CASE STUDY

– IS &
PUBLISHING
BULL & BEAR
MARKETS
NEWSPAPER

CASE STUDY
Gavin Frontpager, the Chief Editor of Bull & Bear Markets newspaper, has one question on his mind – How do I
stay relevant in the news business every day? Bull & Bear Markets newspaper is the leading financial newspaper
worldwide, but readership and subscriptions can never be taken for granted.
The news industry has been facing data issues on multiple fronts – Readers now expect personalized content, and
customer data is scattered across multiple systems within the organization when it comes to trying to get a comprehensive
view on consumers. With growth and profitability trending downward, Mr. Frontpager assembles a cross-functional
team to evaluate the issues and devise a strategy in the current market. He understands that he needs a dual approach:
Introspect and evaluate their own challenges for customer acquisition and retention, and at the same time, increase their
investments in digital transformation to build better data and analytics capabilities for deeper customer insights. Initial
analysis reveals that the key areas where reengineering or optimization will be required to meet the desired objectives.
Laura Newsreader, VP, Marketing, suggests that to increase customer acquisition/retention, providing engaging and
personalized content is necessary. Steve Reporter, VP, IT, wants to focus on data ingestion, storage, management, and
analysis. Mr. Frontpager concurs with both Ms. Newsreader and Mr. Reporter – they need proper IT systems and analytics
engines to gain unprecedented insight into customer data to drive higher growth and retention.

The Case Challenge

Mr. Frontpager, Ms. Newsreader, and Mr. Reporter have asked for your help. As a consulting partner to Bull & Bear Markets
newspaper, you will assess their customer acquisition and retention process, along with the impact that utilizing data
appropriately can have on their growth and customer experience. You will prepare a recommendations report on these
topics. Furthermore, they have asked you for an implementation plan for the whole program. This plan should incorporate
the objectives, key activities, deliverables, assumptions, stakeholders involved, and so on, to assist Bull & Bear Markets
newspaper on their transformational journey for effective reach and relevance through content personalization and with
the end goal of increasing subscribers, especially “Young Readers,” and retention rate. Specifically, (a) provide a high-level
view for how they can serve customers with related, accurate content and based on known/unknown preferences; (b)
determine how they can gather data to get a 360-degree customer view for effective reach and relevance, with the end
goal of increasing subscription and retention rate; focus effectively targeting “Young Readers” (i.e. address the future
market to capture and retain these young subscribers at a young age, for a long time).

Background • The focus is on increasing digital

Summary about Client:
A leading financial newspaper, Bull
& Bear Markets, has grown to be a
worldwide news and information
powerhouse, with prestigious brands
dealing with financial information/
newsletters. Having millions of
subscribers (digital & print) across
the globe, though mainly in United
States, they need to personalize and
tailor content to readers’ interests
and needs. The company’s core
purpose is to enhance society by
creating, collecting, and distributing
high-quality news and information.
subscribers, but print cannot be
ignored; those ages 40-65 prefer
print over digital, and they are most
loyal among all age groups.
• In addition, certain percentage of
patrons have both digital and print
subscriptions.
Information being scattered
across multiple systems within the
organization poses a great challenge
in getting a comprehensive view on
consumers. Competitors who have
targeted marketing using organic data
in addition to social interactions via
additional channels have an edge.
Volatility around the world warrants
a focused approach, accounting for
social/general and economic factors.
Some within the Bull & Bear Markets
think that the organization needs to
be introspective, analyzing its own
challenges in addition to industry
trends and successful competitors.
They believe that the company should
leverage the power of data and
analytics for a deeper understanding
of the customer and service – and
position products to them accordingly.

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 Publishing Data - Worldwide

News Market Size

2017($B) 62 Addressable
Market ($B) 3
Content Market
. Non-Fiction/News . Rendering Devices Mobile, Ereaders, Wearables
. Insight/Analytics . Shift to Digital from Print
. Audio/Visual Story-telling . Subscription Models Amazon,Kindle Unlimited
. Diversity . Subscription Bundling Scribd+NYT
. Curated & Personalized

Business Technology
. Decrease in Print Subscription & Ads . RPA & Congnitive Automation(Bots)
. Drive to grow Digital subscriptions . Platforms & Solutions prominence
. Consolidations/Acquisitions . Blockchain for DRM&Governance
. New Revenue Models . Customer Experience Design
. Focus on Audience Engagement . AR/VR & Voice Assistants

Digital News Publishing – State of the Industry 2019

Subscription fatigue favors entertainment than news

Content 45

7%
7%
News
News
45 or over

15%
News

News Video Music Sport Online Storage Online Nothing

streaming streaming gaming dating

2/3s of who subscribe, do so for only one source Mix and match all consuption channels

