AND news - July 2008
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Lasting Tribute Nominated for DPA Award top honour
The Sky’s the limit for BeMyInterviewer.co.uk
Big Green Switch wins Campaign for Change award at New Statesman New Media Awards
Digital Property Group commits to multi-brand strategy for Primelocation.com and FindaProperty.com
Lasting Tribute Nominated for DPA Award top honour
Lasting Tribute has been shortlisted for the top honour in the 2008 Data Publishers Association awards.
The UK’s biggest online memorial website has been named as a finalist in the Product Development of the Year category – but judges also shortlisted it for the DPA’s biggest prize, The Outstanding Achievement of the Year award.
Since it was launched by Associated Northcliffe Digital’s Derby-based new product development division in May 2007, Lasting Tribute has established itself as the market leader with more than a million tributes already on the site. Each month it currently receives just under two million page views from more than 170,000 unique users.
White label versions of the website have been created for 30 of AND’s sister regional newspaper websites in the Northcliffe Media group.
Operations Director for Digital Publishing, Elaine Pritchard said: “We are delighted to be selected for these two prestigious awards. Everyone within the Lasting Tribute team has worked incredibly hard over the last 12 months to provide an innovative and thoughtful service which brings people together to share their memories and pay tribute to loved ones and those in the public eye.
“We believe that our pre-moderation of all content, and our high level of customer service, is unique in the UK for this type of site and we have received many touching testimonials from users who assure us that the site is a great comfort to them.”
Lasting Tribute has a page for every British soldier who has died in the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. When the 100th British soldier was killed in Afghanistan, a Heroes of Afghanistan application was produced to sit on sister Northcliffe websites and other external websites.
Lasting Tribute also works in partnership with Marie Curie Cancer Care and When You Wish Upon A Star and has created an online Field of Hope and the ability to Dedicate a Star in a virtual night sky.
Other recent developments on the site include the ability to set-up RSS feeds and to add a virtual gift for any tribute page on the site.
Winners of the DPA awards, which recognise and promote excellence in directory and data publishing, will be announced in Brighton on October 23.
For more information on Lasting Tribute contact Elaine Pritchard, Operations Director, Digital Publishing, on 01332 228005 or email elaine.pritchard@and.co.uk.
The Sky's the limit for BeMyInterviewer.co.uk
BSkyB’s Talent Resourcing manager John-Paul Cardew, has joined www.bemyinterviewer.co.uk - Jobsite’s interactive video-based website which enables jobseekers to practise for interviews. He joins leading bosses including Duncan Bannatyne, Ruth Badger and Jacqueline Gold in asking candidates key interview questions on topics including money, experience, personality and selling yourself.
Launched in February 2008 BeMyInterviewer offers a completely new way to prepare for interviews. In the first three months that it’s been live, BeMyInterviewer has attracted over 127,000 unique visitors to the site, with over a million videos streamed. BeMyInterviewer has also increased applications to Jobsite’s clients’ vacancies, with over 16,500 candidates coming through to view vacancies on Jobsite following their interaction with the interviewers on BeMyInterviewer.
BeMyInterviewer is updated regularly with new interviewers and is a helpful preparation tool for recruiters who are sending candidates to interviews. Equally, HR Directors and those responsible for interviewing will find BeMyInterviewer a useful resource in learning how their peers conduct interviews and get the most out of candidates.
As the latest new addition to BeMyInterviewer, John-Paul Cardew’s interview style offers an interesting insight of recruitment in the major media company BSkyB. Working in partnership with internal clients, Cardew and the Broadcast & Corporate Resourcing team offer a customer-focused outlook which enables them to work proactively to engage the highest calibre individuals to become part of the BSKYB success story.
Cardew complements fellow media sector BeMyInterviewer panellist Moray Coulter (Production Talent Executive for ITV) to help prepare candidates for interviews for media roles.
Commenting on his interviewing experience, John-Paul Cardew says; “I view the interview as a two way street. It’s more than just skills and experience, at Sky we are looking for candidates who are very engaged with BSkyB and the products we offer and reflect our culture and values. My pet hate is when candidates haven’t done research on the company before their interview; researching is critical to being successful at interview and showing a real knowledge of the company as well as the job you’re going for. I’m pleased to be part of BeMyInterviewer, preparing candidates for interview, as I believe it’s important that candidates are relaxed at interview in order to get as honest an assessment of them as possible.”
To watch the latest new addition to BeMyInterviewer, please click here.
For more information please email bmi@jobsite.co.uk
Big Green Switch wins Campaign for Change award at New Statesman New Media Awards
Big Green Switch was last night named the winner of the Campaign for Change category in the New Statesman New Media Awards.
The website, which aims to empower people to make choices that help them live a greener life, was launched in May 2007 by Associated Northcliffe Digital’s Derby-based new product development division.
White-labelled versions of the website have been created for several of AND’s sister regional newspaper websites in the Northcliffe group including the Derby Telegraph, Leicester Mercury, Nottingham Post, Bristol Post, The Sentinel and the Western Daily Press.
