21st edition of World Newspaper Advertising Conference in Malta

The 21st World Newspaper Advertising Conference, organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers opened yesterday at the Westin Dragonara Resort.

The two day conference, which is sponsored by timesofmalta. com, has attracted about 200 delegates from Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The conference was opened by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech who said that advertising was “all about creativity”.

Mr Fenech said that creativity was important for a country’s economy and the government would do all it could to encourage it.

The conference is aimed at helping advertising professionals to maximise their share of a smaller market, provide ideas for new revenues and formulate strategies for increasing existing revenues and yields.

The key topics being discussed include: Market insight – The essential ingredient for ad sales in 201; Print advertising – The key to our future in a digital obsessed world; Cross-media strategies – Great ideas for added value campaigns; The new game – Tablet advertising; and The future face of advertising – Ideas and strategies for the near term.

The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, or WAN-IFRA, is the global organisation of the world’s press, representing more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.

The organisation was created by the July 2009 merger of the World Association of Newspapers and IFRA, the research and service organisation for the news publishing industry. The two organisations have a 110-year history between them as the global representatives of the world’s press.

The mission of the new organisation is: “To be the indispensable partner of newspapers and the entire news publishing industry worldwide, particularly our members, in the defence and promotion of press freedom, quality journalism and editorial integrity and the development of prosperous businesses and technology.”

Adrian Hillman, executive director of Allied Newspapers Ltd, was among the speakers who addressed the delegates yesterday. He spoke on the theme: “Despite gains in digital revenues, why is print still relevant?”

Mr Hillman told the delegates that The Times of Malta is unique because it performs the roles of a regional and national newspaper.

“Six years ago The Times of Malta decided to evaluate every element of its production process. We looked at our printing. We looked at our capacity to design and produce magazines. We looked at our capacity to distribute third party magazines. We looked at our online presence.

“Our decision was that we would have to excel at every one of these points to continue growing. We recognised a shift in consumer demands and expectations as well as a continuous need for change developing new products while assessing existing ones,” he said.

Mr Hillman said printing was to be housed under one entity, Progress Press, with the brief to restructure, create new products and return profitability.

“We created a separate company (Media Maker) which would design and sell magazines for The Times as well as third parties. We took what would seem as a counter intuitive decision to distribute third party magazines in The Times of Malta, which would compete with our own magazines.

“Our presence online would not be a token presence but one which would allow us to learn new skills and develop a multi-media platform. The aim was to have the capacity to launch our breaking new services on any device. Our development team needed to be flexible.”

Mr Hillman said Progress Press grew its turnover six fold in six years and it invested €30 million in a plant and machinery. The company, he said, identified a strong and growing export market for its sheet-fed printing line selling to Europe, Africa, Middle East, and North America.

“Malta is under provided with volume printing runs of over 100,000. The new press included an eight tower web machine with UV capacity which could double up for newspaper and semi commercial work with a range of stitching and finishing capacity. Here we are able to compete and new business is growing in this area. Again, price and quality have helped our growth. Progress Press has already made inroads in semi commercial printing in the Italian market,” he said.

Mr Hillman said The Times of Malta is the most widely disseminated newspaper in the country.

“In 2004, we did not create our own magazines yet we distributed third party magazines and inserts. Media Maker today turned this around and is the largest distributor of newspaper magazines in the country. The company is profitable and offers an option to our advertisers who want a different medium for their product yet want to target Malta AB, C1 audiences, an area The Times of Malta has been extremely strong in.

“Products were created to hit specific audiences which were not catered for. Women aged 25 to 35 with ‘Pink’, ‘M’ magazine for men aged 25 – 45, and ‘Child’ a magazine aimed at young families and child carers. The magazines gave advertisers the advantage of quality print, cheap distribution, and a targeted audience. The reader benefits from free quality products inserted into The Times of Malta,” he said.

While taking this decision, he said, the company decided to retain third party magazines, saying income was earned at the distribution and printing stage.

“These magazines have grown, notwithstanding the recent economic downturn. It is clear to us that the demand for quality magazines is still strong. By distributing these third party products we offered better value to our readers at no extra cost,” he said.

Mr Hillman said timesofmalta.com started life as an electronic copy of The Times of Malta newspaper with around 800 unique visitors per day. Four key areas, he said, helped define growth, accessibility, social media integration, content visibility and the building of the brand.

“These elements are our guiding principles today,” he said.

Mr Hillman said timesofmalta.com has grown 39 per cent per annum in unique visitors, 38 per cent per annum in the number of visits and 30 per cent per annum in page views.

He said timesofmalta.com has over 26 million page views per month, almost one million per day, 400,000 unique visitors per month and 80,000 visitors per day.

He said 50 per cent consisted of local traffic and the rest came from the US, UK, France, Germany, Canada and Australia.

“Timesofmalta.com has established itself as the source of credible breaking news in the country. However, it is also the site of choice when events in Malta are relevant to an international audience. The proximity of the unfortunate events in Libya resulted in a surge of traffic on our website. On February 21, the site registered 1.5 million page views and 7.5 million hits,” he said.

Mr Hillman said this year’s target will be growth of 100 per cent in page views, saying the new timesofmalta.com site will be launched in the coming weeks.

“We recognised that the most significant part of our income derives from adverts in our newspaper and magazines. However, the international traffic of our website offers a unique selling opportunity to a local market wanting to hit on overseas clients. This is deal for a country strong in the tourism and hospitality industry.

“On the other hand, the capacity to offer a diverse quality of print means that we can also talk of a service where we can strive to accommodate a client’s budget,” he said.

The organisation, he said, is in a real position to offer cross media ad platforms.

“With audiovisual clips generating 30 per cent more traffic when compared to still images, the demand from our audience is clear. The traffic is measurable offering better value to advertisers and it is significantly cheaper than TV.

“On the other hand brand equity is being created by having our news across multiple platforms, such as electronic billboards, information screens, mobile phones on timesofmalta.com/mobile and iPads.

“The credibility of the brand is such that advertisers will latch onto it across these platforms. However, we find that the demand for print is still growing simply because we have a spectrum of products to offer our clients. In this way our printing arm is becoming a service where the quality is determined by the price the client is ready to pay.

“Both elements, the technological developments we are implementing and the spectrum of print products, are underpinning the new concept of how to sustain the traditional newspaper.

“Build on the strength you have. In the case of The Times of Malta it is the distribution system, the printing system and the design offerings, but primarily it is our credibility,” Mr Hillman concluded.