Hearst - UK's Largest Publishing House Is Well Equipped for the Future

Case Study

Hearst Magazines UK, a subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation headquartered in London, ranks among the market leaders in the UK magazine and periodical sector with its extensive portfolio of print magazines. In connection with the digital versions of such prestigious brands as Harper's Bazaar, Country Living, Esquire, ELLE, Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, Hearst is the largest publisher active in the online market, and is meanwhile reaching every third woman and every fourth adult in the UK – which currently translates as 44 million users per month.

The established consumer magazine "Good Housekeeping" founded in 1922 has a readership of some 24 million. Based on cooking recipes, nutrition and consumer tips, fashion and finances it serves its readers with practical ideas and advice for modern housekeeping. The magazine is linked with the Good Housekeeping Institute, which, in addition to a culinary school and a shop with its own range of products, also includes a laboratory in which new products such as foods or technical equipment are tested.

It was already eight years ago that company management recognized the integration of digitalization as the indispensable core of its own business model, and, in this context, opted for the flexible and forward looking censhare concept. Increased digital capabilities not only aimed to achieve time and cost savings, but also to ensure the optimization of the quality standards and the topicality of editorial content based on more efficient workflows .

Although the classic print format continues to form the core of the market strategy , the publisher also addressed the demands of target groups that want to access the provided content any time, any place – whether printed or digitalized, whether on TV, PC or mobile phone. In order to make readers and advertising customers even more loyal to the brands, the company wanted to not only be positioned as a provider of exceptional content, but also as a multimedia service provider.

Another concern was to systematically process the results of product testing determined at the Good Housekeeping Institute with one, single tool, and in such a manner that the data, including the information on buying sources and supplementary or similar products, can be fed into all channels and be called up via all media.

Here too, censhare also provided the right solutions with its Digital Asset Management , Product Information Management and Omnichannel Content Management , and enabled, according to the estimation of the publishing house "a massive cultural change across the entire business" – also for in-house reorganization: censhare, in summary, offers Hearst everything that is relevant for production.

Thanks to the censhare programs it was now possible to share information and ideas without time losses throughout the entire corporation, while optimizing the utilization of resources, streamlining work sequences and integrating outsourced services and thereby reducing the dependence on external partners. As the management input involved in the coordination of conventional technologies was eliminated, it was possible to save over 3,500 working hours – capacities that were freed up for the conception of business strategies. A further summary came to the conclusion that this advantage benefitted the entire company. The introduction of censhare resulted in a complete cultural shift, and completely new ways of thinking within the Hearst media company.