60% High household Digree Extremely

income holders Interested in news 60% USA
56 Also Canada,Australia
55 54
45% 45%

30% 30%
27 25
26 28 27 20
15%
15%
9
7 7
10 10 10 0%
2 2 2 2 Direct Search Social Social Aggregator Email
0% 4 4 1 4 4 media media
1 2 3 4 5 5+ 1 2 3 4 5 5+ 1 2 3 4 5 5+

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 Trust is challenge

Mobile & Socal media is the leading channel for digital natives & millennials.
News over all
32%
32nd/38
(-2)

Proportion that said each was their first contact

with news in the morning by Age-Selected Markets
18-24 25-34 35+
50% 45

39
News | use
50%
30

25%
25%
News in search
22
19 18 19

12 13
11

14%
8 9
News in social
5 4 4
0%
Smartphone Desktop Print Radio TV

Data: Details depicting the annual decrease from $24.2 billion in a market volume of US$10,641m
landscape as of today in 2017 (Source: Freedonia) by 2024 (Source: statista)
• ePublishing segment (ePaper, • Advertising revenues for US
Exhibit 1. Revenue forecasts eMagazine, eBooks) expected to newspaper publishers forecasted
show a revenue growth of ~6.6% to remain the largest revenue
• US newspaper publishing revenues by year 2021. Revenue is expected source at $9.7 billion, despite falling
were forecasted to total $21.3 to show an annual growth rate 4.5% per annum by 2022 (Source:
billion by 2022, representing 2.6% (CAGR 2020-2024) of 4.9%, resulting Freedonia)

Advertising space Subscription and sales All other operating revenue Printing services for others Distribution services

40

35
1.27
1.21 1.18
30 2.01 1.25 1.15
2.00 1.33 1.08 1.05
Revenue in billion U.S. dollars

8.49 1.45 1.45 0.61

8.22 2.21 1.11 0.55 0.54
25 1.95 1.9 1.23 1.00 1.14 0.45
7.86 7.95 8.04 1.15 1.35 1.15
8.87 1.85
20 8.85 9.04
20.38 8.89
18.88
15 17.25
16.08 15.67
14.73
13.63 13.62
10 12.33

0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Source: Statista

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 Print newspapers Online newspapers Other media newspapers

40000

30000
Revenue in billion U.S.

20000
dollars

10000

0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

• Education publishing has seen growth in digital space, with publishers focusing on innovative ways of promoting digital
content especially to large student population. The digital education publishing market in the US is expected to post a CAGR
of nearly 12% during the forecast period 2019-2023 (Source: technavio

Exhibit 2: Data collection and 4. Contact history for all modes of Exhibit 3. Supporting artifacts
usage in given context communication pertaining to for case study
SMS/email/customer support
High-level details on how data is so that we have details on what Industry-level Challenges: The
collected and leveraged today. sort of information a particular newspaper industry almost out of ink
• Demographics – Basic consumer was seeking at various • Free news information available
information (age, name, address, touchpoints. online
communication preference) related • Survey data – Optional surveys are • Decrease of spending on
to particular consumer while being pushed to collect additional advertisement
creating his or her subscription for information which could be related
• Industry has been in decline for the
digital or print access. to article preferences, emerging
past five years
• Financial data – Enables an option trends across applicable areas.
• Industry is seeking new ways to
to have background on what • Ads clicking – Tracking particular
generate revenues
mode of payment was preferred by consumer actions in digital
customer (i.e., credit card, digital footprint to understand his or her Market segmentation
pay). user journey and preferences so • Very broad - various customer
• Historical data: Tracking interactions that relevant advertisements can segments to deal with
across channels be pushed while content is being
• Audience, predominant age group
served.
1. Access data - To extract what is of 35-65, intellectual readers
being accessed for finding out • Analytics – Basic tracking of
all consumer actions to draw Sociocultural subscribers
preferences, relevancies, and
conclusions for personal and other • Subscribers have several ways to get
so on, in all interactions while
groupings, which could be based on their news/ entertainment
accessing the content.
age, access percentage, and so on. • Switching costs are low and they
2. Renewal/suspend/cancellation
As an example: Our client was able control advertisers
– To understand in accordance
with timeline when a particular to conclude, based on analytics, that Technological
consumer took those actions if a particular customer is accessing
• Established newspaper companies
and drawing a conclusion on content more than 12 days in given
in the print and online market
influencing factors. month, then their probability of
renewing the subscription increases • Various innovative channels to
3. Reading habits – To help distribute news content
understand how regularly a by 75%, as opposed to 20% when they
access content less than 12 days in a • Various other competitors in the
particular consumer is visiting the
given month. online market offering free news/
content and how much time is
information
being spent on read articles.
• Product differentiation and
innovation is key

