Bernard Asselin

Chief Marketing Officer and VP Sales
Montreal Alouettes
Canada linkedIn

Registration and welcome coffee

Welcome and keynote Brainsnack by moderator

“Tot aan de IJzer” by De Standaard

Campaign on Recycling Content to Grow Audience on Different Platforms

2014 was the first year of a 4-year commemoration cycle in Belgium of the First WW 100 years ago. A tsunami of events, books, documentaries and retrospectives went to market. De Standaard published a day on day report on the invasion of Belgium exactly 100 years ago. This report not only proved to be excellent content, but also a fine marketing tool for sales and activation.

Manu Naert
Brand Manager De Standaard, Belgium @ebrolinkedIn

“Tour de Yorkshire” by Yorkshire Post

Campaign Using an Event to Grow Audience, Brand and Revenue

The 2014 Tour de France cycling race started in Yorkshire. 4.8 million people came to see the cyclists race across Yorkshire. This is a tale of how Yorkshire Post painted it yellow and positioned The Yorkshire Post at the heart of the event.The Yorkshire Post took advantage of this huge cycling event to grow audience, brand and revenue through a plethora of editorial+marketing initiatives.

Helen Oldham
Managing Director, Johnston Press Yorkshire and Scotsman Publications, UK @helenoldhamlinkedIn

Irish Independent Provincial Rugby Sponsorship

Awards 2015: First Place Winner: Best Idea to Grow Single-copy Sales

In 2013 the Irish Independent, identified two separate but related challenges;
1. The image of the paper, from a sports perspective, was very GAA-centric. The Irish Independent had not built strong credentials in rugby, despite having access to high quality journalistic talent.
2. The Irish Independent holds the No. 1 position in every county except South Dublin and Cork and so wanted to grow market share in these two rugby strongholds against stiff competition from the Irish Times in South Dublin and the Examiner in Cork.
Rugby has been growing significantly in popularity in Ireland in recent years, buoyed up by the success of national team and the provinces. It was clear that improving the paper’s credentials in rugby would have a positive impact on the paper generally, and could help to address the specific challenges in South Dublin and Cork.

Geoff Lyons
Marketing Director, Irish Independent, Ireland @GeofflyonslinkedIn

There's still money to be made in print

Campaign to Grow Subscription Sales

A successful launch of a new print magazine NZZ Geschichte to the Swiss market. Low-budget, high-return!

Milena Russ
Team Leader Direct Marketing Manager, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Switzerland linkedIn

Smaller is Handier – Tabloid Transformation of Kaleva Newspaper

Campaign to Grow Subscription Sales

As a marketing effort the tabloid transformation of Kaleva was exceptional. Marketing the advantages of the small tabloid format for almost a full year, readers are loving the new Kaleva. Preliminary results after 1 year are good; based solemnly on customer satisfaction and subscription sales measurements.

Jeppe Komulainen
Marketing & Development Manager, Kaleva Oy, Finland @dimblewichlinkedIn

Change Process: Prom Print to Digital – Old Habits Die Hard; but They can be Changed!

Campaign to Grow Subscription Sales

In 2014 HNA started with a marketing campaign, to attract new digital subscriber: on Tablet instead of paper! What we learned was a little surprise. Over half of our tablet subscribers were existing print-subscribers. They would no longer read the daily newspaper on paper, but the digital version on the tablet.

Sebastian Gerhold
Marketing Manager, Verlag Dierichs, Germany linkedIn

Brain lunch

Radikal #4Hours

Awards 2015 Finalist: First Place Winner: ‘Campaign to Grow Digital Audience’

Radikal, the first digital newspaper of Turkey wanted to raise awareness about a law that allows authorities to erase any internet content within 4 hours and without court order. The campaign was a great success within the online Turkish community and got Radikal of to a good start in its early years of existence.

Bengisu Birdinc Alacahanli
Digital Marketing Manager, Hurriyet, Turkey linkedIn

“This country needs more salmon” by De Morgen

Awards 2015 Finalist: First Place Winner: Best Idea to Grow Digital Audience or Engagement

The campaign of 'the renewed De Morgen' had two main objectives:
1. Positioning De Morgen as a progressive & young newspaper with a healthy against the grain attitude.
2. Present the new product proposition of De Morgen and let as many readers as possible discover our new product
To reclaim the territory of De Morgen. De Morgen was once the most progressive and outspoken newspaper in Belgium, but somewhere along the line, they got lost. So in 2014, they decided to turn form and content around in order to position themselves again as the most progressive and young newspaper with a healthy against-the-grain-attitude.

Ward Cannaerts
MarCom Manager De Morgen, Persgroep, Belgium @ward_cannaertslinkedIn

Het Nieuwsblad: “De Koers is van ons!”

Campaign: Use of an Event To Grow Audience Across Platforms

Het Nieuwsblad, number 2 newspaper on the Flemish market has a big focus on sports, especially cycling and football. To grow their share of the cycling fan market, Het Nieuwsblad created the campaign "De Koers is Van Ons!" to create strong credentials and brand presence with the cycling world, the most popular sport in Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (Flanders). Another success story from Mediahuis, publishing company of Het Nieuwsblad.

Dries Vereecke
Brand Manager, Het Nieuwsblad, Belgium linkedIn

Best Place to go Wild in Ireland

Campaign to Grow Brand

Building on the success of The Best Place to Holiday in Ireland 2013, The Irish times launched The Best Place to Go Wild in Ireland in March 2014. The aim was to find the best places in the country to experience nature: from guided walks, tranquil cruises on our rivers and nature watching on the wetlands… to extreme sports like surfing, caving or coasteering on our rocky shores. The objectives were to creating captivating reader content resulting from the general public’s nominations of their favorite locations, to emphasise the national credentials of the Irish Times and to build on 2013 levels of engagement with video, traffic and social media interactions.

Laughlin Rigby
Head of Marketing, The The Irish Times, Ireland@hermanverwimp linkedIn

Le Soir's Fabulous Garden

Awards 2015 Finalist: First Place Winner: Category: Best Idea to Grow Single-Copy Sales

Le Soir, as a quality leading news brand in Belgium, has created and launched in 2014 a complete new strategic and strong positioning activity, named "Demain, la Terre". Objective: meet a growing demand of information, and interests among the readers and the population for a better world and living in society. A clear world trend to be taken care of. "Demain, la Terre" has been developed on print, digital and mobile supports AND physically activated in a 'fabulous garden' in the center of Brussels.

Gregory Vandenschrick
Directeur des ventes et du marketing, Le Soir, Belgiumdidham linkedIn

An advertisers view on content marketing

How Gijbels Groep — a Belgian construction company — is, almost, ditching news media entirely to attract potential customers. With their own blog, targeted events and well targeted online communications; Gijbels Groep is almost becoming a publishing company that also happens to construct buildings. — How can publishers still be valuable to Gijbels Groep?

Herman Verwimp
Marketing & HR Director, Gijbels Groep, Belgium@hermanverwimp linkedIn

Marketing Workshop

Participants split up in small groups and get a specific task to solve in 30 minutes.

Caffeinated Brain-Break

Workshop Result Brainsnacks

Brilliant wrap-up by moderator

Well deserved post-Ideas Day Drinks!

Weekend in Brussels is yours!