2015 agenda

Monday, November 9

1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Pre-Symposium Workshop

Bernstein Ballroom

Join us for an in-depth dive on how you can use data to improve bottom-line net revenue and become a data-driven organization. The agenda for the day will start by setting a common vision across advertising, circulation, and editorial. By thinking of your organization holistically rather than as independent business units, you will be able to ensure everyone is working towards the same long term goal.
The rest of the workshop will focus on tactics to grow revenue and subscribers through the use of specific examples and case studies. Learn revenue-generating tactics and concepts such as:
1. Why customized market-based pricing maximizes the return from a subscription price increase
2. How paywalls and advertising can complement each other rather than substitute revenue
3. How first party data can be used to improve advertising yield and to set the rate card
4. What type of content drives engagement (what to publish, when to publish, when to push to Facebook…etc.)
5. The importance of a robust customer database to manage 1:1 marketing and communication

The day will allow plenty of time for questions and interaction from you, so please come ready to be engaged. We hope the session is not just a lecture but a conversation about the evolution of publishing.

6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Welcome Reception

Outdoor Terrace

Your last chance to relax before the Symposium begins! Meet the members of the Mather Economics team and mingle with other attendees. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres, music and an open bar at The Westin Hotel’s lovely outdoor terrace.

Tuesday, November 10

8:00 AM - 8:45 AM

Continental Breakfast

Bernstein Ballroom

9:00 AM - 10:15 AM

Keynote Session

Downstairs Ballroom

Matt Lindsay
President, Mather Economics

Jim Moroney
Chairman, President and CEO, A.H. Belo Corporation
Publisher and CEO, The Dallas Morning News

10:15 AM - 11:00 AM

Publishers Strategic View of the Future

Downstairs Ballroom

Amy Glennon
President and Publisher
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Bruce Hartmann
President and Publisher
Chattanooga Times Free Press

Larry Riley
Publisher
Spartanburg SC Herald-Journal Times-News

11:15 AM - 12:00PM

Breakout Session-The Cox Media Group Pricing Evolution

Concourse Room

Mark Medici
Senior Vice President of Audience Strategy & Group Lead
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Join Mark Medici to learn about the key elements Cox Media Group has identified during their pricing strategy journey. Mark will share how these insights are shaping the way Cox prices today and influencing the evolution of their pricing in the future.

11:15 AM - 12:00 PM

Breakout Session-Effectively Executing Subscriber Retention

Mercer Room

Nikhil Hunshikatti
Vice President of Marketing, Dispatch Media Group

In this session, Nikhil will share with the attendees many of the exciting things The Columbus Dispatch has initiated in the customer retention area using the tools they now have at their disposal— Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), predictive churn models, payment history analytics, etc. In addition, Nikhil will also share how the data science initiative (in collaboration with Mather Economics) is helping The Columbus Dispatch effectively engage with their subscribers and use digital behavior metrics to improve engagement and retention.

12:15 PM - 1:15 PM

Buffet Lunch

Downstairs Ballroom

 

1:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Big Data Solutions: Why now?

Downstairs Ballroom

Bob Konig
Vice President, Operations and Circulation, North Jersey Media Group

The Record – the award-winning, flagship daily newspaper of North Jersey Media Group (North Jersey) – has been a leading provider of local news for 120 years.

But North Jersey also owns a stable of 41 community newspapers and NorthJersey.com, a local breaking news website. And over the years, a number of magazines have been added to the mix, along with other websites, a thriving events business and even an online store.

We’ve built an impressive array of products and services in our market and we believe our consumers have remained loyal. But while our growth has been exciting, we have yet to figure out how to really connect it all. How, for example, are our consumers engaging with us across all of our diverse products? Why do we care? Do we have what it takes to somehow connect with our consumers in more meaningful ways?

North Jersey has launched its “big data initiative.” We are confident that this effort will provide much sought-after answers and reveal new ways to leverage our consumers’ trust in our brand.

