Hearst UK
Having a CEO who values advertising and marketing’s function past short-term efficiency can rework the way it’s perceived and prioritised inside a enterprise.
For Hearst UK, the writer behind Good Housekeeping, Elle and Cosmopolitan, that shift got here practically three years in the past, when former marketer Katie Vanneck-Smith took over as CEO, bringing together with her an understanding of how advertising and marketing drives long-term model and enterprise progress.
On the time, the media firm had no “functioning” advertising and marketing division, no clear buyer focus and was working on an outdated mannequin.
“It was very clear to me that we have been nonetheless working with a twentieth or early twenty first century mannequin, pondering that advertising and marketing was carried out for us by the newsstand,” she says. “We have been working in a Hearst-first, not a customer-first mindset.”
With a background in advertising and marketing, together with CMO of Information UK, Vanneck-Smith’s aim when first becoming a member of Hearst was to rework it from a “branded home” to a “home of manufacturers”, modernising the enterprise and rebuilding its reference to audiences.
When she arrived, Hearst’s language and positioning mirrored its reliance on advertisers as the first income. “One of many issues that struck me once I first walked into the constructing was a large signal that mentioned, ‘Welcome to Home of Hearst’,” she remembers. “Nobody is aware of what Hearst is – we’re not an iconic consumer-first model.”
Hearst UK is dwelling to 16 titles, together with Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Males’s Well being, Ladies’s Well being and Nation Residing. However internally, Vanneck-Smith says the enterprise had fallen right into a behavior of speaking about itself as “Hearst-first” – the guardian firm, slightly than the person manufacturers shoppers really have interaction with.
“Lots of our conversations have been with promoting companies round the right way to attain audiences,” she says.
Constructing a marketing-led workforce
Vanneck-Smith’s first step was to place advertising and marketing again on the coronary heart of the organisation. She appointed chief buyer officer David Robinson to drive progress and started constructing a advertising and marketing operate from the bottom up, one that would assist shift inside tradition and deal with understanding clients.
“A part of the duty was getting the corporate or colleagues to consider our titles as manufacturers, slightly than merchandise which have grown up as magazines,” she says. “They’re nice manufacturers, however we in all probability have been missing somewhat little bit of confidence round a few of them.”
The enterprise transformation means advertising and marketing is now the “strategic accomplice” to the CEO. “Advertising and marketing is commonly a C-suite function in organisations, however it isn’t essentially the strategic accomplice to the CEO,” she provides.
Earlier than becoming a member of Hearst in December 2022, Vanneck-Smith co-founded Tortoise Media and held senior advertising and marketing roles at The Telegraph and The Occasions. As CMO at The Occasions, she led the paper’s transfer to paid digital subscriptions and was accountable for creating the UK’s first information membership model, Occasions+.
Our business grew up judging success by yesterday’s gross sales figures, and culturally, we’ve needed to transfer away from that retail mentality.
Katie Vanneck-Smith, Hearst UK
Now, most of the senior management groups have a background in advertising and marketing. For instance, Good Housekeeping’s managing director Liz Moseley, who joined the enterprise in 2023, was as soon as CMO of Ascential and was head of selling at Information Worldwide.
“[We’ve put] entrepreneurs into all the key roles in our enterprise… the one factor they’re not working at Hearst proper now [is finance],” she laughs.
Information and product growth additionally now sit beneath advertising and marketing, which Robinson says has been key to driving progress. The corporate additionally established an insights workforce to assist deepen its understanding of audiences and inform product growth, an space Vanneck-Smith admits had been “missing”.
“We’ve constructed or strengthened these features, and that’s been an enormous enabler,” Robinson provides. “It’s given our content material groups a a lot deeper understanding of their audiences and the utilisation of knowledge – whether or not that’s for viewers progress, driving extra buyer worth or income from clients.”
Memberships
When Robinson joined, he discovered Hearst was sturdy at promoting print subscriptions however struggled to retain readers. “We needed to create a lot better buyer alternative,” he explains. One of many options was to introduce a membership programme for every model.
“As an alternative of getting a shallow relationship the place we promote one kind of product to clients, we developed three tiers for a lot of the manufacturers that we’ve,” he provides. “Out of the blue, we had a much wider alternative for purchasers.”
