Petar Pavic, head of R&D at Europapress Holding, discusses the need for the company to innovate and expand its media brand in response to competition in the print market. The proposed approach emphasizes audience engagement, allowing users to contribute content and fostering dialogue between the media and its community. The development of a new medium, named 'Sutra', is introduced, focusing on a collaborative and participatory media production process that aims to integrate print and digital platforms seamlessly.

1. Petar Pavic
Head of R&D
at Europapress Holding / Croatia

2. MARKET ANALYSYS
EPH COMPANY IS A MAJOR PLAYER IN THE PRINT MARKET
CCA 50% MARKET SHARE
GROWING COMPETITION IN THE SEGMENT OF DAILY PAPERS
Needs to fight back
DIFFICULTIES IN CONVERTING TO A TRUE MULTIMEDIA COMPANY
Like the most
2
Corporate decision:
LAUNCH A NEW MEDIA BRAND IN THE SEGMENT OF
NATIONAL DAILY PAPERS
..no other way but to expand
LET YOUR AUDIENCE CREATE THE DIALOGUE!

3. MARKET ANALYSYS
DOUBTS
WHAT EXACTLY SHOULD IT BE?
HOW TO POSITION IT?
WHO ARE THE KEY PEOPLE FOR THE JOB?
WHAT’S THE EDITORIAL CONCEPT?
Clear goals:
SOMEWHERE IN THE TABLOID AREA / MARKET
ACCENT ON READERS INTERACTION
INNOVATE, DO NOT SATURATE
Traditionally, expert teams, board of directors, managers.. would
at this point begin to define the concept, marketing plan,
business plan etc. - and only than the project would start..
3
LET YOUR AUDIENCE CREATE THE DIALOGUE!

4. R&D TEAM PROPOSED A DIFFERENT APPROACH..
Start the project right away,
and include the community in
the process – completely.
4

5. BUSINESS & PRODUCT INNOVATION
total integration of print and online, from the beginning – one process - not
two different media
web “aggregates the content” that is published in print in the morning
users are equal contributors, they can comment but they can also write
articles (if they have that “privilege”)
newspaper is old news, so bring readers good stories and include them
(community) in the process of creating them
use internet as the most important platform for the interaction with users
but also include mobile channel, promoters, call center, letters...
editors become directors of dialogs and discussions
have a small editorial team, mainly focused on the community and the
dialog (not on opinion making and linear monologue)
5
LET YOUR AUDIENCE CREATE THE DIALOGUE!

6. All media resources and stages – one single process with
various (media) products as results.
Interaction with Editorial staff Web – Daily paper – Mobile – push and
readers / users content aggregation of best of content pull heavy duty
production content every day tool
Users / citizen
content Special editions –
production planned, marketed
responses to
Pre publishing stages Publishing phase people's needs and
interests
Media concept Business and Early phase of Beta products and
and positioning marketing preparation testing
planing Advertising, Marketing &
Resources
gathering promotion, Media content,
Business management >
Technical they are all the same
preparation and
process and product! And
production
“Providing constant dialog is gluing
Beta products and them togeher.
dialog platform testing
and selling
expirience” Agile development
And make that a brand value!

7. VISION
IF WE REALLY WANT TO CREATE A MEDIUM FOR OUR AUDIENCE,
WE TRULY NEED TO SHIFT FROM MONOLOGUE TO
DIALOG FROM THE VERY BEGINNING AND BIRTH OF THE
PROJECT IDEA – AND THROUGHOUT IT'S LIFE SPAN.
DIALOG ITSELF BECOMES THE
THAN,
MEDIUM WITH ITS' PHISICAL PROOFS IN PRINT, DIGITAL AND
OTHER FORMS, ON VARIOUS CHANNELS.
7

8. ASSUMPTIONS
..and just like a living human, this kind of media will
learn to walk in the begginning, stump once in a
while, take irrational and rebel moves in it's teens
and be guided with more ratio in its mature stages.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO STRUCTURE AND
PLAN THIS TYPE OF CREATURE? MAYBE NOT, BUT THE
MANAGEMENT INSISTS
ON IT..
8

9. The project
NOVI MEDIJ and it’s development
9
“
A New Medium (translation)

10. TASK 1: FINDING HUMAN RESOURCES
Or the first act of corporate sin
Do
HOW TO FIND THE MOST CREATIVE AND
EXCELLENT PEOPLE FOR THE TEAM?
WILL THEY UNDERSTAND INTERNET?
some
WILL THEY BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR
PRINT?
WILL THE INTERNAL CORPORATE
10
COMMUNITY SUPPORT THIS APPROACH
PR…
AND PROJECT?
HOW TO SHAKE UP THE TRADITIONAL
APPROACH IN MEDIA BRAND MAKING?
LET YOUR AUDIENCE CREATE THE DIALOGUE!

