Giovanni di Lorenzo

In his keynote speech, Giovanni di Lorenzoe defended the print newspapers in the tablet era. Most of his arguments against the tablets were that it is nort yet clear how to earn from the tablets. He called them the new wonderful resources people talk about and at the same time stressed they cannot help make money from journalism.

Die Zeit believes they do everything to be digital friendly. Zeit Online has 3 applications for iPhone and iPad. They also get contributions from the print version of Die Zeit. Die Zeit on tablets is sold from the very beginning, they don’t want to make the same mistake as with the start of the web. Audience has to pay for what they create. Their applications cost from 4,99 to 8,99 Euro. They don’t want to make the same mistake twice.

Publishers, according to di Lorenzo need paid content. iPad is now the best possibility to monetize quality journalism. It doesn’t matter if publishers earn money from print, online or tablet. The debate print vs online is no longer fundamental. What’s more fundamental is that good, quality journalism costs money. Without that money it will stop exist in the democratic society. And so far, only printed media help earn money from the journalism.

If we cannot earn money from extra platforms, we need to concentrate on print media. He believes in the future of print media and feels lonely with these predictions.

Di Lorenzo says readers should not know the future is somewhere else than in print media they are reading at the moment. If they do, they will stop to pay for it because what’s the point of paying for something that is free elsewhere.

He notices the two-fold crisis of the newspapers:
1. structure crisis – print vs online vs tablets
2. economic crisis – declining advertising revenue

Newspapers have strong assets and this is quality journalism. Without that, not only newspapers but also the web will fail. There’s nothing wrong in being slow if newspapers continiue to provide quality journalism with full background and complete information. On the other hand, what are the strenghts of the internet is something Die Zeit readers’ never cared about. They wanted depth and analysis. Short, quick information is not a quality journalism worth pages of Die Zeit.

The relation between readers and journalists changed thanks to the internet. Journalists, editors have to understand the reader, they can do so thank to the web. But publishers should never forget about quality journalism, even if this is the era of the tablets.

Giovanni di Lorenzo predicts however 50% of readers abandoning paper edition by 2020.

Germany is lucky in terms of subscription – more than 90% readers get their newspaper via this channel of distribution. On one hand it’s a good market position, on the other – a position where newspaper does not really need to be innovative. Instead, according to the speaker, they need to:

• Know what is really their core competence
• Define how to make the business more simple and robust
• Think first about the customer relation, and not the ipad

There are problems, that news publishers should be aware of:

• Newspapers still look for the big change to save their future
• They don’t fight enough to make the journalism real relevant especially in the local level
• Newspaper don’t play important enough role as the community organizer

What is relevant in Grönke’s opinion? It’s his newspapers because:

• They are local and should optimize this as good as possible
• They are a part of a community and should play this role more active
• Advertising needs some new ideas, and there are still some left within the organisation

Verlag Dierichs understands that hyperlocal is still a worldwide trend. That’s why they produce 16 local editions with 16 different front pages. Hyperlocal goes into frontpage, with no national news in front. Their plan is to get the local reader, interested in local news. Yet, national and world news are still a serious part of the product.

Harold Grönke gave some tips to the newspaper publishers:

1. Involve people every day (set the right agenda as crossmedia activity is not only about sales – it’s about the news as well)
2. Show social responsibility
3. Make people proud.
4. Show what you do (open house)
5. Get the young ones (readers)

Verlag Dierichs knows local needs. Day after writing a story about poor children who couldn’t afford bus tickets, the newspaper forced local government and companies to subsidize this for the poorest one. After such campaign, the problem was gone.
They are also very close to their readers, opening from time to time the doors of their editorial office or printing plants to anyone interested.

Verlag Dierichs is also not afraid of experimenting. They showed that even print could be innovative – they publish stories behind the classifieds. IT’s a new series of stories, about people who changed their lives after following the classifieds from the newspaper.

After following the above tips, Verlag Dierichs makes a strong brand. In particular:

• the circulation is stabilising
• they have 100 % increase in online sales
• internet traffic increased by 50%
• they get more and more new ideas

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.

De Persgroep's portfolio

It is the best time ever to invest in newspapers and the best time to look back on hypes that never materialized, a fresh look at the business models of newspapers, mobile, internet, free newspaper, etc. but especially a story about the passion for the most beautiful medium on earth. De Persgroep made the largest newspaper investment in Europe in 2009 by buying PCM Uitgevers, editor of AD, NRC, Volkskrant en Trouw. Xavier Verellen, the Chief Commercial Officer of De Persgroep (Belgium) spoke about it on the second day of the INMA Outlook 2010 conference in Liverpool.
Xavier Verellen showed the attendees the love that Persgroep has for printed newspapers. As he said, all great ideas he takes from INMA conferences, such as marketing campaigns, internet strategies (they look at best examples and implement the best ideas), books and dvd collections. All of those have made Persgroep very successful in Belgium. They publish 3.7 million paid newspapers per day. There is no tv programme in Belgium that reaches even 1.7 million viewers per day.

Here are all the hypes Xavier Verellen recognizes as most important to the newsmedia market and how Pergroep deals with them:

1. Free newspapers. Nobody talks about it anymore, suddenly it’s no more a threat. Persgroep does not follow that concept. 275 million dollars cumulated loss of Metro in 2000-2009 makes Persgroep treat the idea of free newspapers as the mistake in the industry.
2. Format changes: broadcast, belgian, berliner, tabloid, compact, micro. Basic idea is for Persgroep fully acceptable, but the execution in different parts of the world was not right. Persgroep followed the trend of format change.
3. Internet. Persgroep goes the same internet path, but it believes web has not the same power, not the same involvement as print does. Paper attracts readers for 45 minutes daily, in web, readers only scan the information. Persgroep looks closely at the internet and believes it is important to invest in that.
4. Integrated newsroom. Pergroep has a main goal: they want to grow on the internet, but they don’t want to lose a single paper copy. Despite starting online operations in 2003, Persgroep has separated newsrooms, with different people working there – crossing only in marketing. This way print journalists remain creative towards every print edition of the newspaper.
5. Newspaper as a magazine. Absolutely not supported by Persgroep. They want to make every day there’s a pleasure to read newspapers. Everyday, the newspaper brings news. They shouldn’t become “daily magazines”.
6. Mobile. The jury is still out. Of course people will use mobiles, but it’s going to be a huge work involved to build the right business model. Profits are needed to be seen for Persgroep to invest in this market.
7. Cross media selling. Those are two different worlds according to Persgroep. They differ in terms and in usage. Persgroep wants to diverse, and focus on each platform singlehandedly.

Xavier Verellen concluded, that print is stillthe best business model in the world, and it will never be equalled to by internet or mobile business models.