Presentation held at the Editorial Days 2019. Speaker: Karsten Ellehauge-Haag of ellehaugehaag.dk

1. Building digital loyalty
requires digital focus
Customer loyalty is sparked by persistent editorial focus on digital and
the digital focus in the newsroom requires cultural changes that stick.
A number of initiatives founded in a new corporate strategy
have boosted the digital business in Berlingske Media
and taken the digital culture in the Newsrooms to the next level

2. Who am I - Karsten Ellehauge Haag
● IT developer and IT architect
● Journalist
● Editorial Manager and Newseditor - projects
● Contractor in the media business
● Project Director in Digital Services
at Berlingske Media and De Persgroep
● Contractor and consultant focusing on
IT, media content and subscription economy

3. Meet the company

4. Founded 1749 in Copenhagen
One of the largest media companies in Denmark
Owned by De Persgroep Belgium
since the summer of 2014
Turbulent history of owners and strategic focus

5. The superbrands today
National title - 365/24/7
Up-market
News and opinion
Subscription based
Mobile, digital and print
National title - 365/24/7
Tabloid content
News, sports and entertainment
Free - advertising
Mobile, digital and print
National title - weekly edition
Intellectual, up-market
Politics, background, culture
Subscription based
Print - evolving digital presence

6. Revenue 2018
11
63
46
15
13
Others
147 mio. €

7. EBITA 2018
0.8
3.4
5.4
3.1
0.3
Others
12.9 mio. €

8. The situation
at the beginning of 2018

9. This was a new sort of company
A large number of titles were sold of during 2016 and 2017 (50% of the revenue)
MX - a free sheet for commuters - was acquired in 2017 and merged with B.T.
The products lagged performance on growth and market shares
bt.dk - a major news website in DK, but needed more traffic and digital revenue
MX - the most read printed paper in Denmark, but it did not make any money
Berlingske - well esteemed, but customers paying for content was in decline
Weekendavisen - pretty stable business, but entirely focused on print

10. The baseline - digital and print
Monthly page views
(June 2018)
Subscribers and readers
(End of 2018)
15.144.141
(#12 - and lagging
behind the competitors)
72.500
19.500 as digital only
187.100.463
(#1 or 2)
344.000
Daily readers of B.T. metro
416.069 44.800
Less than 300 as digital only

11. Announcing a new strategy

12. The new strategy towards 2020
● New CEO - Anders Krab-Johansen - December 1st 2017
● A switch in C-level management (New CMO, CFO, CIO, CHRO)
● 2018 would focus on how the brands meet the customers
● 2019 would focus on implementing new back office systems
● On February 28th 2018 a town hall meeting was held
announcing the initiatives of the strategy towards 2020

13. February 2018 announcement
● A new strategy for each superbrand
● Berlingske and B.T. would take Mobile First even further
● Redesigned websites and apps to match the ambitions
● B.T. and B.T. metro would provide free content both mobile and print
● Berlingske would provide paid for content both mobile and print
● Weekendavisen should continue the journey adding a digital presence
And last but not least
● The final cultural shift in the newsroom should been done
● Outsourcing of the production of the printed pages

14. The strategy implementation
2018 2019
Strategy
announcement
Website launch
Mobile redesign
B.T. metro print
Print outsourcing launch
Mobile redesign
Mobile app launch
2019 focus:
Back Office systems
Subscription
CMS, video, podcasts

15. The final Cultural Shift
Outsourcing of print production
Case story Berlingske

16. This was for sure not the first attempt
Several projects aiming to boost the digital mindset in the newsroom
- organisational and introducing new processes and software
Small results from rather expensive steps (software development and projects)
Eventually over time the newsroom drifted back towards the print focus
The newsroom started out the day focusing on digital content.
But at noon when the team managing the printed paper came to work
the focus went back to be primarily on the print product

17. It was like the legacy way
of working came sneaking
back into the newsroom
at noon from every corner
and along every wall and
along all ceilings and floors.
Jakob Weiss, Product Manager at Berlingske
former Head of digital at Berlingske
“

18. Just because you as a
manager declares that we
will all have digital focus
- and even implements it -
doesn't mean that the
staff will follow suit!
Artifacts
Symbols
Organisational structures
Processes
Espoused Values
Business Strategy
Objectives
Governing principles
Underlying
Assumptions
Perceptions
Beliefs
Feelings
Edgar H. Schein:
Cultural Drift
E. H. Schein: Organizational Culture and Leadership. Jossey-Bass, 1985

19. We will get good quality
combined with high
flexibility by outsourcing
print layout, and we would
like the newsroom to
focus on the content and
the digital distribution
Anders Krab-Johansen, CEO Berlingske Media
“

20. We are not against change. But this is
not okay. They grab the beating
heart
of the company and throw it into the
street. We are having a hard time
accepting it. It's indecent.
Marianne Fajstrup , chairwoman of the Union of Journalists at
Berlingske
“

