Former record company boss Andria Vidler’s appointment as chief executive officer of Creative Review and Marketing Week publisher Centaur Media in November 2013 surprised some. Yet, despite a lack of B2B publishing experience, she describes it as a “natural” move and the opportunity it presented to rouse what she is confident will be a sleeping giant, “exciting”.
CEO at EMI Music UK & Ireland from 2009 to 2013, Vidler had overseen the transformation of an out-dated, analogue-focused business into a successful global rights management enterprise delivering higher margins than its competitors. But, following EMI’s acquisition by Citicorp in 2011 and the subsequent sale of its component parts, she was eager for a change.
“After the experience of breaking up a business, I was desperate to re-build something in a role that was more about re-creation, re-building and transforming - because that’s the bit I really love,” she says.
Centaur had a unique combination of strong iconic print brands and a wealth of experience in-house across content, digital and live events, Vidler explains: “Unlike many, it hadn’t gone pure-play, re-focused onto events or struggled to be more than primarily a publisher. It had diverse revenue streams, and that enables you to grow and adapt to your customers’ and markets’ needs.”
Furthermore, she enthuses, there was a digital software development team in-house and a 600-strong workforce which was both committed to the business’ future and “totally up for change”.
The company also had baggage, however, in the shape of a pre-tax loss of £37.4m in the year ending June 2013, stagnated revenues and £27m debt. It was leaderless, too, following the departure of previous chief executive Geoff Wilmott, who was dismissed that May after the company issued a profit warning - blamed by the board primarily on loss of print advertising from recruiters and independent financial advisers.
Working in isolation
“What I found when I arrived was over 50 small businesses working independently from one another,” says Vidler. “So, although there was expertise in digital product development and in content creation, the two weren’t connecting.”
Different content brands weren’t connecting with each other, either. Even different products serving a single market worked independently with much wasted energy as a direct result. And with a capital expenditure budget spread so thinly across so many different and competing mini-businesses, there was little scope to innovate.
Vidler’s first step was to consult with the top 50 people within the business to understand their issues and concerns. Her next was to encourage everyone working in each of the different industry sectors Centaur serves – which include marketing, law, finance and engineering - to unite to identify future opportunities for their respective sector, then present their findings to everyone else.
“What was soon evident was that before I joined, people working here didn’t know about the other skills within the business, and didn’t actively support or help each other,” Vidler observes. “But they were all struggling with the same problems. And once they began working together, they felt more confident, more agile, and wanted to work together some more.”
Armed with the list of product and revenue development ideas generated by this process, she set about re-structuring the company into seven portfolios - six focused by market sector, the seventh dedicated to new product development. Grouping all products and services sector by sector under a dedicated management team and single P&L made it easier to see what the company could carry and where cost savings could be made.
Attention then switched to re-launching existing brands Money Marketing and Marketing Week, taking intelligence products Celebrity Intelligence and Fashion Monitor into the US, launching a number of live events and digital apps and streamlining other parts of the business – notably, the sale of legal information unit Perfect Information to The Mergermarket Group for £26m.
The disposals strategy wasn’t driven primarily by debt but the need to prioritise and focus, Vidler insists: “It’s been about identifying which businesses lacked the scale for us to want to invest in in order to develop them sufficiently”. And the most attractive propositions are those which can be extended across platforms.
“You can’t do everything. And if you only have one product in a market, the risk is it gets left at the bottom of the food chain in terms of investment,” she adds. “We didn’t need to be in corporate finance. But in marketing, where the rate of growth is so much higher, we are investing more.”
Managing organisational change
Honesty and transparency at all times are really important, she says of her approach to guiding and managing organisational change.
“You have to explain why change is necessary and why one direction is better than another. Most people presented with a logical rationale will understand the journey they are being asked to go on. Not everyone will get it first time, which is why you have to be patient. A lot of communication is essential,” Vidler explains.
Also critical is to create energy around the journey so people want to come with you, rather than only talk about financial targets.
“The role of influence and responsibility and creating a vision is the most important thing for us to do as an operating board: to give people the chance to ask questions and be honest about the challenges,” she continues, warming to her theme. “It’s an approach that’s worked for me in the past, but it’s also how I would want to be managed.”
Return to growth
Just over a year in, and the results tell their own story. 2013 was at best flat – as were the first six months of 2014, Vidler says: “But our July-October figures show 6% growth and that sort of change is encouraging. It has taken a lot of hard work, but it has come about because everyone here wants it.”
Perhaps more important, however, is how the revenue balance within the business is shifting.
Back in 2013, ad revenue (print and digital, combined) accounted for approximately 33% of total revenue with live events around 38% and paid-for content (print plus digital, including intelligence products) close to 29%.
Though in the first half of the current financial year (the six months to June 2014) all ad revenue declined 10%, digital ad revenue grew. All paid-for content, meanwhile, was up 17% with digital paid-for revenue up 30%. And the company now expects live events revenue to return to growth in the second half after declining marginally (principally due to events rescheduling into the year’s latter half).
Moving forward, Vidler believes Centaur must play to its core strength: its depth of understanding of the business sectors it serves, which is being deepened by digital.
Digital first
‘Digital first’ means more than just where content breaks first. It’s also about recognising the benefits of a digital production development team sitting across all the content teams, and understanding that in today’s environment, technical production and data analytics are just as important as words, she explains.
Centaur recently introduced a gated registration model for Marketing Week, to get a better understanding of their customers and to gather more accurate data.
“If you understand the customer really well, your brand and the connection you have with that customer via the brand relationship becomes even more powerful. You can offer lots of different products to monetise that relationship in lots of different ways - but only if you put the customer first,” she says.
“Everything is digital now. But we’re not going to forget print – people like reading things in print across all the sectors we serve. What I’m talking about is an approach where everyone within the business thinks customer and audience first, then content, then format. Format has to be secondary, and digital is the enabler of all that.”
Thoughts on publishing
Music and publishing are similar in the time it took each to embrace digital, believes Vidler whose past roles include working in marketing and operations at the BBC where she was involved in the launch of Radio 5 Live, a stint as managing director of Capital Radio and then Magic FM (where she oversaw its turnaround to become London’s largest commercial radio player), and as chief marketing officer at Bauer Media responsible for 53 magazines, 23 radio stations and all online products.
Compare the sporadic music album release model with that of weekly or monthly publishing, however, and B2B and B2C publishers are clearly disadvantaged by a lack of opportunity to step aside from the daily business cycle and invest in some proper thinking time, she says.
“Magazine publishers have also been too scared to actively seek out alternative revenue streams,” Vidler observes. “They should think harder not just about print online but how technology can transform and really disrupt people’s behaviour – the way streaming and iTunes transformed the music industry.”
Repeatedly, however, she stresses she does not see herself as a publisher. Nor does she see Centaur as a publishing business. “If we were, I would be worried,” she confides. “But, instead, the focus here is on paid-for content, events and digital data. Publishing is really important but we are using it to build relationships and brands. We are not reliant on publishing, and if we were I think that would be concerning.”
Looking ahead, however, she is excited by the prospect of further launches – additional data intelligence products, websites and events - planned for 2015. And she hopes that with the company now on a firmer footing, it can in coming months become more “outward-looking”. Ultimately, however, she hopes the business will continue to do what it does best: deepening its knowledge of its customers and expanding the variety of ways in which it serves their needs.
“I’ve no idea what technological developments will come around the corner,” Vidler smiles. “But one thing I do know is that with the right skills capability, a clear focus on the customer and a culture that embraces change, you can always adapt.”
