Industry releases (unedited) - Le Journal de Montreal realizes big returns by automating its ad tracking process

Le Journal de Montreal realizes big returns by automating its ad tracking process

IFRA publication date:
02/28/2005

At Le Journal de Montreal, a property of Sun Media Corporation, innovative thinking and leveraging technology has consistently yielded returns. So, it’s no surprise that this is the approach JDM took as it began to rethink its advertising production process. Wanting to abandon the arduous and error-prone manual ad tracking process, JDM began its search for an automated ad tracking system back in 1996. Luc Trudel, director of Information Systems, and his team had a vision for a system that would track materials and ad development from order entry through the production process. Clearly, they were ahead of their time as back then, there were few commercial options available. And because they couldn’t find a truly good fit, they decided to partner with a provider to develop a new system that would meet their needs. Plan for reducing errors and increasing efficiency JDM was looking to achieve several goals. First, it wanted to reduce the number of errors it was experiencing in the production process – particularly errors that many times resulted in make goods and lost revenue. “Our percentage of make goods was very high; we knew that if we had the right technology in place, we could turn this around and save our company a significant amount of revenue,” noted Trudel. In addition to reducing errors, JDM also wanted to streamline its workflow and add efficiencies that would allow it to better use its resources and personnel. “We knew that if we were able to automate some key processes and better manage our workflow, we could reduce our headcount in production and redeploy people into other areas.” A system designed by a newspaper to work in a newspaper environment To achieve these goals, JDM licensed Cenupub, an ad tracking system that was the predecessor to today’s MediaPlus® AdTrack from PBS. This initial agreement was, in effect, a partnership to redevelop the Cenupub system to meet JDM’s requirements for working in their environment. The results? After 12-18 months of development and working through some initial design issues, JDM was able to reduce the number of make goods caused by production errors by over 90%. It also achieved its goal of reducing department headcount by almost 50% through better workflow management and organization. The next generation Since its installation at JDM, Cenupub was purchased by Informatel which was, in turn, acquired by PBS. Following the acquisition, the system was once again redesigned to meet the changing needs of today’s production departments. For PBS, it was important that the new system, MediaPlus® AdTrack, maintain the integrity of a solution designed by newspapers for newspapers. To that end, the system was developed so that newspapers can design their own workflow and set their own business rules. MediaPlus® AdTrack gives newspapers the ability to define a workflow that accommodates their preferred process; establishing milestones, hand-off points, and assigning responsibilities that make sense for their business. A custom workflow can easily be created or modified through a simple pointand- click process. The Business Rules Center in MediaPlus® AdTrack gives the newspaper’s systems administrator the ability to easily set up their own rules to govern workflow – or hand-off points – within the ad production department. Rules can be established in real time, but first they are run against a logic analyzer to identify any conflicting rules so that corrections can be made right away. For each rule, the administrator can define applicable conditions, actions generated when conditions are met, and cases where an exception may apply. Based on the environment, rules can be established by user group, group type, individual users, job type, priority, properties, status and more. “We like the fact that we can manage and modify this process ourselves. With AdTrack, we have a system that conforms to our needs without having to incur the time and costs of custom development. The thinking behind this is very bright,” notes Trudel. Project Profile: Le Journal de Montreal, a Sun Media Corporation Newspaper Le Journal de Montréal is a property of Sun Media Corporation (a Quebecor Company), the secondlargest daily newspaper-publishing group in Canada. The company publishes eight urban dailies in eight of the top ten markets in Canada – Le Journal de Montréal, Le Journal de Québec, The Toronto Sun, The Edmonton Sun, The Calgary Sun, The Ottawa Sun, The Winnipeg Sun and The London Free Press. In addition, the Company publishes seven community dailies and over 170 weeklies, buyers' guides and other specialty publications in communities across Canada and Florida. As owners of the second and third largest dailies in the country in terms of circulation (Le Journal de Montréal and The Toronto Sun), the combined weekly circulation of Sun Media’s newspapers is more than seven million copies.

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