Publish Asia 2008 evolving tandem with the media world
In today’s fast changing media world, everyone needs to reinvent themselves regularly. And to get
one such common platform – Publish Asia, where the entire industry gathers with the latest and
updated trends of the media industry is indeed a boon. S K Khurana and S M Dutt, editors -
All About Newspapers enjoyed being part of this event, and here they bring the gist of the show.
"Partnership with customers
i.e. advertisers need to be
developed,” said Tomas
Brunegard, CEO, Stampen group,
Sweden in his keynote presentation
in Macau. He emphasised on the
local newspapers for local
communities to be developed in the
interest of advertisers.
Publish Asia 2008, the 8th edition,
was held from April 2-3, 2008 at the
Wynn Resorts in Macau, China.
Attendees (though not as many,
as the organisers must have
anticipated) from leading
newspapers and magazines met
under one roof. The theme of this
conference was “Profitability
through customer-centric
publishing strategies.”
This year’s edition was officially
inaugurated by the H E Victor Chan,
director of the Government
Information Bureau of SAR of
Macau. Then conference kicked off
with the welcome address by Reiner
Mittelbach, CEO of Ifra, Germany.
In which, while welcoming
delegates, he talked about Ifra’s new
strategies, which also included new
logo for the organisation as well as
the new slogan - “Empowering the
news publishing industry.” Since
IFRA’s foundation more than 45
years ago, Ifra has been serving as
a reliable partner to news publishing
industry.
Followed by this, in his keynote
address Tomas Brunegard informed
that in the year 1645, first newspaper
was introduced. He further said that
the importance of newspapers is very
high in Sweden where 80% of people
do read newspapers. However over
the year’s new ad market is being
witnessed. Newspapers has lost
market share but gained revenues/
profits because of new concept of
‘local editions.’ Making a ‘warning’
call, Tomas informed, “As on today,
advertisers can bypass media,”
because they can reach consumers
without newspapers. Is it not a
bad news for newspapers? Internet
and outdoor advertising media
are changing the condition
drastically. Earlier the newspapers
were like enjoying “monopoly”
but not any more.”
The time has come which demands
self-evaluation. Tomas cited the
example of ‘Adidas shoe ad
campaign’ planned with client with
substantial growth and Internet
support. Then innovative insert ads
with newspapers can get good
money wherein he demonstrated
the success of circular/mailer and
onserts planned for BMW. Another
success mantra for their paper has
been acquiring custom publishing
companies, printing plants etc.
Earlier Stampen was just a local
paper in Sweden which now has
grown into a big group. “The
turnover and profits have tripled in
last three years,” informed Tomas.
Then there was networking break
and sponsored by UPM, enabling
delegates to visit the ‘Expo,’ which
was put up by 25 exhibitors. These
included companies like Quark,
Atlantic Syndication, Pongrass
publishing, Pressmart Media, TKS,
ABB, Tolerans, Tera Digital, Goss,
Atex, IDAB, Woodwing, New
ProImage, Agfa apart others. There
were few companies who
participated in Publish Asia for the
first time.
The conference followed by this
was meticulously planned
with main technical sessions as well
as parallel sessions. The eminent
speakers from reputed organisation
made their presentation.
Steve Yelvington from Morris
DigitalWorks also emphasized the
need for using Internet to offer much
more than just providing news and
ads. Interactive web-presence is
required to get maximum traffic with
journalists having close contact
with community. Then a message
from Steve- “Go to places where
people live.”
Another interesting participation on
‘Reaching new audience - creating
new revenue streams’ was made by
none other than Thomas Jacob from
Associated Newspapers Ltd,
Singapore, who has been a regular
speaker in Publish Asia as well as
Ifra India conferences. This time,
he presented a case-study of new
joint venture of Associated
Newspapers and India Today group
in the form of a new tabloid titled
Mail Today, launched in November
2007 with an initial circulation of
1.10 lakh copies. Thomas informed
through one of his presentation
slides that the Daily Mail in UK was
launched as old as on May 4, 1896.
And it went in the form of tabloids
in the year 1971. Today it commands
a circulation of 2.33 million copies
and interestingly with 51.3% women
readers. He also informed that it was
a coincidence that both the partners
were looking for some possibilities
to adopt a new business model for
a tabloid launch in India and it
clicked very fast once they have
initiated a dialogue. “There were
positive points/factors, which
brought them together, and a
newspaper with majority of young
women journalists appeared in New
Delhi on 16th November last year,”
he added.
Merits and demerits of FREE
newspapers was the widely
discussed topic in this conference.
It was moderated by Cyril Pereira
from Telesis Consulting, Hong
Kong, five eminent personalities
actively took part in the discussions
and presented their views
supported with case studies. The
newspapers-‘Metro Hong Kong’
with 3,40,000 copies; AM 730, Hong
Kong with 3,00,000 copies; The
Standard with 2,50,000 copies;
Synovate Ltd and Group M whose
CEO K K Tsong informed that
market in Hong Kong is very good
and free concept is quite
successful. Interestingly most of the
newspapers are relying on Olympic
events heavily and as such their
fate after the games are over, need
to be evaluated once again.
However one of the presenters
categorily stated that ‘free
newspapers’ have always a smaller
editorial team; it will never be a
comprehensive paper like the ‘Paid’
paper.
Apart from other topics discussed
in different sessions, one parallel
session included “Industrial
Business Strategies” moderated by
Manfred Werfel, research director
and deputy CEO, Ifra-Germany. The
topic- “Who will print the
newspaper of the future?”-Manfred
evaluated various options like - How
safe is to go for outsourcing? May
be tomorrow- a press supplier or a
paper supplier becomes an
outsourcing supplier on BOT
basis? Then there was an interesting
interaction on semi-commercial
proving to be very successful in
securing new advertisers
specifically to the concept of
“Weekly newspapers with heatset
press on newsprint at coldset
prices.” Towards this, the talk made
by Peter Kuisle, executive vicepresident
sales, MAN Roland
confirmed that the latest
competition in newspaper industry
is good which gives challenges to
suppliers to be competitive and
bring the quality up. It is good to
note that product enhancement
within newspaper industry taking it
to heatset or coldset with UV.
Andreas Friedrich, KBA (Beijing
branch) also discussed newspaper
status in media in the session
closely interacting with audience.
Overall, the conference saw the
active participation of delegates in
all the sessions and helped in
reviewing the latest production
tools and industrial strategies that
can allow newspapers to optimize
the implementation of their
business orientation.
n
