February 2008

Media group and idea factory Over the space of just a few years, Egmont has become financially armed to meet the future. However, with dramatic changes looming among consumers, advertisers and competitors, money alone will not cut the ice. Egmont needs to get ultra fit when it comes to implementing new ideas. January 23 marked the kick-off when 180 managers from 38 companies in 20 countries got together to turbocharge innovation at Egmont.

Henrik Harring Jørgensen / Corporate Communications / harring@egmont.com / Photo: Olga Posashkova

Normally simple mathematical formulas and the thrilling stories created by the media industry are worlds apart. However, on January 23, statistics and strategy converged when 180 managers from 38 companies in 20 countries met for an Egmont management conference to address the theme of growth and innovation.

The mathematical formula Moore’s law was one of many examples that set the course for development over the coming years, along with inspiration from two of the world’s most respected experts in strategy and innovation, plus insight into some of Egmont’s successes.

In 1965 electronic engineer Gordon Moore came up with the following formula: that computer power will double every 18 months while computer prices will be halved. This forecast has proved true every year since then. Nonetheless, ten years ago, few people could have envisaged that a cell phone would have capacity for 25,000 songs, films, good stereo sound and fast Internet access. Three years ago the huge success facebook.com and Youtube.com enjoyed in 2008 would also have been hard to foresee. Anyone in doubt that the revolution in media habits will continue would do well to check

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out Moore’s law: ten years from now, a cell phone will represent the data volume equal to the combined server capacity of all US universities today. Predicting the three-, five- or ten-year impact of this development on how written, drawn and film stories make their way to consumers requires a leap of the imagination, good ideas and excellence in uniting the two elements in the form of changes and new initiatives. Egmont is thus sharpening focus on innovation as a crucial step on the path to growth, which had already started accelerating in 2006.

Innovation “We have to turn Egmont into an idea factory. It’s not only about thinking up new ideas and inventions, we also need to be able to put them into practice. We will put innovation at the top of the agenda, both to protect our current activities and to generate new business areas.

Innovation is the key to Egmont’s future growth,” said President and CEO Steffen Kragh when he opened the conference.

But growth does not come by itself. Egmont has to adapt to and overcome many challenges. For one thing,

Steffen pinpointed the stagnant international growth rates in the traditional media. Furthermore, the media industry is changing faster than ever before – particularly from print and TV to digital media. This trend intensifies the competition for the best content, the most attractive rights and the brightest talents.

Læs mere på Insight om Egmonts lederkonference 2008.

Good platform for growth Despite the numerous challenges presented by tomorrow’s media market, Egmont still has positive opportunities and potential.

Steffen stressed Egmont’s satisfactory growth in past years. Earnings have stabilized at a satisfactory level despite numerous investments. Equity – and thus the strong backing needed for company acquisitions and new launches – has also grown significantly. In addition, revenues have been increasing since 2006. Month by month, a wide range of companies have consolidated their positions, while Egmont has invested larger sums in more companies. The main investments include a 50% stake in TV 2 Norway, Bonnier Forlagene in Denmark and the merger of the Damm and Cappelen publishing companies in Norway.

“This growth will continue in the years ahead – organically and through acquisitions and investments.

We have plenty of options and considerable resources to finance them,” said Steffen.

There were grins all round when Ivar Samrén, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, took the podium at the conference. He established that the developments of recent years are reason for everyone to smile and, on behalf of the Board, congratulated the participants on their results to date. Ivar Samrén expressed his full confidence in the ability of Egmont’s managers and employees to find the right solutions to the challenges of this highly competitive media market.

16 years in Vilnius Bordering Eastern Europe and on the route to Asia, Vilnius was a natural midway location for the annual management conference. Egmont has run operations in Lithuania since 1992, where the 14 employees focus on magazines for children and teenagers. Despite over 1,000% inflation in its inception year, Egmont sustained its belief in a market for good stories.

Since then, the national economy has returned to a more normal level, and the results have rewarded Egmont’s patience. Revenues in Lithuania have increased by more than 20% annually over the past five years.

Michael Ritto, Nordisk Film.

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Lively living images Egmont’s management conferences also address cooperation, a quality that, along with creativity and storytelling ability, was put to the test when Egmont’s managers were thrown into the role of filmmakers.

