Assemble Media Group 1

Assemble Media Group

Category:
Grand Prix
Small Digital Publisher of the Year sponsored by Deloitte

This entry ticked all the boxes for the jury – Assemble Media Group has worked all its brands hard, delivered campaigning journalism putting their brands at the centre of their industry, delivered innovative initiatives and growth against all key metrics.

The Assemble Media Group story is one of product innovation driving record profits in a landmark year. The group celebrated its 5th anniversary boasting a global digital membership community of 100,000 paid access-built environment professionals across 100 countries across its three leading brands, Building, Building Design and Housing Today. The growth is driven by Building which launched a new thought leadership campaign to celebrate its 180th year to engage its loyal audience with a UK wide tour of hybrid events and research. Marked by accelerated digital subscription growth, multiple new digital revenue streams and growth, our results speak for themselves.

What started life in 1843 as a weekly magazine with the strapline “To please, inform and instruct,” Building, and its younger sister brands Building Design and Housing Today, have today transformed into a paid digital membership model boasting a paid access community and a portfolio of a growing set of live and digital event series. From two-day digital events and content programmes with multiple commercial partners and professionals engaging with the group’s learning platform over a year in addition to new data products, the brands are now truly a multi-revenue operation.

Growth for the year has been driven by the launch of the “Building The Future Commission,” a digital campaigning platform launched to celebrate Building’s 180th year. Built upon a foundation of expert journalism and educational content, the wide-ranging Commission served to connect editorial, marketing, and sales team around a mission to consult the industry and tackle underlying problems to improve the built environment.

The team developed 8 content streams focused on macro issues such as net-zero and digital construction, appointed 20 influential commissioners, and launched a UK wide tour of live and digital events, culminating in research reports and a large industry conference. The team also recruited a young person’s advisory panel and boosted social media output with video promotion formats and Animoto clips using #buildingthefuture.

After initial success at launch, the team created a unique and innovative data dashboard to track volume and engagement levels whilst utilising it to underpin the methodology in the commission's final report and show ROI to clients as well.

The group launched an online learning platform to support the campaign focused on digital construction creating an additional sponsorship stream and saw online learning registrations increase. Housing Today also launched a new data product, Housing Today Boardroom, contributing to profits.

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