Evolving in the ‘now normal’ with timely discussions
By Bjorn Biel M. Beltran, Special Features Writer
WHEN THE COVID-19 pandemic struck, most of the Philippine print industry had already been struggling. Digital media have been slowly draining away advertising, and some readers might have began to question the relevance of print newspapers at a time of instant information and communication. So, when the outbreak began, its impact was nearly lethal.
BusinessWorld, despite being the country’s oldest and most respected business daily, was no exception.
“I remember how optimistic our outlook was for the year 2020 with print adspend on the upswing in the first two months. We began to roll out our 2020 plans, even booked the Grand Hyatt Hotel and sent out invite letters to our speakers for our May BusinessWorld Economic Forum as early as February,” Jay R. Sarmiento, BusinessWorld Sales and Marketing head, said in an interview.
“Then in mid-March, what we thought of as a short-lived Enhanced Community Quarantine became our biggest nightmare. The lockdowns undermined the physical distribution of BusinessWorld. Print revenues sank as advertising campaigns were postponed and ad budgets were reallocated. We were caught in the middle of a lingering and unprecedented pandemic and had to deal with a massive blow to the already struggling newspaper industry.”
The severity of the impact forced the company to put its yearly plans on hold and realign. With the company’s survival at stake, BusinessWorld had to adapt to the rapidly changing environment.
“Realizing that more and more people are relying on social media for news and information, we thought we should follow our readers and provide the business community easy access to reliable and accurate news and information. Thus, BusinessWorld Insights was launched on April 29, 2020 as a live platform to engage high-caliber speakers and experts on COVID-19 health updates, government guidelines, economic trends, and forecasts brought by the current pandemic,” Ms. Sarmiento said.
Working closely with the Editorial team, the Sales and Marketing head focused on what the paper can build on despite all the challenges and limitations of the pandemic. Ultimately, BusinessWorld was successfully able to mount almost 40 online fora in 2020, providing its core audience of business leaders and decision-makers exclusive and valuable multimedia content while opening up new revenue streams for the company.
STAYING COMMITTED TO ITS JOURNALISTIC DUTY
The key purpose of BusinessWorld’s leap into digital media content was the same: providing reliable, insightful news and analysis for the Filipino business community.
“When the pandemic happened, BusinessWorld was able to quickly pivot from this global crisis primarily due to two important factors: its preparation into its digital transformation by honing its multimedia skills and continuously reshaping its tradition of creating editorial content that is thorough, disciplined, and uncompromising,” Lucien C. Dy Tioco, executive vice-president of BusinessWorld, said.
Ms. Sarmiento added that the pivot had been a continuous process. When the company celebrated its 33rd anniversary with the theme “The Road to Recovery,” it came out with a multimedia report combining the power of print, digital, and another exclusive online offering — the BusinessWorld One-on-One, a series of 30-minute exclusive interviews on leadership and management with CEOs and industry experts and BusinessWorld’s Editor-in-Chief, Wilfredo G. Reyes.
“Our flagship on-ground event, the BusinessWorld Economic Forum, was also successfully transformed into a two-day groundbreaking virtual forum in November 2020, with 1,200 attendees engaging our 43 international and local speakers and supported by more than 30 companies,” Ms. Sarmiento said. “This was followed by another successful special edition run in May 2021. It focused on digital transformation, which has become the necessary tool for most businesses to survive this crisis. Preparations are also now under way for our major BusinessWorld Economic Forum in November this year.”
“With these digital platforms and along with other innovative initiatives born out of a crisis, we were not just able to reconnect with our audience but we were also able to engage, guide, and empower them as they went through their respective journeys of recovery.”
Mr. Reyes added that staying true to the newspaper’s duty as a public trust allowed it to connect with its core audience and deliver the content that they need to navigate the challenges of the pandemic.
“Helping our public recover from this crisis by giving it the knowledge it needs at the right time is a top consideration in our content production, both on print and online. The crisis actually opened new channels to make and deliver more content to a bigger audience,” the editor-in-chief said.
“Decision makers of varied organizations, big and small, remain a key segment of our readership and audience,” he continued. “I recall a recent conversation with a speaker in one of our webinars who said a top official censured him for what he said. I asked him why speak up only now when he had spoken on TV quite a few times before that webinar. He replied: ‘Because it was BusinessWorld.’”
He added that the current crisis even opened up new opportunities for BusinessWorld’s staff to unearth talents previously unknown.
“The fact that our new channels have been successful in providing information proves that demand is there, and I do not expect us to scale back this effort. In fact, I expect that effort to increase,” he said.
Sharlitte Iza M. Cordero, BusinessWorld Brand Marketing supervisor, pointed out that the paper’s 34-year-long history of journalistic integrity and excellence allows it to provide the most relevant information for its audience.
“Fueled by the right content, audience and medium, the paper — through BusinessWorld Insights — is seen to be our readers’ beacon shedding light on the ambiguity that this pandemic has brought by discussing the most pressing issues with leaders in the public and private sectors across industries,” Ms. Cordero said.
Moving forward, this deep connection with its audience is what BusinessWorld hopes to cultivate as it continues to grow and explore the potential of the digital platform.
“The pressure of the new normal has made us sharpen our vision for BusinesssWorld. We need to constantly reinvent in order to flourish and future-proof our business. We must be mindful and ready to shape our business models according to the new consumer behaviors to survive, thrive, and ensure relevance in the new world. What’s more, whatever path a newspaper was already on — in terms of transition to digital — is probably now accelerated by four years,” Ms. Sarmiento said.
“Given that physical and virtual will most likely coexist in new ways in a post-pandemic world, we need to harness the power of the digital networks that connect us even more, while preserving the power of print in providing high-quality and credible information, pandemic or not.”