11. TRANSLATION:
DECLARATION FOR
THE NEW MEDIUM
We had enough of old fashioned and
conservative work in existing newspapers and
magazines!
This board of directors is leading us to slowly
into the new era!
Existing management and editors are slowing
us down, there are better ideas!
If you want to use your full potential and all the 11
possibilities of the new media world,
If you want to use your full potential and all possibilities of the new world of media
JOIN US AT: go@newmedium.com
We are looking for editors, journalists,
conceptualists, marketers, adventurers and
businessmen.
WE PAY FOR IDEAS AND OPINIONS!

12. Posters were put up
everywhere in the
company building
during the night,
without the knowledge
of the management
In the morning, entire company
was talking about it, most did not
know who or why did it..
Even some competition media
published various info – “union
rebelion in EPH”
The first buzz about the NEW
kind of project was created.

13. TASK 2: PROJECT
DOCUMENTATION AND
SPECIFICATION
There was non. So we opened up a
project blog to discuss it with citizens
and create it on the go.
13
Every project topic was discussed
publicly, from the starting idea to
sensitive issues such as fees for
citizen’s content or launch dates of
print version.

14. SOME OF THE BLOG POSTS /
DISCUSSIONS:
Citizen – journalist
Could citizens be more accurate and
relevant than professional journalists?
How to balance direct content contribution
and the quality of content?
A new project by EPH – users will create the
content?
14
Decisions will be made by “the ignorant”
Citizens and journalist together to create
things that is of our real interest
How to control the users and check the
relevance of their content?
Anonymous or real names?

15. BLOG AS A PROJECT PLATFORM
every project activity was posted and commented
all ideas where discussed
many young people signed up to become citizen contributors /
journalists even in the early stage
Even without having a detailed plan, the 15
concept, the budget.. we already had a medium
and the users..

16. Workshops
Every Friday public, open workshops were held – for existing
employees from the company and other people that were
interested
Table of content for the workshops:
> Intro presentation about the project 16
> Animated film “The New York Times has gone offline” –by the Museum
of Media History in Florida, USA (http://mccd.udc.es/orihuela/epic/)
> Presentation about importance of relation to the reader (user)
> Discussion and other exercises

17. When journalist from competition's
weekly magazine contacted us and
wanted to interview the editor or the
project leader - we asked her to join us
at our next workshop to find out
everything about the project.
Every work shop was
followed with PR in
companies' existing
newspapers and commented
on the blog. Workshops
were mandatory for project
Workshops and meeting were
team – including developers, truly open for everybody that
designers, journalists.. signed up.

18. UNEXPECTED EXPENSES
Promo spill over to offline
Motovun Film Festival – one of the
best and coolest events in the region,
“everyone will be there” – artists, movie
industry, showbiz, lot's of people. And
not just “internet audience”.
So we sent out our gerilla unit to promote the „new medium“.

19. Because all we are doing is an intereactive
wallpaper and we need citizens not only to
read but also to write.

20. BRANDING
Or for the start, how to find an adequate
name for our “New Medium”?
When a new national daily newspaper is coming out, everybody is
talking about it (Croatian market has 4 national daily papers)
Public and business community always wants to know what will it be.
Traditionally, management and/or marketing experts spend days
20
looking for the most suitable name
But in the concept of “Novi medij”, it was clear that all these facts cry
out for the open and public process, unlike all other media on the
market so far..

21. BRANDING
Public contest campaign for the name
of the new medium was launched..
Campaign (translation):
“Give Me the name”
Your new daily newspaper
Name PR in other “in
nominations and house” print
public voting on and web media
the website

22. BRANDING
Variations on print ADS during the contest
Full page add and
Give me the name other formats
My new daily newspaper

23. BRANDING
Name contest campaign
2 weeks of name nominations
voting process in 3 rounds – selection of 100 names > 20 names > final
Add campaign in “in house” media brands
RISK: legal matters
23
... and the winning entry was..

