The Inside Scoop on A Publishing Giant

We like to share the great things our customers are doing with censhare, and Hearst UK is no exception. So we’ve gone behind the scenes of this publishing powerhouse and cherished censhare client, to explore its success in becoming a modern media company.

Back in June, I visited Hearst UK in Leicester Square with our project manager Matt Gibbs. The publishing house is famous for its brands, including Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Good Housekeeping and Harper’s Bazaar, and has been using censhare since 2009. We spoke with Bob Bousfield, a publishing technology expert who’s been instrumental in implementing censhare throughout the company, and Sophie Wilkinson, who’s been overseeing programs to streamline Hearst’s print production in the UK.

Where the magic happens

Matt has been working with Hearst since the very beginning of its censhare project. It was clear to me just how closely he, Bob and Sophie work, as well as how well Matt knows the organization and its people. He couldn’t take two steps through reception without stopping to chat to someone he knew!

It’s a strange experience being on the factory floor of where some of the world’s biggest magazine titles are produced. As we walked to our meeting room, we passed journalists on sofas scribbling shorthand while a willing interviewee was spilling the gossip for a weekly glossy. And it was hard not to think who had trodden these corridors, judging by the framed covers on the walls with the likes of Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles staring back at us.

Print’s not dead, it just got leaner

We all know that people buy fewer magazines these days, which is why Hearst has to do more with less – producing the same high quality output while cutting costs and redirecting investment into more profitable areas like licensing its brands for events or hotel breaks. This new business still relies on brand strength, so Hearst can’t afford to compromise on quality when producing its magazines. One thing it has been doing is steadily reducing the cost it takes to produce a magazine page by 5% a year at least. And a great way of doing this is by using censhare to organize and employ some of the tonnes of underused content across its 20+ titles.

This is just one of the many wins Hearst UK has had with censhare. We’ve written a case study which gives you more detail about how the group has been saving money and reinvesting it in new areas. And if you’d like a quicker overview, we’ve condensed the key figures into a one-page infographic.