Professor and author Costas Markides

Frank Knau, Egmont International.

shared his expertise and experience as an internationally recognized expert in strategy and innovation. Costas Markides stressed that new ideas do not come of their own accord. Companies must create an environment that not only spawns innovative ideas but also ensures they are realized and rewarded. The ability to

“Don’t tell it. Show it!” That is a key rule of thumb when film people create stories. After a 90-minute fun but hectic session at the conference in Vilnius, all the other conference participants had also taken this rule to heart.

Finance people, journalists, marketing managers, HR managers, directors and everyone else in the room had an hour and a half to devise, record and edit a short film about innovation. And that included

learning how to use the sophisticated videocamera, a first for most of the novice cameramen. Nonetheless, divided into 24 groups, the Egmont managers quickly established creative partnerships spanning the experience, qualifications and cultures of the 38 countries and 20 different nationalities represented. All the films were finished on time, bearing witness to the fact that not only had the international teamwork been efficient and targeted, it had also been fun. / HHJ

implement new ideas is what creates value.

With the deadline only 90 minutes away, ideas have to be transformed into action quickly. On the Steffen Kragh pointed out that Egmont has become a market leader in a wide variety of markets in

right, Anette Wad, managing director of Lindhardt & Ringhof, in a creative mood, helped by (left to

recent years while also stabilizing earnings at a high level and making heavy investments. Equity has

right) Cathrine Adams, Serieforlaget Norway, Christian Steen Jensen, Serieforlaget Denmark, Håkan

grown too and with it the financial strength necessary to acquire more companies.

Hildingsson, Egmont Kärnan, and Jacob Elkær-Hansen, Nordisk Film Biografer.

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Rising cultural exports Scandinavian authors are selling better and better away from home. Both the Norwegian publisher Cappelen Damm and Denmark’s Lindhardt og Ringhof have sold more titles to other countries than in past years. International markets may not always be goldmines for publishers, but for authors an international presence is of the essence both financially and in PR terms.

Daniel Dyrbjerg / Corporate Communications / dbd@egmont.com

Egmont publishers Lindhardt og Ringhof in Denmark and the Norwegian Cappelen Damm, in which Egmont holds a 50% stake, have both effectively marketed Scandinavian authors in other countries. The publisher’s financial pay-off may be negligible compared with the earning potential in domestic markets, but for authors international sales have tremendous value.

“Authors always want more readers, in other countries too. They want to reach a broader audience, and an international name is also a stamp of literary quality and topicality,” explains Pip Hallén, Rights Director at Cappelen Damm Agency.

Susanne Gribfeldt, Foreign Rights Manager at Lindhardt og Ringhof, nods in agreement: “It’s important for writers to see their books in a different language. Financially important, of course, but the pleasure of seeing their books in English, for example, far exceeds the financial benefits. Having readers beyond the Danish borders really means something.”

According to Susanne Gribfeldt success breeds success. When Scandinavian books sell well, more markets open up to Danish and Norwegian authors. Once foreign publishers have discovered an author, selling others of the same nationality gets easier, a fact that Pip Hallén confirms: “International readers and publishers have become

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more aware of Norwegian literature since a handful of writers paved the way.”

Asian acknowledgement As well as selling to the neighboring Scandinavian markets, Nordic literature has also been discovered in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Russia. At the same time, interest is growing in the US and the UK, but Asia is currently the hottest spot for Nordic books, with South Korea, Japan and China all buying more titles than in the past.

Pip Hallén believes that in parallel with the general globalization trend, books are also traveling more – and further afield: “The world is shrinking, and people are working together in countless ways across the globe, also in literature. Support schemes for translation have also improved.”

Susanne Gribfeldt has noticed the changes in the market as well: “The market has opened up. We’ve seen interest from previously indifferent countries like Russia, so I think it will actually be easier to sell Danish books abroad. If we sell ten books to South Korea, greater interest is generated there too.”

There is, however, a ceiling, Pip Hallén points out:

“Last year the Danish invasion of Great Britain meant Danish authors got a foothold in the Anglo-Saxon world, including the US, which has previously been self-contained. They have realized that good literature can also come from Scandinavia,” Susanne Gribfeldt explains.

“It may be easier to sell our own authors, but the focus is also gradually shifting towards other countries.

Naturally there are limits to how many Norwegian titles a foreign publisher can have on its frontlist.”