Hear a bit about our progress, our challenges and what the future may hold for us.

2:00 PM - 3:00PM

Listener: A New Digital Day

Downstairs Ballroom

Matt Lindsay
President, Mather Economics

Arvid Tchivzhel
Director Product Development, Mather Economics

 

3:15 PM - 4:15PM

Applied Learnings: Using data to better understand audiences

Downstairs Ballroom

Grant Moise
Senior Vice President, Business Development and Niche Products
The Dallas Morning News

Grant Moise will discuss how The Dallas Morning News and its portfolio of companies use first party and third party data to assist in generating new advertising and marketing clients to their ecosystem. Over the past three years, The Dallas Mornings News has been engaged in an aggressive business development strategy where they have either built or bought companies in areas of: Marketing Automation, Analytics and Data Visualization, Digital Lead Conversion, Social Media and Content Marketing. There is a two phased approach that Grant will take us through in his talk which includes: A) Helping clients better profile their audiences to optimize their media spend, and B) Reporting back to those clients how using data tools has helped them increase their ROI.

4:15PM - 5:15PM

Movie Pass Subscription Model and Day One Wrap Up

Downstairs Ballroom

Stacy Spikes
Co-Founder and CEO, MoviePass

Matt Lindsay
President, Mather Economics

 

 

6:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Cocktail Hour-then dinner on your own

Wednesday, November 11

8:00 AM - 8:45 AM

Continental Breakfast

Bernstein Ballroom

9:00 AM - 9:45 AM

Metrics, audience sweet spots and monetization

Downstairs Ballroom

James Flachsenhaar
Vice President News, Gannett Lousiana

Newsrooms of the future face a double challenge: preserve their core watchdog mission, but continuously experiment – with content, platforms and strategic partnerships – to stay connected to audiences. How do we close the gap between content and audiences? What content can simultaneously inform and be monetized? What platforms do we need beyond print and branded digital? Which partnerships drive products more quickly to market? How do we align all departments’ efforts to maximize audience and revenue growth?

9:45 AM - 10:30 AM

Monetizing your Media

Downstairs Ballroom

David Clinch
Global News Editor, Storyful

David Clinch will discuss ways to optimize both the content you produce for your “walled garden” subscription services and the content you create for wider distribution on the web. Learn how you can make money with both types of content without compromising either in this informative session.

10:45 AM - 11:30 AM

Take Your Video Strategy to the Next Level: Monetizing Video as a News Publisher

Concourse Room

Angel Harper
Vice President, Sales & Affiliate Relations at CNN Newsource

Danay Faulkner
Senior Director, Sales & Affiliate Relations at CNN Newsource

By this point, we all know the importance of video for attracting digital advertisers and monetizing online readers, but are you leveraging all the video sources available to you? Are you maximizing the analytics and monetization of your video? In this session, we’ll look at industry best practices as well as some of CNN.com’s own findings.

From the editorial side, we’ll look at ways to present a story to frame video in the optimal way, and from the revenue side, we’ll examine traditional and non-traditional methods of video monetization as well as the various syndication models that exist. We’ll even study what the data says about when to run ads and for how long and other benefits beyond revenue.

 

10:45 AM - 11:30 AM

Optimizing single copy sale revenue

Mercer Room

Magnus Gabrielsen
CEO, Prediction Institute ApS

Single Copy Sales is an often overlooked avenue of revenue optimization. However, substantial savings can be gained directly from improving the draw strategy, even on a modest Single Copy circulation. This presentation will explain the approach to single copy sale optimization developed by Prediction Institute as well as evaluate some of the more commonly used draw strategies and how they measure up. We’ll be using the Columbus Dispatch (Gatehouse Media) as case study for the North American market.

11:30AM - 1:00 PM

Lunchtime Wrap Up Session

Downstairs Ballroom

Peter Doucette
Vice President, Consumer Sales & Marketing
The Boston Globe

Matt Lindsay
President, Mather Economics