The year of the Great Migration

One in a series of Executive Insights looking at the challenges and opportunities for publishers in 2012.

2012 is going to be the year of the publishing industry's great migration. The digital push that began in 2010 with the launch of the iPad and gained momentum in 2011 with the growing popularity of tablet editions is poised to become a truly dominant force in our industry.

We couldn't be more excited about it. The potential for Bonnier — and the industry as a whole — to expand our brand footprints on multiple digital platforms is easily the most thrilling prospect of the coming year.
 
Technology has given us extraordinary ways to consume media and has challenged us to innovate the methods to reach our readers through these emerging channels. We're preparing all of our brands to meet that challenge and deliver the best digital experience possible.
 
Most of our brands are well-entrenched on the tablet – PopSci was the first to launch a tablet edition — so while we’re always growing our digital content development to suit just-released devices like the Kindle Fire and Android tablets, our priorities have grown to include marketing our expanded brands. Luckily, there's no shortage of ways to do just that.
 
We're especially excited by news-aggregating sites like Google Currents, which has already been a great place for PopSci, with more than 125,000 downloads during the first week. Trial issues have long been a staple of the publishing industry, and it’s really interesting to watch how digital properties are creating their own form of next-generation sampling. Sites like Currents, as well as other aggregators like Yahoo Livestand, Flipboard and Zite, are going to have a big role in drawing new readers.
 
Which brings me to another area in which we’re learning, and one that holds the most potential for revolutionizing our business: codifying best practices for monetizing the exposure to new audiences and recruiting readers to all platforms of the brand. How do we entice digital subscribers to include the print product in their buy? How do we move longtime print readers to digital? And how do we continue to help our advertisers understand and reach these audiences?
 
We’ve made one big move to help our advertisers: participating and supporting ABC’s Consolidated Media Report. It’s the first tool to truly provide metrics for our brands as a whole, including our digital and social media audiences. We want our partners to fully understand the opportunities our brands represent, and this is a great way to provide the full picture.
 
In this new digital world, we’ve found that our readers are the best resource for learning how to grow. We constantly ask what they like about our content and delivery, what isn’t working, and what they’d like to see in the future. If there’s one thing I can assure them, it’s that we’re listening.

Gregg Hano is Senior Vice President of Corporate Sales & the Technology Group at Bonnier Corp. In this role, Hano oversees the company's efforts in selling multibrand, multiplatform programs across all of Bonnier's properties in print, digital and events.