PUBLISHING
The Results
Fractional Leadership that Innovated Operational Solutions
Our year-long fractional leadership resulted in new, globally deployed branding guidelines and offered fresh marketing services and insights in advance of the department’s ultimate reorganization.
Key achievements that surpassed project expectations included revitalizing branding guidelines, establishing the role of a Global Creative Director, formalizing the service innovation process, retraining the Integrated Marketing team, and creating multiple new brand platforms for marketing The Economist to advertisers.
The Challenges
The Integrated Marketing department at The Economist is vital for helping the advertising sales team increase and diversify revenue across all platforms, including print, online, thought-leadership events, and The Economist Intelligence Unit, a bespoke service division. Due to ongoing industry revenue declines, the publisher needed to reconstruct this department and other marketing-related groups. Interim leadership was required to ensure team stability and productivity while providing insights for the upcoming reconstruction efforts.
The Strategy
In addition to maintaining department productivity, we elevated the department’s performance by employing Design Thinking to address both internal organizational challenges and external marketing needs. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, as well as ideation and iterative prototyping, we developed innovative department solutions.
Our interim management not only maintained department productivity but also implemented significant operational improvements in preparation for the planned department reconstruction.