24. Oops! Contest is hacked!
During the voting period, a group of users decided to
boycott the contest and made an automated voting
procedure for their name nomination: Burek i čevapi -
MEAT-PIE AND
SAUSAGE
Next morning, competition’s business weekly
magazine “Business.hr” published a headline:
EPH almost launched a media product named
“Meat-pie and Sausage”
EPH management was nervous, but project team of
“Novi medij” was happy. Because, as we all know –
“There is no such thing as negative PR!”

25. BRANDING
The last day of voting, at
midnight, we got the
winner, nominated by
graphic designer from
Zagreb.. The name of the
New Medium will be:
SUTRA
Translation:
TOMMORROW 25
Runners up:
2. place: Porta (the Port, the Gate)
3. place: Komentator (the Commentator)

26. BRANDING
Results of “democratic elections”
Public, open web nominations –1000 different valid name nominations
public voting - the public talked about it
Marketing experts screamed, managers were uneasy, users voted – cca.
6000 votes
reward for the winner – digital camera for the “citizen journalist”
discussion on the blog was more active than ever 26
contest was hacked twice
And step by step, EXPERIENCE
is becoming the BRAND..

27. BRANDING
But there is
always a
villain..
On of the most active citizens on the blog, under the
27
user name “Roman” became the biggest opponent of
the project..
His name nomination was “Voice of Cartman” and he
used it to launch “a hate blog” under the domain
http://nomedij.mojblog.hr/..

28. HEAD HUNTING
for the Chief
How to find an “editor in chief” that
will be suitable for this kind of
metamorphosed media?
Print is still the core, revenues must be high, young 28
journalists need guidance, authority and experience..
On the other hand, what if the editor does not recognize
„new medium“ as the core process of creating the dialog,
if he or she does not understand the culture of internet
and online communities..?

29. We
found
him..
“The sollution” was the editor of one small
Go
regional newspaper with this background: 29
created 7 different daily versions of the
same newspaper for every micro region
MICRO!
91% of subscription sales
his mobile phone always opened for
readers’ calls..
he was in constant dialog with his
readers..

30. And most important of all, he
dared to publish this front
page on one of his editions:
Local town has
problems with dog
feces. Town council
Top national news story is not reacting,
of the day – army people are angry
helicopter crashed, dead and fruastrated.
and wounded. Big affair.
But only secondary news This story is
on this front page. relevant to every
reader living in that
particular town. And
it is a headline story
on this front page.

31. And now, the new medium
is entering a second phase..
PLAN:
1. ASAP Launch of BETA portal in a web 2.0 manner
Shift activities from the blog and other dialog platforms to www.sutra.hr
2. Form editorial staff, support, marketing and sales units
Train them on the beta portal 31
3. In the meantime, work on the final version of the portal; launch it with
promotion, including some ATL, BTL, direct & interactive marketing tools
4. Get ready to launch a DAILY NATIONAL NEWSPAPER. This time make a
“big bang”.
5. Don’t ever forget to keep the dialog alive..

32. Launch of BETA portal in a web 2.0 manner
Shift activities from the blog and other dialog platforms to
www.sutra.hr
32
Dialog platform for
editorial staff and citizen
contributors

33. INNOVATION and EXPIRIENCE
through DIALOG.
RESULTS
the whole process, all activities contributed to promotion - on all levels of
project production, with constant user interaction
citizens truly contributed to the creation of business model and market
positioning
33
community was created before the final product – future power users,
readers, maybe even new media or journalist stars
ideal “landing platform” was created for future mass media adv and
communication
Product is continually tested in real time with real users

34. INNOVATION and EXPIRIENCE
through DIALOG.
CONCLUSION
innovation and progress in media brands is not only in content, design or
technology – it should also be in the very process of creating the media
Media products are created every day – wonderful opportunity to invite
the consumer in the process of production 34
Some models and processes in media industry will be uniform in the
future, but it is clear that truly innovative ways of connecting with
consumers and presenting the media product will take significant market
shares

35. Thank you for your attention
and dialog
Petar Pavic
Head of R&D at Europapress Holding
Croatia
petar_pavic@eph.hr