Exploring the Future of Publishing with Bonnier

September 20, 2017 at Warsaw, Poland (with FTIECLA)

Bonnier AB is a multichannel media conglomerate with experience and knowledge in a full range of media and operating in 15 countries. The company is wholly owned by the Bonnier family, whose values include a passion for media and the growth of its various business units through operational independence and freedom. From its beginning more than 200 years ago, Bonnier has promoted high-quality media products while collaborating closely with authors, journalists and publishers.

• Making sense of incredible change, power shifts in economics and culture, thinking 10x not 10%
• Inspired by global disruptors like Alibaba and Buzzfeed, FanDual and Netflix, Udacity and Xiaomi
• Finding the best new opportunities for growth, profitable and sustainable, emergent and niche 
• Shaping the future to your own advantage, with 100 inspirations, redefining markets on your terms
• Where are the biggest challenges and opportunities for Bonnier?

• The power shift to customers, doing business on their terms – where, when and how they want
• Who is the customer, the convergence of B2C and B2B, and focusing on the right person
• What customers really want, changing needs and aspirations, values and value 
• Using design thinking to dive deeper, value propositions to be more relevant, experiences to enable more
• What does this mean for us, how do we need to think differently?

• Thinking from the future back, rather than now forward – developing strategic horizons for innovation and growth
• How the most disruptive companies “change the game” to rewrite the rules, and outthink the competition
• Unlocking the power of business models – with 50 examples to apply and adapt – inspired by Nespresso, Tesla and more
• Making the future happen – evolution and revolution, an inspiring vision and case for change, and doing it 
• If you had 10 mins to create the future, what would it look like? Go …

What does the future of publishing look like?

Simon Fox, Trinity Mirror:

“I continue to hope there will be a role for print in 10 or maybe even 20 years, but the challenge is, will the generation that has not grown up with papers migrate to print? There is no reason to think they will embrace print and therefore it is incredibly important that we as publishers get the right digital proposition, both editorially and commercially, and that is what we are struggling with. Publishers have a very strategic decision to make, which is how much of their content to make available on social media platforms and how that is going to be monetised in the future.

Adblocking is a very serious issue and we and other publishers need to recognise that digital advertising can’t be our sole revenue stream. It is a very important one, but we need to develop other revenue streams from our enormous digital audience. E-commerce is one area. The Sun has gone heavily into betting, for example, which is also important for us, because about one quarter of our content is sports related. Ticketing is another huge area that clearly make sense, particularly locally. These are nascent revenue streams but ones which are growing pretty fast.”

Lorraine Candy, Sunday Times:

“I think the demise of print is a myth. There is enough evidence to prove that there will be print, and it will continue to be in many forms and be available in many places.

It is an ever-changing world driven very hard by consumers and by companies that aggregate content like Facebook, but you have to adapt your business to fit a) where the money is and b) where your audience is.

All of these social media businesses are about telling a story and then building a business around it, and you have to be very collaborative. Those people at the top of their blogging game are knowledgeable and powerful and reach a new consumer. Why would I not work with them? Why would I not work with Instagram? It is a really brilliant place to put very beautiful images and we are in the business of beautiful images.

There will be a lot more brand extension in future. One of the things we were exploring at Elle was using our editors to work with brands before they create their advertising. [The future] will be about working in a much more collaborative, better and bespoke way.”

Lucie Green, J Walter Thompson:

“There’s a parting of the ways occurring in publishing. On the one hand, you have mass market print brands shrinking (US title Teen Vogue will reduce from nine issues a year to four next year), and focusing on digital content strategies. You have new players, like The Pool, and The Midult launching online first and having events to bring this to life, rather than spending on print.

Increasingly new information is also going audio – we’re seeing branded podcasts becoming the next avenue of branded content. Amazon Echo is allowing people to seek information and content, listen to entertainment and shop, audibly, and people interact with it verbally. We’re discussing things with Siri, rather than emailing. People are publishing podcasts over blogs.

The flipside is that we’re seeing a renaissance in print titles – particularly design and women’s titles which are intentionally luxurious, in beautiful high quality paper, and priced at a luxury price point. The Gentlewoman, Riposte and Cherry BombBombe are all examples of print titles that make print a luxury experience, something slow, not disposable, and considered. It’s a counterpoint and a step away from the bigger mass market titles which have focused on scale rather than price point.”

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