Traditionally, the UK has been a retail-first marketplace for media, with newsstands dominating gross sales, due to this fact subscription-based fashions have been slower to take maintain, claims Vanneck-Smith.
“The UK has by no means been a subscription-first territory; it’s at all times been a retail-first territory,” she provides. “However all subscription companies are marathons, not sprints. Our business grew up judging success by yesterday’s gross sales figures, and culturally, we’ve needed to transfer away from that retail mentality.”
Since reshaping its enterprise mannequin, the media firm has made membership central to its efforts to deepen buyer relationships and diversify income.
“There’s been an enormous quantity of labor over the previous two to 3 years, however there’s nonetheless extra to do by way of educating inside the enterprise, but in addition serving to clients perceive what which means,” Robinson provides.
Hearst has rolled out tiered memberships throughout its manufacturers, every with totally different worth factors and advantages. For instance, Good Housekeeping’s top-tier VIP membership (£149 per yr) affords members the prospect to check merchandise every month, attend unique in-person occasions resembling a e-book membership, and entry particular reductions and rewards. The model additionally affords a basic membership (print and digital) for £54.99 a yr, and a purely digital membership for £19.99.
The strategy seems to be paying off. The writer delivered its first year-on-year circulation improve since 2010, up 2% in 2024, with 19.4 million journal copies bought over the yr. Throughout the broader business, journal circulation fell 7.3% in 2024, based on the most recent ABC Client Report.
A part of the duty was getting the corporate or colleagues to consider our titles as manufacturers, slightly than merchandise which have grown up as magazines.
Katie Vanneck-Smith, Hearst UK
Regardless of the long-term decline in print, Good Housekeeping has remained resilient. Its circulation topped 370,000 final yr, in contrast with round 400,000 twenty years in the past.
Nonetheless, whole income at Nationwide Journal Firm Ltd, Hearst UK’s authorized title, fell 6.5% to £104.6m within the yr to 31 December 2024, down from £111.9m. Digital promoting income dropped by £6.5m, with common month-to-month UK web page views declining 12% to 24.3 million – a fall the corporate linked to modifications in search engine algorithms.
For Vanneck-Smith, membership affords the long-term, relationship-driven mannequin wanted to construct sustained progress. “I like membership as a result of it drives progress throughout each method we measure success – buyer worth and quantity.”
The corporate’s viewers numbers replicate this shift, with digital subscriptions up throughout all manufacturers, with a 25% improve total within the yr, based on accounts filed to Firms Home in September.
Investing again in model and advertising and marketing
Following this success, Hearst is growing funding in advertising and marketing. Later this month, Good Housekeeping will launch its first TV advert this century, a significant milestone for the 100-year-old model.
It’s been investing in radio, with Robinson including that above-the-line advertising and marketing has already made an impression.
“As quickly as you spend some cash, even on radio, all of the sudden the viewers goes up, and due to this fact you’re changing a a lot greater variety of members, which is somewhat bit unusual while you speak to a enterprise that hasn’t ever actually totally embraced or invested in advertising and marketing earlier than, however we’re already seeing these outcomes, so we’re excited,” Robinson says.
Like many media corporations, Hearst faces rising competitors from social platforms and shifting client habits. Print promoting spend has fallen lately, and plenty of publishers have leaned closely into efficiency advertising and marketing to ship short-term returns.
Vanneck-Smith understands the enchantment. “I grew up in a world the place we had the strapline: ‘Associates with finance, married to tech’ as a result of that’s how, as a CMO, you may solely ever been seen as a lever of progress, not a value to the enterprise.”
“Efficiency advertising and marketing is a superb factor, as a result of for many people who may by no means get the CFO to grasp the return on funding that we made in advertising and marketing, all of the sudden it was there within the information – you spend a pound, you get £1.30 again. However the entire world received too excited, and the pendulum has swung too far.”
She argues that an overreliance on efficiency advertising and marketing has come on the expense of name constructing.
“We’ve forgotten a number of the primary tenets of what nice advertising and marketing is and what it means for manufacturers to be nice and significant in folks’s lives,” she provides.
“Out of the blue, while you put cash within the high of the funnel and see uplifts throughout all model metrics, it’s simply golden. It ought to function a stark reminder to all entrepreneurs who’re worrying in regards to the decrease funnel: Get proper up there. Get again to telling tales, get again to creating shoppers excited and engaged.”
