This document summarizes a presentation given by Christian Ortner on the multi-brand strategy of Vorarlberger Medienhaus. Vorarlberger Medienhaus operates two flagship brands in Vorarlberg, Austria - the regional newspaper Vorarlberger Nachrichten and the regional news portal VOL.at. While the newspaper and news portal have separate brands, teams, and editors-in-chief, they also collaborate by using each other's content and marketing channels and by pooling resources like photographers. The multi-brand strategy allows both the newspaper and news portal to better serve their separate target audiences with different production schedules and levels of interactivity.

1. 18th WORLD EDITORS FORUM
Session: Integration: the latest experiments in a multi-
platform age
Title: The multi-brand-strategy of Vorarlberger Medienhaus
Speaker: Christian Ortner
Mark your calendar
64th WORLD NEWSPAPER CONGRESS
19th WORLD EDITORS FORUM
Vienna, Reed Messe Wien
www.wan-ifra.org/kiev2012

2. The multi-brand-strategy of
Vorarlberger Medienhaus
Separated brands, one goal
Christian Ortner
Editor-in-Chief Vorarlberger Nachrichten
World Editors Forum, October 14th, 2011

3. Vorarlberg, a special place
Vorarlberg is Austrias most western state and
the homemarket of Vorarlberger Medienhaus
371.000 inhabitants
Over 90% reach with all the house‘s products
190.000 daily readers of flagship-newspaper „VN“
100.000 daily Unique Clients on our newsportal VOL.at
Rolemodel for regional markets in Romania, Hungary

4. Our flagship brands
• Regional Newspaper • Regional Newsportal
• paid; 260 Euro/year • free
• Founded 1945 • Founded 1995
• 57% reach • 64% reach
• 95% subscribers • strong subbrands
(Internet-Provider,
Mobile-Provider)

5. How we work
• Separate brand, team, • Separate brand, team,
Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief
• Editorial staff of 40 that • Editorial staff of 10
focus on print • 4 Mobile Journalists
production • 4 Photographers that
• Online first with a right service online and print
for „exclusive“ content

6. Why we prefer the two brand strategy
• Online and print are „different animals“
• One deadline vs. 24/7
• Different target groups
• Newspaper is the „ultimate browser“,
gives a perfect overview in 30 minutes
• Newspaper has a beginning and an end
• Webportal uses live-coverage wherever possible –
every story should be a „developing story“ - 3-
minute-rule
• Completely different time schedules
• Rather fueling a tough internal contest than giving
competitors any space

7. Why we prefer the two brand strategy
• Immediate Interaction with online-users
• Integrated newsrooms can‘t change the heartbeat of
print staff – there is danger that the onlineportal is
not the main product or even that both channels
lose.

8. But there is common sense …
• We use synergies
– Of course „digital first“ – breaking news
– photographers are pooled in the online team for all
media-brands
– Every day by 6 a.m. 90 % of newspaper content is
somewhere on the onlineportal. But it‘s a different mix. And
it‘s in the online editors decision.
– Online provides pooled databases (soccer-results, events,
obituaries, …)
• We use each others marketing channels
• To gain speed we reversed the production workflow
(from online to print) in hyperlocal stories and live
events. Our hyperlocal Newspaper is made out of
the website.

9. Christian Ortner
christian.ortner@vn.vol.at
Thank you.