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Harare Bureau
ZIMBABWE’S biggest integrated media house, Zimpapers 1980 Ltd, is geared to open the gap with its competitors by implementing innovative strategies and new trends in publishing after sending a high-powered team to the just-ended World Association of Newspapers Congress in Washington DC.

Zimpapers was represented at a high level by the Group CEO Pikirayi Deketeke, Group Marketing and Business Development director, Tapuwa Mandimutsira, Group Editorial Executive, William Chikoto, Herald editor, Caesar Zvayi and The Chronicle editor, Mduduzi Mathuthu.

The congress ran from June 1-3 in the American capital.

The Group CEO focused on the business strategy meetings, with the editors attending the World Editors Forum while the Group Marketing Executive attended the Advertising, Circulation and Marketing Forum.

Deketeke described the congress as an eye-opener, saying its recommendations would help position Zimpapers to meet the challenges of the present and future.

“The congress exceeded our expectations as it opened our eyes to the new trends in the fast changing global media landscape and provided solutions to some of the challenges and questions we have been grappling with,” Deketeke said.

“We were exposed to ideas on how to generate reader revenue through reader engagement as well as understand branded content strategies. We believe that with such international exposure, we are poised to remain the market leader in the media industry.”

Chikoto, the Group Editorial Executive, who is in charge of in-house training, described the conference as a must for any serious media manager.

“The Congress brought to our attention, among other things, how modern newsrooms are organised to facilitate new ways of telling stories and generating revenue, such as pooling together the journalists, marketing representatives and developers,” he said.

“Training needs in new media were also brought to the fore and we will be looking at all that going forward.”

For Mandimutsira, the Marketers Forum could not have come at a better time for while it showed that money was still in the newspapers, it highlighted alternative revenue streams that would enable the Group to monetise all platforms.

The Herald editor Zvayi was effusive about the conference.

“When you get media luminaries and scholars together to dissect the newspaper business, the result can only be priceless. We learnt global best practices that will enable The Herald to consolidate its position as a market leader,” he said.

“I won’t say much for I would be giving the game away, but readers can expect exciting changes in The Herald in the coming months.”

The Chronicle’s editor Mathuthu added: “The newspaper industry the world over is not in a healthy state, grappling with the fast-paced technological advancements which mean we are increasingly not the source of breaking news.

“In our sick state, the WAN congress is a hospital for the world’s newspapers to map new strategies for survival. I’m more convinced today than ever before that new changes, especially on our online platforms, will make The Chronicle the newspaper of the future.”

The three-day congress brought together experts from around the world to examine the hot topics and best practice in digital business and new media strategy. It explored areas like programmatic advertising with successful case studies from Europe, Asia, Brazil and the United States.

For the past 14 years, Zimpapers has been participating in the World Association of Newspapers congresses as a full member of WAN and the Group managed to launch exciting projects like the tabloids H-Metro and B-Metro, that were influenced by the research conducted by WAN on how newspaper companies were segmenting their products to reach new audiences and advertising markets.

On the digital front, the Group managed to adopt an early digital strategy that culminated in the launch of Mobile News, Social Media and interactive websites among other products following the Group’s WAN study tours of the New York Times, Washington Post, CCN.com, Huffington Post and Reuters Digital among other leading publications.