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 Age
Groups
20-24 7%
25-29 6%
30-34 6%
35-39 6%
40-44 7%
45-49 8%
50-54 9%
55-59 10%
60-64 10%
65-69 9%
70-74 8%
75-79 6%
80-84 4%
85-89 2%
90-94 1%
95-99 0%
0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5% 6% 7% 8% 9% 10% 11%
% of Total Unique Users

Female 23.40%
Male 76.02%
Unknown 0.57%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% 80%

Exhibit 4. Supporting artifacts
for case study
Targeting younger audience:
Summary, background, and
objectives: How to target younger
generation
(ages 20-35), as their subscription
percentage is far from ideal and has lot
of potential:
Broadcasters and newspapers
are struggling to reach or build
relationships with under-35s. This is
an age group that tends to access the
news via social media, aggregators,
and other non-traditional media.
Younger audiences are different from
older groups not just in what they do,
but in their core attitudes in terms
of what they want from the news.
Young people are primarily driven by
progress and enjoyment in their lives,
and this translates into what they look
for in news.
Key insights on this audience below:
• The experience of news should feel
as easy and accessible as Facebook
and Netflix. This is partly about how
the content is presented, but also
about how it is surfaced.
• News brands need to tell stories in
ways that fit the expectations of
young people and the moments
when they are open to news.
This means creating formats that
are native to mobile and social
platforms as well as incorporating
these ideas into their own websites.
• The way the news media covers
stories may need to change,
including addressing issues such
as negativity, stereotypes, and
diversity, and how news brands
present both themselves and their
content on third-party platforms.
Role of News for Young Audiences
This study was about audience
understanding and behaviors. It was
necessary to understand, at least at a
top level, who these people are and
what they are seeking from life before
it would be possible to analyze the role
news plays for them.
The core role of news, that is, allowing
people to know what is going on
in the world, meets a fundamental
human need: to connect people’s
individual world with the wider world.
In this sense, it provides a basis to
the social side of humanity, playing
an important role in communication
and cooperation in a world where
increasingly large populations live and
work together.

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 In this sense, it provides a basis to
the social side of humanity, playing
an important role in communication
and cooperation in a world where
The World My world increasingly large populations live
and work together. Beyond this,
engagement with the news is driven
by a broader range of needs and roles
that it can fulfill in our lives.

This research identified six core needs behind young people’s engagement with the news:
Reflecting the key themes in the younger audience’s goals and ambitions, some news needs pull more towards progress,
others toward enjoyment and fun.

Progress
News plays to a number of progress-related needs, focused both on the self as well as position in society:

1.Status 2.Identity 3.Learning

In different contexts, news relates to a
social standing. Knowledge is valued.
Being “in the know” gives you gravitas
and allows you to feel confident.
News helps you construct and
communicate your identity. The
news you engage with contributes to
defining and demonstrating who you
are, and your world view.
News meets our desire to better
ourselves through learning, to explore
and broaden our horizons. It allows
us to develop new skills and ways of
seeing the world, as well as to make
savvier decisions and stay ahead of the
curve.

Enjoyment
News plays to needs related to enjoyment, which can be inwardly focused as outwardly or socially focused

4.Connections 5.Entertainment 6.Passions

News is the ultimate source of small
(and sometimes “big”) talk that helps
lubricate daily conversations. It allows
you to confidently reach out and
connect with those who are unlike
you or have little in common, as well
as discuss with friends and family. It
delivers a wider sense of connection to
the world at large.
News, like media more widely, can be News also helps us fuel and pursue our
fun. Being immersed in other worlds passions and interests, or to experience
for pleasure, feeling inspired, enjoying things we wouldn’t usually in daily life.
creativity, or simply – but no less
importantly – just passing the time.
We

Status Connections

Progress Identity Entertinement Enjoyment

Learning Passions

Me

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Media and Platforms: How young
audiences are accessing the news:
Young people use a plethora of
different platforms and media to
engage with the news.
Dedicated Updated Time-Filter Intercepted
Direct Indirect
1. Each has its own role and relative
merit. Together they create a news
Podcast
ecosystem that sits across all four
news moments. Websites Reddit&Twitter Whatsapp
2. Because of this complex media
Youtube Apps Snapchat
environment, young people are
looking for content and platforms Newspapers Aggregators
that allow them to seamlessly
TV Instagram
flow through the digital space
in an uninterrupted way. As Radio Facebook
expected, social media therefore
dominates people’s phones; it is
convenient to have all one’s online
entertainment, information, and
connection in one space.

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