21. What happened after the announcement
A strike - two days at B.T. - one day at Berlingske
Negotiations started regarding the transfer of the 32 employees.
All had been offered new jobs with the outsourcing partner
In the end none of the 32 employees joined the outsourcing company.
Knowhow was lost - the understanding of the Berlingske DNA of design

22. So - what does outsourcing mean?
Previous initiatives - free weeklies - ad production and pages - some of it was
with external partners (Riga) and some in an internal centralized unit
Never the major paid for titles - print layout was kept in the newsroom
Now all print layout at Berlingske and B.T. would be done by an external partner
The partner had produced a number of weekly supplements for Berlingske
and B.T. (travel, homes and real estate, cars) - both content and layout

23. How should it work in daily operations
Prioritization of the publication is done by staff in the newsroom
The external partner works with the layout in the Berlingske Print CMS
Additional and necessary text editing is done in the newsroom
Final approval of layout is done by staff in the newsroom

24. 70 ↔ 30
Resource allocation (estimated %) dedicated in the newsroom
performing editing tasks on print versus digital
Before
DigitalPrint
What happened in the newsroom

25. Resource allocation (estimated %) dedicated in the newsroom
performing editing tasks on print versus digital
After
30 ↔ 70DigitalPrint
What happened in the newsroom

26. The journey towards the launch
Workshops and pilots was done with the staff at the outsourcing partner
Quality was tracked and evaluated - the Berlingske head of design spend a
lot of time reviewing the pages and doing consulting on design principles
Principles was adapted both in communication and design
June 1st 2018 the new way of working went live

27. What was the learnings during the process
Initially print layout performance went down both in speed and quality.
But today it is back to normal due to the persistent focus from the head
of design at Berlingske on assisting the external partner
Outsourcing requires internal resources as well
- this is a fact in both IT outsourcing and outsourcing of layout
Communication is crucial to performance
Cost savings - although it was not the main focus

28. What more than outsourcing was initiated
● All content should created in the digital CMS
● Access to the print CMS was revoked for users
unless they really needed to work in the system
● The two way integration between the print and the digital CMS was
change to one way only - digital > print
● A new tool for WYSIWYG editing of the websites was introduced
● The way of working with editorial planning was changed
● The prime-time concept for digital was revitalized
(four time slots each day with different priorities in content)

29. Focus on shared planning

30. Legacy landscape of content and planning
Saxo Bond
Content
Planning
Print layout
Content
Digital publishing
BonSai
Everyone
had access
Everyone
had access

31. The options
Do nothing
Extend the use of Trello
Extend the tools of BCM
(already in some way prepared
to act as a planning tool)
Start from scratch with
a new home-grown solution
Implement a fit-for-purpose
platform - e.g. Desk-Net
The situation
Trello
Google docs and sheets
NewsCycle (Saxo)
BCM - (only Berlingske) - a CaaS
platform serving external recipients
of content and planning
Other stuff
What to do with planning

32. New landscape of content and planning
Saxo Bond
Print Content
Print layout
All content
Digital publishing
BonSai
Access
on a need to
have basis
Everyone
have
access
Desk-Net
Shared planning
of all content

33. The benefits of a shared planning tool
Planning and overview of the prime time flow is significantly
improved - including the flow of pitches on SoMe
The entire editorial staff has become disciplined in planning
and more importantly in the sharing of individual plans
A lot more information is at hand at all times when knowledge
on planning is consolidated, easily accessible and shared
A better environment for innovation of digital content
and the subsequent production and publication

34. We could have pursued the final
cultural change in the newsroom
without Desk-Net, but with a
unified and fit-for-purpose
planning tool we have boosted
the fact that we plan for our
digital presence, and that we
are a Mobile First news media.
Jakob Weiss, Product Manager at Berlingske
former Head of digital at Berlingske
“

35. And the results...

36. 60 %Growth in monthly page views
from June 2018 to April 2019
Out of the 299 mio. page views, 187 mio. page views came from mobile devices.
This is around three times more than the closest competitor in the index
For the first time more revenue was created from digital than from print

37. 25 %Growth in average number of daily visitors from mobile devices
from June 2018 to April 2019
For all devices the growth is 16%
55% of the visitors came from mobile devices in June 2018
Today 60% of the visitors comes from mobile devices

38. 87 %Growth in monthly page views
from June 2018 to April 2019
Berlingske is now ahead of - or really close to - the main competitors
The number of customers paying for content (print and digital)
started to increase after a long period of stagnation and decrease

39. 80 %Growth in average number of daily visitors from mobile devices
from June 2018 to April 2019
In June 2018 Berlingske was down 16% compared to the previous month
In April 2019 Berlingske was up 13% compared to the previous month

40. Challenges is still there
More barriers to overcome - habits are hard to change
The print product must be outstanding - continuous focus on quality
How to overcome the challenges of curating content from digital to print
How to ensure more resources focussed on creating unique brand content
But the outsourcing has proven itself - and there is no thoughts
on reverting the way of working when the contract ends in 2020

41. The End