Future frontiers The future for Scandinavian books is bright, according to Pip Hallén and Susanne Gribfeldt. Cappelen Damm Agency has had a banner year. More than 300 of its titles

achieved international sales, with quite a few authors selling to only one or two countries and others successfully reaching more. The company has increased its sales every year, setting a new record in 2007.

Lindhardt og Ringhof has followed suit. The publishing company sold more titles to other countries than in preceding years, while simultaneously recording growing interest in Danish works – literary fiction, reference works and children’s books alike.

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Oscar-winning recipe With five nominations and a genuine Oscar adorning the mantelpiece, Kim Magnusson, managing director of Nordisk Film Production, is probably the Danish man who knows best what it takes to be considered for this Hollywood tribute.

brought home masses of new ideas. Naturally, when we get nominated ourselves, this is a chance for Nordisk Film to make its mark internationally. Shorts may not attract the most attention in Denmark, but Denmark clearly ranks among the heavyweights in the world top league.”

Nanna Lindhardt / Nordisk Film/ nanna.lindhardt@nordiskfilm.com / Photo: Oscars.org and Nordisk Film

1. Release a movie in the US All films that have premiered in the US and been screened in American movie theaters make it to the first round of nominations. The members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences cast their votes in each category based on an objective professional evaluation – for example, only screenwriters vote for nominees in the category “Best Original Screenplay”.

2. Become an Academy member As a member of the Academy, you are entitled to vote for the Oscar nominees. To qualify for membership, you must be invited by two existing members. The Academy then assesses whether your contribution to American filmmaking or cinematographic art generally makes you eligible.

Naturally, a nomination helps – and actually winning an Oscar automatically confers Academy membership.

3. Make sure people remember your movie!

Both before and after the nominees are announced, the various film companies lobby incessantly to get people to vote for their films. Kim Magnusson especially remembers

Oscars and short films Over the past decade, the Academy has selected Danish short films on several occasions. Kim Magnusson has been shortlisted for the producer or executive producer awards no fewer than five times.

This year he stands a chance of a sixth nomination.

1. Ernst and the Light (1997) – nomination 2. Wolfgang (1998) – nomination 3. E lection Night (1999) – won an Oscar for “Best

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an incident in 1998: “Fox had specifically asked the Danish distributor, Constantin Film, to make sure that Bille August and I saw Titanic. Constantin hired the largest theater in the former Palladium movie theater and told us to turn up whenever it suited us – it was pretty cool!”

Facelift for Egmont’s annual report

4. Cross your fingers …

Once the nomination ballots have been counted, the two auditors Rick Rosas and Brad Oltmanns are the only people who know the final result until the legendary envelopes are opened on stage at the Awards ceremony at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. All being well and provided strikes don’t affect the Awards, the ceremony will take place on Sunday 24 February.

Denmark has another opportunity this year to be nominated for an Oscar, in the “Best Live Action Short” category.

5. Get international attention – and bring ideas home According to Kim Magnusson, simply being part of the voting process is personally and professionally rewarding: “It gives quite a different perspective on what’s afoot outside our own backyard. You see loads of productions from filmmakers the world over, and over the years I’ve

Live Action Short”. (Incidentally, all three films were directed by Anders Thomas Jensen.)

4. This Charming Man (2003) – by Martin Strange-Hansen.

5. Helmer and Son (2007) – nominated for actor Søren Pilmark’s directing debut.

6. When Hardcopy went to press, the short film March was shortlisted along with eight other candidates for nomination in the category “Best Live Action Short 2007”.

Kim Magnusson (right) and Søren Pilmark at

In March, when Egmont officially lets the world know how the company fared financially in 2007, the announcement will have a new look. The annual report will be designed in PDF format so that readers can quickly find the relevant statistics on the net.

We will be publishing no specially printed annual report this year since most people find the facts and figures they need on the net anyway. This year’s report will be available as a PDF document that can be read on www.egmont.com.

Egmont makes its living telling good stories, but to date the story of Egmont’s financial successes has been tucked away in a fat annual report. Instead, this year all employees will receive a special issue of Hardcopy that takes an indepth look at the events of the past 12 months.

The special issue will be an attempt to describe Egmont’s results from employees’ point of view.

With space to tell good stories from our very own backyard, the result will offer a slightly different take on Egmont than a traditional annual report can give. / JST

last year’s nomination lunch in Hollywood.

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