An important goal for Our Media during its participation in Table Stakes Europe was to start moving away from being viewed as a conservative medium towards being seen as a fresh, modern one in order to reach younger people. The publisher also wanted to increase engagement with its audiences by producing more high quality content. A key metric was to track the amount of time that their audiences spent with content.
Our Media SR is one of the leading media companies in Slovakia. One of its main brands is Pravda, the country’s oldest newspaper with a daily print circulation of 24,000 copies. Pravda.sk is one of the top five news websites in the country, but didn’t offer digital subscriptions at the beginning of 2023. The company’s other brands include a cooking magazine and website, as well as popular media and sports websites.
Bratislavia-based Our Media used a short-term experiment to demonstrate to its audience that it was a source of high quality information that could help them with real problems in their own lives. The problem they decided to address was eating disorders, a common, but serious health concern, especially among young people.
The topic was suggested by Monika Kabele, Our Media’s Project Manager, who saw eating disorders becoming a concern in her own family, as well as among many of her friends and acquaintances. This was also something she herself had battled and overcome 20 years ago.
“I know up to 10 people – girls or their parents – who are currently fighting against eating disorders,” Kabele said. “This was when I realised eating disorders are undoubtedly a serious problem, and this topic can be useful for readers who are trying to find some help because the audience is large enough. So in this case, while the idea was raised ‘in our office,’ it is a clear example that we are also part of our audienceS.”
A small team consisting of Kabele and five others then planned a multi-platform project that would examine eating disorders through several lenses, from identifying them to the effects they can have on relationships and also how medical professionals can help people battling the problem.
The six main people working on the package included:
- A journalist who covers health issues
- A journalist who writes about motherhood and childhood problems
- A journalist who covers current problems in society
- A video production manager
- A social media manager
- A marketing team member
Content production and workflows
The team came together and worked very quickly, having only about two weeks from the time they started before they began publishing content, Kabele said.
The marketing department designed the logo and the name of the project, topic hubs (from identifying the problem, through solution options, treatments, contact to help centres) and the time schedule of publishing and platforms. There was also a project manager looking after the complete package of content.
The aim was to publish and broadcast the content during a two-week period beginning on 2 June, which is World Eating Disorders Action Day.
In total, the content package provided a full spectrum of articles and interviews that would help readers and viewers understand the scope of the issue. These included:
- An eating disorder test
- A story about a real mother and daughter
- A video interview with a psychologist
- A video interview with a nutritionist
- A report from a psychiatric hospital
- Helpful contacts
- A video interview with a patient who overcame an eating disorder
“We wanted the whole project to be a benefit for people who struggle with eating disorders to find help in the articles, so we tried to capture the project as a whole – from the first signs and identification of the disease (test, interview with a psychologist who pointed out first signs), through the approach of parents and the environment (an interview with a nutrition specialist and a psychologist), professional help (an interview with a representative of a community association that helps people suffering from anorexia), a reportage of mother and daughter – a true story from a family with encouragement, a report from a psychiatric hospital, which is the last possibility to help,” Kabele said.
The content that performed best were the reportage from psychiatric hospital and the real story of a mother and daughter, with each of these having a “time spent on article” of more than 5 minutes. In addition, Kabele said the real story of the mother and daughter was the second most read article in Our Media’s “Health” section for the month of June.
The “time spent on article” metric is becoming increasingly important both for publishers to know the stories and topics their audiences care about as well as for advertising agencies, which are more and more often also inquiring about engagement rates rather than pageviews alone. “That’s essential, that’s key,” noted the team’s Table Stakes coach, Stéphane Mayoux, who added that the Our Media team has also been sharing more engagement feedback across their stories with the newsroom staff overall as a result.
Feedback from readers and medical professionals
The eating disorders series also received positive responses.
“Doctors as well as readers were glad that we paid attention to such a difficult and sensitive topic,” Kabele said. “We had positive responses, especially for the reportage – the true story of a mother and daughter. The readership was not the highest (though more than 7,000), but the time spent on the article was more than 5 minutes, which is a great sign of quality content.”
The team is planning to revisit this topic in 2024.
“We will certainly revive it. It is a topic that is interesting for young audiences, and acquisition of young audiences is one of our challenges for next year,” Kabele said.
“We will definitely start preparation earlier,” she added.
Based on the positive response they’ve received, Kabele said Our Media is also planning to develop other series that relate to other mental health issues that are common today, such as depression, burn-out, postpartum depression, alcoholism and gambling addiction.