Market Leader Interview – Katie Vanneck-Smith, Chief Marketing Officer of News International (NI)

Tom Holmes talks to Katie Vanneck-Smith, CMO of News International.

Katie has been CMO for NI Group Ltd since 2010. Working across all three titles, she is responsible for circulation revenue and subscription sales of print and digital products.

Katie joined Times Newspapers in 1996 as a trainee, going on to become Marketing Manager; Digital Director responsible for launching Times Online, and Promotions Director. After some time spent with the Telegraph, she returned as Times Media Sales and Marketing Director, then MD, Customer Direct at NI. Since her return to NI she has launched the innovative customer loyalty programme, Times+ and masterminded the digital paid content strategy.

Katie is a Mentor of The Marketing Academy.

TH: As Chief Marketing Officer at News International (NI) what is your primary focus?

KV-S: Building and sustaining great teams – we are all only as good as the people we work with. The pace, diversity and reinvention of this industry needs passionate, curious, collaborative and creative individuals with endless energy, to help shape the future for these iconic news brands. This is a tough, but exciting time. The rules are there to be rewritten – time to work hard, have fun and make history.

TH: You’ve arguably got the toughest marketing role in the UK not just post Leveson but also grappling with tough economic times, what are the main challenges facing you and NI over the next 12 months?

KV-S: Beyond just the day job – and the imminent launch of our new paid digital subscription bundle for the Sun….

June 28th sees the formation of the new News Corp – a unique opportunity here in the UK and beyond. We’ll need far more of a start up mentality – more opportunism, more experimentation, more collaboration across our global businesses and the content we produce. Key challenge is to make sure we learn as quickly as possible, there will be some failures and many successes. Ultimately we’ll end up in a better place – better products for consumers, driving more revenue from a lower cost base.

TH: The Times and Sunday Times started charging website access in June 2010, how’s that going and what sort of subscriber numbers are you getting now?

KV-S: Today, providing consumer choice in ways to pay & consume our product – means The Times has more paying customers than in June 2010. A strong start. Currently we have over 340,000 paying subscribers – and from August The Times now with Goals, provides us with a new distinctive and differentiated proposition to market, a key asset to drive future growth.

TH: You launch Sun+ on 1 August, by erecting a paywall surely this will greatly diminish the 1.68 million unique browsers who visit Sun.co.uk daily and what have you got planned to attract subscribers?

KV-S: I don’t like the talk of paywalls – it’s a negative and therefore a limiting word. I prefer to talk of us launching a new digital entertainment bundle that people will be happy to pay for. We need to think big, and rethink how we create, package and market our great content to consumer in this new digital economy. Sun+ – will be The Sun+Goals+Perks – and is available for all our customers. So in terms of our daily franchise – I would rather worry about the 7m daily uniques or 13m weekly reach we deliver in the UK across all our platforms – and focus on total growth.

TH: You joined Times Newspapers in 1996 as a graduate trainee, looking back what have been the high points?

KV-S: The time spent in our Archives that date back to 1785 when The Times was launched (first as The Daily Universal Register, rebranding as The Times in 1788).
Attending news conference on all our papers – a privilege I wish I had the time to take advantage of daily.

Being part of the team that had in both instances less than a week to launch The Times Compact edition and The Sun’s Sunday Edition from scratch. The hours might be mad, but these are the true moments where our passion, creativity and team spirit come together in a truly exceptional way to create instant market leading and beating products for the UK’s consumers.

And finally…defying the conventional wisdoms, proving those naysayers wrong – and demonstrating there is a market for paid for digital content.

TH: How do you see the media landscape unfolding in the next 5 years?

KV-S: As Robert Thomson noted in our recent investor days, globalisation and digitisation are the two defining long-term trends that most affect our business. The printed word remains impactful and important but we have to acknowledge and embrace how important technology is becoming as the canvas for our content. More specifically, mobile devices (phones and tablets) are key and will continue to grow. How these devices are used by people as their second (and sometimes first) screens is something we are focussing on.

To read the rest of the interview please click here

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