaker. So these were the weak points, that have been changed in the meantime:

• too much agency material on the site without context and background
• too much generalism
• good cooperation in the main newsroom but too little contact with correspondents and companies/politics/finance editors

As an effect, FT.de now produces news stories with background and context that agencies don’t deliver.

Alastair Machray, spoke about restructuring and streamlining of editorial processes as the newsmedia company moves toward a more complete digital transformation in 2010.The main problems of those processes are maximising the value of print and at the same time changing from print to multiplatform. Having traditional processes removed not only makes the workflow easier and clearer, but also helps to remove a lot of costs. The big economic recession, however, does not make it easier for Trinity Mirror’s Liverpool Echo which is in the process of such transformation.

Robert Whitehead stressed that most important for newsmedia companies during the time of transformation are:

1. creativity
2. campaigning content
3. community events
4. serving community
5. being contemporary

The strategy of Fairfax Media during the time of transformation included:

1. Building a creative agency in house for ad sales.
2. Creating content very very unique, campaign on topics readers care about (not those important to journalists), community advocacy improves brand status.
3. Creating an event businesses that make money. Charging people to sponsor the events.
4. Going into niches, Fairfax media is now the leader in: dating (rsvp.com.au), vacation homes (stayz.com.au), auctions, parenting, and youth entertainment

Robert Whitehead concluded the session with an interesting motto: use the economic downturn to drive change. After all, it’s an opportunity!