Big Green Switch’s carbon footprint calculator and a tip of the day feature are also carried on the DMGT-owned Metro website.
Big Green Switch offers independent information and advice for those who want to be more environmentally-friendly and encourages visitors to share their own ideas and experiences via community message boards, comment panels and blogs.
Site manager Steve Allen said: “Our aim is to encourage people to learn about being green without feeling pressured or lectured. The emphasis is on achievable ideas which are easy to put into practice. ‘Start small and do more when you are ready’, is the key message.
“We are delighted to have won the award for Campaign for Change and proud to be recognised for having created what we feel is a clear, fair and positive information portal where anyone can find all the advice and knowledge they need.
“We would like to thank users for their continued support and daily website interaction which has helped us to build this online green community.”
The site also includes tools and features such as a green products shop,environmental jobs search engine and a directory of other green websites, businesses and organisations.
Judges decided that out of all the entrants in the Campaign for Change category, Big Green Switch had most effectively influenced opinions and behaviour through the use of new media technology. It championed a cause and provided information and tools to instigate change, they believed.
Big Green Switch currently receives about 45,000 unique visitors a month who between them look at about 300,000 pages.
The prestigious annual New Statesman awards, now in their 10th year, aim to highlight the positive impact of new media technology on public life. Big Green Switch received its award at a ceremony in central London.
For more information contact Steve Allen, manager of Big Green Switch, on 01332 228022 or email steve.allen@and.co.uk
Digital Property Group commits to multi-brand strategy for Primelocation.com and FindaProperty.com
2nd July 2008
The Digital Property Group, a division of Associated Northcliffe Digital (AN Digital), has reaffirmed its commitment to a multi-brand strategy for its property portals - Primelocation.com, FindaProperty.com, HomesandProperty.co.uk and FindaNewHome.com. Contrary to industry speculation that the websites would be merged into a single property portal, The Digital Property Group will concentrate on building the individual brands to focus on their differing audience groups.
In order to coordinate the multi-brand strategy and maximise the opportunities it offers, AN Digital recently consolidated the brands under the new Digital Property Group division led by Chief Executive, Mark Milner. Following the consolidation, all of the portals in The Digital Property Group will be offered to agents as one package through a single sales representative, the pricing of which utilises a value based model which will take into account a wide variety of factors to calculate a fair and competitive price.
The multi-brand strategy enables agents to showcase their properties to well over two million users through four different portals. Each of the four portals has a distinctive brand with segregated target audiences, demonstrated by the fact that only 16% of users search for properties on both the main web sites FindaProperty.com and Primelocation.com (Source: comScore April 2008)."
The FindaProperty.com audience centres around users in early property life stages – renters and first to third time buyers. As a result, FindaProperty.com is particularly powerful for promoting properties at the lower and middle segments of the market with the highest proportion of email leads coming for rental properties and sales properties priced between £150,000 and £350,000.
FindaProperty.com has expanded its coverage nationwide over the past 18 months with launches in regional cities such as Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham and Cardiff, and the recently announced partnership with Northcliffe Media. However, the web site has a particularly strong audience in London and the South East. This regional strength is used to great effect by the Evening Standard, which uses the FindaProperty.com property search engine to power its Homesandproperty.co.uk site.
In contrast, Primelocation.com attracts an older, more affluent audience centred on later life stages and top end rentals. Primelocation.com generates a higher percentage of leads for properties priced more that £400,000 with a particular strength in the £1 million to £5 million price bracket.
Primelocation.com now benefits from a partnership with the Mail Online, the website of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday website, which itself boasts a global audience of 18.7 million unique visitors.
AN Digital has invested heavily in both FindaProperty.com and Primelocation.com over the past 12 months to deliver its multi-brand strategy. Both sites have benefited from successful re-designs which have reinforced their positioning and further differentiated themselves from each other and the wider competition. In addition, intensive TV advertising campaigns have positioned both brands as “must use” resources for buyers, vendors, tenants and landlords as well as essential tools for estate agents, lettings agents and developers.
Mark Milner, Chief Executive of The Digital Property Group Ltd comments: “We remain totally committed to a multi-brand strategy and have no plans to merge our property portals into a single site. Both Primelocation.com and FindaProperty.com have proved very successful with their respective target audiences and we will continue to keep them as differentiated brands in the eyes of the consumer. However, we believe that offering our portals as a single package will enable agents to market their properties to a broad spectrum of the market in a targeted and cost effective way.”
Mark Milner continues: “Our aim is to focus on return on investment for our customers and ensure that we offer agents a powerful marketing solution in what are proving to be very challenging market conditions. We have recently made a multi-million pound investment in print and television advertising for both Primelocation and FindaProperty and will continue to extensively promote all of our brands to consumers. ”
For further press information please contact TTA Group:
Peter Walker, 020 7886 0274 / 07989 391 791
email: pwalker@ttagroup.co.uk