Bonnier Publications: Leveraging IoT for Data Democratization and Business Transformation

Bonnier Publications is a media company based in Copenhagen that focuses on special interest media primarily for the Nordic market. The company has won a loyal following with some of the region's most famous brands and is part of the Swedish media group Bonnier Holdings. Generations of readers have pursued their passions in Bonnier Publications' special interest magazines, from Illustreret Videnskab for science buffs to Bo Bedre about interior design. The company's brands are among the best known in the Nordics, and Bonnier has built up a loyal readership since its founding in 1959.

Bonnier Publications, a Copenhagen-based media company, was facing the challenge of transitioning from a print to a digital multi-format business model in an ever-changing media environment. The global magazine industry was shrinking every year, and Bonnier knew that this digital transformation was critical for its survival and growth. The company set a six-month deadline to achieve this goal, with the challenge being a complete overhaul of its customer data and the way it engaged with customers online to maximize ecommerce conversion rates. The initial target was to gain 25,000 new subscriptions. Bonnier's success largely depended on its reader base, with B2C business accounting for 75% of its revenue. Therefore, it was crucial for the company to understand its readers and their preferences.

Bonnier partnered with IIH Nordic to build a machine learning algorithm on Google Cloud that leveraged the power of BigQuery to model consumer behavior in a granular way. The algorithm was developed using Google Cloud solutions such as Cloud Functions, Google Kubernetes Engine, and TensorFlow. BigQuery's massive processing power allowed aggregation of all historic and real-time data from 15 million consumers in one location. The machine learning algorithm was designed to feed customer data into a BigQuery data lake to help the company better understand its customer's journey. The analytics and data overhaul was launched on all Bonnier's brands in all four Nordic countries, totaling approximately 100 websites. BigQuery shaped the massive dataset into models capable of predicting consumer actions with great precision.

• The transformation journey to BigQuery involved all departments at Bonnier, including marketing, editorial, digital, and advertising, which met every week in cross-functional teams. This was made possible by an easy-to-learn Google Cloud console interface that empowered employees to bring unique strengths to a transformative collaboration, enhancing motivation and team ethos. Adopting BigQuery and the entire Google Cloud suite of machine learning and analytics tools allowed Bonnier to leapfrog larger publishers in harnessing consumer data to grow in a challenging media environment. This projected an aura of dynamism that enabled Bonnier to acquire premium tech talent to take its digital transformation to the next level. With world-class data analytics up and running, the next step for Bonnier is a fully personalized ecommerce shop that offers visitors custom-made interaction depending on their history.

• Doubled checkout conversion with data overhaul completed in just six months

• Maintained new subscription rate while reducing banners by 90%

• Acquired 50,000 new subscribers across all brands, against a 25,000 KPI