Reach’s digital strategy had previously been primarily focused on driving the highest volume of page views. This had placed them in the enviable position of having an extraordinary digital reach (c. 40 million unique viewers per month) across its UK sites, and of having significantly grown their digital revenues, both organically and inorganically, over the previous few years.
However, the market was seeing digital advertising revenues slowing or reversing, and there was therefore a need to build out and future-proof the digital strategy for the next few years. This strategy was to focus in particular on capturing data across the multitude of Reach’s national and local news sits and using that data to better inform decision making to ensure that Reach continued to meet changing consumer demands.
Q5 was asked to support a truly cross-functional (and pan-organisational) project team to develop the Reach strategy over a 10-week period, to be presented to and signed off by the Board.
We worked absolutely hand-in-hand with the project team in order to develop, test and ultimately make decisions on a range of options and what would be required to deliver those options. Across the course of the 10 weeks, we undertook the following: