September 2008

SEPTEMBER 2008

New site for movie lovers kino.dk with great ambitions / page 04

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Equipped to lead The latest corporate analyses show that several management areas at Egmont could stand some improvement.

In response to these challenges, Corporate HR has come up with a mandatory management training program, starting this fall for all Egmont managers with personnel responsibility.

Niels Almer / Corporate Communications / nal@egmont.com

Immediate superiors have an enormous impact on their employees’ job satisfaction, a fact that the annual corporate analyses bear out time and again. However, the ability to set goals, motivate, delegate and conduct difficult employee interviews does not come naturally, and in the past many Egmont managers have had to grapple with their lack of prior leadership training.

“Employees are often promoted to managers because of their professional achievements.

There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but the professional competence known as leadership is often overlooked,” says Oliver Uth, senior consultant at Corporate HR.

The first Egmont-wide course “General Leadership Training” is the first obligatory course that Egmont has organized for all its wholly owned companies. Employees who have recently taken part in a similar course or Egmont’s “Young Manager’s Programme” may, however, opt out of the training.

All managers with personnel responsibility will take the course at some point starting in fall 2008. The goal is for everyone to have participated by the end of 2009.

“Day-to-day management is key to Egmont’s competitive ability, which has been entrusted to the company’s employees and management. As a corporate function, the least we can do is provide tools and develop skills to support management,” says Oliver Uth.

But leadership training is only the start of Egmont’s management development initiative. The course is intended to stimulate discussion about management and new perspectives on leadership.

“Obviously we can’t expect to produce the world’s best leader after a three-day course. Real progress only starts once you’re back home and can experiment with and improve your leadership skills,” says Oliver, who sees the development of a common management language as a must for raising the professional status of management work in future.

Sneak preview About 600 managers are set to take the “General Leadership Training” program. Participants will be teamed up according to executive level and division, an approach that will enable them to tackle real-life business challenges during the course. .

Niels Almer / Corporate Communications / nal@egmont.com

Participants in last December’s two “General Leadership Training” pilot courses in Berlin and Copenhagen assessed the new program positively, giving it a score of 4.5 out of 5.5.

“There were times during the course when I and my co-participants stared at the theories outlined on the flip chart and thought: ‘What’s new about that?’, ” explains Stefanie Urbach, who manages the subscription department of Egmont Ehapa. “But the practical part of the course taught us humility. All theory is dull, so the colorful examples from our day-to-day work at Egmont brought the theories to life and helped us to take a deeper look at our daily routines.”

Another participant, Stefanie Köhler, editor-in-chief at Egmont Horizont Verlag, was pleasantly surprised.

“Amazingly, the best part of the course was an aspect everyone normally hates: role play and analyzing each other’s problems. It

was also interesting to meet colleagues from other companies and hear about the challenges they face.

Quite a few of these contacts have already led to working cooperations.”

One course for everyone Although “General Leadership Training” is targeted at line managers, everyone at Egmont will probably notice the impact.

“Employees don’t always have the courage to give their managers good advice about developing management qualities, so the course helps us develop a self-critical approach,” says Stefanie Urbach.

For Charlotte Arnø, project manager at Nordisk Film, the course will make a very tangible difference to her employees.

“The course has given my employees a much better-focused manager! I’ve used some of the tools in the past, but now I do so more consciously and with a clearer aim.”

Good advice If you are an Egmont manager about to take part in “General Leadership Training”, two pilot course participants have a piece of good colleague-to-colleague advice for you: “You’ll get more out of the course if you give some of yourself,” says Charlotte Arnø. “Throw yourself into the games. Even if the initial role play exercises seem somewhat of an ordeal, they’re actually both fun and instructive once you get started,” agrees Niki Robson, who manages Lindhardt & Ringhof’s marketing department.

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“We’ve set ourselves the goal of offering something for all movies, regardless of producer and distributor and which theater is showing it,” says Christian Lund.

Movies for everyone on Kino.dk!

In Denmark 40% of all movie theater tickets are booked online, and this figure is rising. A new Egmont site, Kino.dk, has been launched to improve and extend the buying experience in the digital marketplace.

Niels Almer / Corporate Communications / nal@egmont.com / Photo: Steen Brogaard

Kino is the site Danes visit when they want to find out about movies and buy tickets. Compared with Nordisk Film’s previous movie theater site, Biobooking, Kino is a content site that also offers movie reviews, trailers and discussions. Customers can buy online tickets here, read commentaries, browse photo galleries and watch previews as well as contribute reviews and debate to this new user-generated universe. Moreover, the site has an editorial section with news and gossip about movies and movie stars, with content provided by the Egmont weekly HER&NU. In time, kino.dk also aims to offer DVD and Blu-ray movies to buy or rent.

“Our basic ambition is to make the new site synonymous with movies in Denmark,” asserts Kino’s managing director, Christian Lund. “We want to be

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the first place Danes go for ideas and information before watching a movie in the theater or at home.

And we want them to come back after they’ve seen it so they can inspire others to watch more movies.”

Not only is Kino to be a sales channel for Nordisk Film, it will also attempt to bring the industry together as the Norwegian movie site, Filmweb.no, has done. “Ordinary movie-lovers don’t keep tabs on who produces and distributes the various movies or owns a specific theater. So we’ve set ourselves the goal of offering something for all movies, regard­less of producer and distributor and which theater is showing it.”

This is also why one of Christian’s tasks is to gather competing movie theater sales at Kino.dk and give movie-goers an overall view of what is on offer. “The

movie theaters have given us highly positive feedback about the Kino idea. A market leader in movie tickets that opens up its online ticket sales and simultaneously invites its competitors gives others a unique opportunity to gain a foothold,” Christian explains.

“We want to produce the best movie site for users, and the best way is to cover the whole movie spectrum. Otherwise users will just click on to other sites. Naturally we will display content from Nordisk Film, a crucial market player, but we want to be free to follow users’ preferences. That means independently covering movie news from other producers and distributors and selling tickets to non-Nordisk Film movie theaters.”

See the site at www.kino.dk

Egmont’s online focus The fact that many Egmont customers are spending more time online and advertisers are shifting their budgets from print to online media makes keeping up with this development more important than ever.

Niels Almer / Corporate Communications / nal@egmont.com

Background to Kino.dk: Kino.dk came online at the end of June 2008. The site was built in just four months as a project managed

by Corporate Strategy & Development and Business Consulting in close conjunction with Nordisk Film Biografer.

“The process was hectic, but thanks to the efforts of external suppliers and helpful colleagues at Nordisk Film, we managed to meet the tight deadline,” recalls project manager Michael M. Juul, Corporate Strategy & Development.

“The launch of kino.dk shows that a strong project approach and good inter-organizational teamwork can generate fast, high-quality results despite a strict schedule and an intricate web of of internal and external parties,” emphasizes Business Development Manager John Frederiksen, who drove the Egmont Business Consulting project along with Stephane Salzinger. / NA

Egmont focuses on four areas of the Internet. First and foremost, building leading “vertical sites”, which are focused content sites based on existing consumer relations or know-how in a specific subject area.

Second, focusing on Norway, Egmont is seeking to build and use “traffic machines” that reach a broader target group. At the same time, Egmont has invested in “social media”, particularly in the children and youth target group, and, finally, Egmont is seeking to gain market access via online retailing of products such as magazine subscriptions, books, comics and movie theater tickets.

Many other initiatives throughout the group draw a picture of Egmont as a company preparing to meet new media market challenges. Overall, Egmont has enjoyed the greatest Internet success to date in Norway.

Taken together, Egmont’s online activities in Norway put us among the top five content sites in the country.

Egmont’s strong position in Norway can largely be attributed to two powerful traffic machines, Nettavisen.no and TV2.no. The Kids & Teens division has also successfully acquired several strong social media sites including Popit.no, Biip.no and Stallet. Lastly, the division has established an online store, Univers.no, and the Norwegian bookstore chain Tanum has launched a new online outlet. Hjemmet Mortensen has built or

Online dictionary Traffic machine: A content site with high traffic, a broad target group and high visitor counts, often a news site.

Vertical site: A content site that covers a specific subject area and has a more focused target group.

Social media: Sites focusing on bringing users together or displaying user-generated content.

Online retailing: Sales of physical or digital media products on the Internet.

bought Barnimagen.com, Doktoronline.no and HerogNa.no, all strong vertical sites.

Right now Hjemmet Mortensen is putting the final touches to Klikk.no, the aim being to build a traffic machine by amalgamating 11 strong vertical sites. In Denmark, Nordisk Film aims to use Kino.dk as a means of capitalizing on the growing net buying trend. This issue of Hardcopy focuses on these two sites.

Read more about Egmont’s other new sites on Insight.

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Klikk.no – a team effort The magazine industry is under pressure from digital media. This challenge has spurred Egmont’s Norwegian magazine publisher Hjemmet Mortensen to design a new web site that will revolutionize working routines.

Niels Almer / Koncernkommunikation / nal@egmont.com / Foto: Geir Dokken

In Norway, readers will have to get used to clicking their way to magazine articles. The most popular theme area is “celebrities” along with “food” and “personal relations”, but eight other inspiring subject areas afford plenty of material for the hungry to indulge in.

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“We want to be the best at providing inspiration and topical news in niche areas related to readers’ interest. This will enable us to exploit Hjemmet Mortensen’s power in information and consumer material and outcompete the news websites,” explains Espen Agdestein, managing director of HM Interaktiv.

Hjemmet Mortensen has high ambitions for the new site, Klikk. The goal is half a million weekly users by the end of the year and a million in the long term.

The publisher wants the site to rank among Norway’s five biggest editorial sites.

A team of 32 produce and edit daily news features for Hjemmet Mortensen’s latest project launch.

However, Espen has a good springboard for achieving the ambitious objective: Hjemmet Mortensen’s current websites already attract 350,000 users a week and as of September these sites will be grouped in a pool under Klikk.

“One of the site’s qualities should be that our advertisers can meet their target consumers on Klikk as they check out the market. This parameter is as important as size,” Espen stresses.

Editorial work across brands The idea is for Klikk to be the digital face of the entire Hjemmet Mortensen business. Eleven theme areas mean the magazine content has to be reorganized. For example, although magazines like Bonytt, Rom123 and Hytteliv have their own websites under Klikk, all their content can also be found in a theme section called “Klikk Bolig”.

As well as receiving contributions from the print editorial teams, Klikk employs 32 independent

editorial staff. Handling copyright issues and editorial responsibility can be a little tricky when competing publications are contributing to the same medium.

“It’s a new way of thinking for us,” Espen explains. “Each editor has to work to a corporate strategy rather than following his or her own editorial plan. Everyone who works for Hjemmet Mortensen will also be working for ‘Klikk’.”

“Whenever Bonytt dispatches a journalist on a job, we would like to send a video reporter as well. At the same time, the magazine’s editors and journalists can write blogs on Klikk, and their users can meet in our forum. This will make Klikk a supplementary medium rather than a competitor, and we will have the chance to cross-promote each other,” Hole explains.

Svein-Erik Hole, the editor responsible for Klikk, believes the site’s success directly springs from a cultural shift at Hjemmet Mortensen.

“In our company, the magazines have traditionally worked independently of each other; some are even competitors. The Klikk project will only be successful if we can work together right from the planning stage,” he points out.

Well on the way

Today about a tenth of magazine content is reused on Klikk. The intention over time is to differentiate the magazines and websites to a greater degree.

Many Norwegians already seem to have discovered Klikk. Half of the site’s users have actively typed in “klikk.no” in the address line; in other words, they did not find the site through a search engine.

The first couple of months of pilot testing have also shown heavier traffic than expected, so the prospects look good for Klikk’s becoming one of Norway’s preferred sites for consumer and current affairs features.

See the site on www.klikk.no

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Egmont International Award Show

Best Idea from the Innovation Box

Best Company: Egmont Russia

Two ideas were nominated, but the judges decided there would be no overall winner in this category this year, as no ideas have yet been implemented. For the judges it was important that the two ideas selected for the shortlist were given the space to grow and to be nurtured, and were not put any undue pressure at this stage.

Egmont Russia has more than doubled its turnover in the last four years in an environment that makes most other market challenges look like a walk in the park.

Books for children in hospital The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) does not currently provide any kind of ‘storytelling’ literature aimed at explaining an illness and its treatment to both a child and their parents.

Currently this need is being poorly served by black and white information leaflets for parents alone.

International celebrates High above London’s Thames River, The Tower Bridge Walkway provided the stunning location for Egmont International’s first ever awards ceremony, which Steffen Kragh and Frank Knau jointly hosted on June 18th.

Claire Greaves / Egmont International /

Dominica Jonscher and her team are now in discussion with the NHS about customizing and supplying such products. “Being shortlisted was encouraging for me as it showed that Egmont is enthusiastic about, and believes in the potential of my Innovation idea,” says Dominica.

Free 2 in 1 magazine called MumMe We wrote about this project in the April edition of Hardcopy. Viktoria Ivonova’s idea has now developed into a fully fledged business plan to launch a two in one magazine, one aimed at the mother and the other for the children. MumMe will launch in September.

cgreaves@euk.egmont.com / Photo: Neila

The evening was all about recognizing the people behind some great performance who have really made a difference to their businesses. Colleagues came from as far afield as Turkey, Russia, China and Thailand.

Egmont has always prided itself in being a people business and the awards ceremony was seen by Steffen as a special opportunity to acknowledge just how much great performance takes great people: “It is a celebration of all the great achievements, all the great achievers, all the winners and all the runners up,” he said.

Frank Knau was also keen to point out that the Awards Ceremony will help bring in a new phase for the division: “To me, holding the awards ceremony was the starting point for a new phase in Egmont International. We will put even more focus on innovation – developing and implementing new ideas…”

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“It was particularly nice to be shortlisted in this way because usually you are only shortlisted for something that you have already done and currently both of these ideas are in progress,” says Viktoria.

Although the Russian way of doing business remains challenging, the Egmont team has shone through with their professionalism and entrepreneurial flair. Over the last few years Russia has won 10 national awards for their original works in the categories of writing, illustration and best selling talents.

“I think that Egmont needed something like our own ‘Oscars’. It is a step to becoming a real multi-national company: both very open and friendly, but also very competitive.” Says Lev Yelin, Managing Director of Egmont Russia, who accepted the award on behalf of his company. “Winning the award created a lot of happy moments both in London and in Moscow. Business in Russia is far from easy and quite often we do not fall under the traditional set of rules and requirements, which are commonplace, say, in Copenhagen.

Market realities are very different. It takes time and effort to find the balance between our ambitions for growth and what is seen as a normal Western working capital structure etc. Hence, it was extremely important to see that our business decisions are respected and that our company was named the best performer.”

Egmont International Award Show

Best Innovator: Velizara Dobreva

Best Communicator: Haley Cole

Employee of the Year: Arnhild Käß

Egmont Bulgaria

Egmont UK

Egmont Ehapa

Velizara has been a fantastic innovations champion, not only amongst her colleagues in Egmont Bulgaria but also for her colleagues throughout the division.

Hayley is one of those unsung heroes of Egmont - quietly, positively getting on with a variety of responsibilities and challenges.

Arnhild has worked for Ehapa for 29 years and still has the same level of enthusiasm as if it were her first day.

As Office Manager for two locations and over 200 staff, Hayley has plenty of practical issues to deal with, but has always made time for the innovation process and actively promotes it through Insight. Hayley was also instrumental in setting up Insight originally with Kerrie Culff and Jacek Beldowski.

Arnhild’s colleagues have a huge amount of respect for her positive attitude, optimism and overall level of professionalism.

She was instrumental in building the culture in the Berlin office when Ehapa moved from the original Stuttgart office and she continues to be a role model, living up to our company values of passion, ambition and rummelig.

The development of a successful innovation process is a crucial part of Egmont International’s business strategy. To a large extent its success has relied on the drive and vision of key individuals to help turn the process into an active part of each company’s culture. Zari has used her 17 years experience with Egmont to great affect – networking with other companies, hunting for knowledge across the division and always willing to share her own successes and failures.

“I have received a lot of support and trust during the past months. The award proves to me that my contribution to the process corresponds to the trust that I have been given.

I have been with Egmont for 17 years and the award is also a strong recognition of my work as a whole during these years. I think of this as an award for all of us and thank all my colleagues who have been involved in the process,” thanks Velizara.

“It was an honour just to get to the nominee stage, so being at the ceremony and to have won was really fantastic.” Hayley says, “Having an award ceremony helps to remind us that we’re part of a much bigger picture than that of our own country - it gives the opportunity to form new relationships with international colleagues as well as catching up with people we already know.”

Arnhild is a true team player: “I am very proud and feel that it is a great honour and a very great pleasure. I think that everyone who received an award had great support from his/her colleagues and this is the reason they succeeded – for this reason I think it should also be seen a great honour for our team at Egmont Ehapa,” she says.

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From passive to critical media consumers In Brøndbyøster Norma Martinez stands before 25 tenth-graders. She has two hours to teach them how to think critically about what they read in the media.

Niels Almer / Corporate Communications/ nal@egmont.com

Norma Martinez uses authentic features as cases in her presentations.

“Ansvarlig Presse”, an association aimed at heightening public awareness of the press’ role and responsibility, has set itself no easy task. With the help of Egmont and other organizations, the association’s six journalists from varying ethnic backgrounds are running a project called “The Media and New Danes”. The project is intended to re-build young immigrants’ trust in the media and enable them to become media consumers on an equal footing with the rest of the Danish population. The aim is to break down the prejudices of ethnic Danish youth and equip them to take a

Egmont teaches kids about elephants Life is much more fun now for the elephants in Copenhagen Zoo. On June 10 the new elephant house was inaugurated against a backdrop of orchids, exotic fruit and Thai dancing. Contributions from numerous sponsors, among them a 10 million kroner donation.

Anne-Sofie Stampe/ Corporate Communications/ ast@egmont.com

The new elephant house has made life more interesting for Copenhagen Zoo elephants.

critical view of the news channels that supply information about other population groups.

During her presentation, Norma describes her own experiences, both as a journalist and as a member of a minority. She provokes her listeners with a news item from TV 2 in Denmark about the immigrant gang “AAA”. At this point, the class had not been told that the feature was pure fabrication. It became the theme for the project’s follow-up meeting two weeks later. What is fiction, what is fact and what effect does the journalistic angle have?

“The six project originators have clearly demonstrated that they have made a difference for many groups of young people and thus spotlighted how thoughtlessness on the part of the daily press can lead to marginalization,” explains project coordinator Grethe Nymark from the Egmont Foundation’s Aid and Grants Administration.

“Young Danes don’t switch from being passive to critical media consumers overnight, but a project like “The Media and New Danes” can certainly draw attention to the pitfalls of media coverage. Attention that benefits both ‘old’ and ‘new’ Danes.”

At 12 noon the bells of Frederiksberg city hall chimed the notes of a favorite Danish lullaby about an elephant. Two hours later, children, young people and their parents would have the pleasure of learning more about elephants when they visited the zoo’s new exhibit. An exhibit supported by Egmont.

The sum of 10-million kroner was granted to initiatives that inform children and young people, and the foundation’s donation to the exhibit means old and young alike can learn more about these fascinating animals. On a tour of the exhibit, visitors will see examples of jewelry made from tusks stolen by poachers, a map of where to find elephants in the streets of Copenhagen, and a scale model showing the battles Alexander the Great fought 2,000 years ago using war elephants.

Part of the exhibit is interactive, allowing children to push buttons to feel, touch and learn more about the creatures we call elephants.

“In 2003 when the Egmont Foundation decided to donate money to this ambitious project, the decision was based on a strategy to support initiatives that develop and stimulate the imagination and creative fantasy,” explains Jakob Roepstorff from the Egmont Foundation’s Aid and Grants Administration. “However, since then, the strategy has changed direction and the focus is now on disadvantaged children and young people.”

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24 hours with Egmont Egmont is everywhere all the time. Other companies have a normal 9 to 5 working day. Egmont never shuts down when evening falls. Far from it, in fact. Egmont works at full throttle every hour of the day.

In words and pictures, “24 hours with Egmont” will tell us what is going on when and where in every corner of our organization. You will discover that Egmont is always on the go – even when you are snug in your bed, fast asleep at home!

2 PM Every year 3,000 pages of Donald Duck cartoons are drawn at Egmont Creative on Vognmagergade. Understanding how to pass on and reinterpret drawing styles is vital. It requires talent, grace, knowledge of Duckburg and a steady hand to carry on where famous artists like Vicar and Carl Barks left off.

11 PM Late at night, Lene Kofoed reads through a manuscript. She is a member of Alinea’s Danish editorial team that focuses on Christian publications for Danish primary and lower secondary schools. The controversial subject matter and approach to religion makes the material the topic of much debate.