FW: ITP Newsletter - July

 

 

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From: Everyone@itp.com [mailto:Everyone@itp.com] On Behalf Of Sue Walters
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2007 4:59 PM
To: Everyone
Subject: ITP Newsletter - July

 

July 2007

ITP Business

It took some time for the AC to come back on, but ITP Business stayed cool under pressure and turned in another fantastic performance in June. The start of the month saw the hospitality team, armed with a 144-page issue of Hotelier Middle East, take the Hotel Show by storm. Buoyed by this strong showing, sales again breezed over target. In fact, it was a full house for the hospitality group, as ATN and Caterer also made their numbers with room to spare. Construction Week’s new A4 format and editorial content have met with a fantastic response, and sales eased over the $200K mark in one of its supposedly ‘quieter’ months. After months of persistence and numerous 8.00 am meetings in Caribou Coffee, the Kalzip newsletter finally came together, securing another $25K. In the Transportation Group, Robeel Haq and his team produced a Materials Handling supplement and Robeel still found time to go on holiday. Air Cargo, Logistics and Sea Freight had a late surge and were all set to go over target. Though a (wo)man or two down, Neil Baker's team coped with everything that was thrown at them. New boys David Beaver and Daniel Prescott settled in quickly and have already brought their own unique touch to their respective publications. Neil Baker also found some time to start designing ITP’s six exciting second half launches. Oil & Gas Middle East was back on target in June, and both it and Utilities closed editorial on time, despite the sudden disappearance of ‘news boy’. Commercial Interior Design’s feature on Commercial Outdoor Design was a creative and commercial success, helping CID nudge over target. It was all go in the DIC office. The chairs were moved closer to the windows and the IT team made progress on the Gitex Preview, in addition to closing all their monthlies on time. Dozens of young gaming geeks, ably marshaled by Reena Dhamecha, had the time of their lives at the Windows Gaming Championship 2. Excellent team work by Matt Wade and Chris Stevenson ensured the event brought in a cool $172,000. As Gitex approaches, momentum is building towards the ACN Arab Technology Awards, with nominations now flooding in at: www.itp.net/events/arabtechawards

ITP Consumer

Women’s Weeklies After recovering from Jet Set (congratulations Davina Perkins on an amazing design job), Ahlan! English continued to see soaring sales and a welcome new addition to their team in the shape of their first boy... Alex Forsyth - who has only been here a month but has already been brainwashed into the George Clooney Fan Club and Paris Hilton Appreciation Society.  Not surprisingly, Alex is looking forward to the arrival of our new stylist Paul Ewart in July, so at least he'll have a partner in crime against the rest of the Ahlanettes! Ahlan! Masala also had a huge month with the magazine thanks to the Aishwarya and Abhishek Show, and the second edition of Bandhan, which looks fantastic. Nadine and her team on Ahlan! Arabic also celebrated this month with the news that the magazine will be going into Saudi Arabia. Congratulations to them and the circulation team on cracking this important market. From exclusives on Kate Moss's Topshop range to the local woman who spent Dhs2 million on clothes, Grazia's editorial team have proven their winning formula of style and scandal, as evidenced by great growth in newsstand sales. Thanks to Dani in Marketing for a great job on the readers' shopping evening at Debenhams in Mall of the Emirates, and congratulations to Natascha Hawke on her promotion to Picture Editor. Women’s Lifestyle Another busy month at VIVA Towers. Safety Surveys, fainting models and readers undergoing 'surgery'.  Were you one of the women caught by VIVA getting into unlicensed taxis, leaving your drinks unmarked and walking home late at night on your own? Yes, Aoife, Jenny, Elliott and Bernard prowled the streets of Dubai at night snapping UAE women for VIVA’s Safety Survey. For our Great Debate feature we tackled body image and Sarah from Production gave the readers the bodies they thought they wanted. We're just hoping she'll do our holiday snaps too.  Fainting models - willowy model + 45degs = fashion editor running for water and a damp cloth. But who would have known it, the shoot still looked great guys. Well done to Penny McCormick for heading up this month’s issue of Wedding, as well as editing Emirates Home. Congratulations and thanks also go out to Stuart Robertson who styled this issue’s cover shoot. Thanks again to all the subs that chipped in to help out. Stuart has also has a busy month on L'Officiel, putting together huge amount of local material with the help of the local photographers. Well done too to the translation team of Rana Saliby and Fatiha Idrissi, who stretched their collective talents across L'Officiel, L'Officiel Hommes and Wedding Arabic. On a more personal level, welcome back this month to LO’s deputy editor, Mirvat Ghanem who has returned from her maternity leave. She now is the proud mother of her second daughter, Lamar. Time Out Group Time Out’s sales team may have had a rocky month, but the copy sales of TOD continue to go from strength to strength. The latest figures indicate record sales in April. That should help push the audit up later in the year. Well done to the editorial and circulation teams. After finishing the gigantic Time Out City Guide for London, (with record revenues) the Time Out Guides team has tackled the equally mammoth Russian and Arabic City Guides this month. Well done to all concerned. Men’s Lifestyle The men’s titles once again turned up and pretended to do some work. Alex Ritman, read loads of comics and played with toy robots for this month’s superhero issue, Shahzad and Charif went cruising around in town in not one, not two, but three different Rollers. For his part Captain Toby on Boat Owner, interviewed a world champion contender in the moth hydro-foil yachting class for his cover story. Desperate to get as much golf in before summer heat brings the season to an end, Robbie has been rushing around playing and watching a lot of golf. Christine Burrows busied herself on the re-design of MEG, which should be making its debut in the next couple of months. Lastly, a big thanks to everybody that contributed to the ITP Golf Day on the 27th June and in particular Sarah Lucas.

ITP Executive

If June is when things start to slow down, somebody better tell the team at ITP Executive. CEO English managed to smash its target for the second month running, and is suddenly a $100k a month title. A great effort by Andrew Sullivan and Carmen Aston. Meanwhile, much of the sales and editorial team were busy in Riyadh for the Saudi Achievement Awards, where 350 VIPs celebrated 18 awards, in the presence of Saudi royalty. It is already being regarded as one of the most prestigious award ceremonies ever held. Editorially it was another strong month – exclusive interviews with Etihad boss James Hogan, Tatweer’s CEO and chairman and Mashreq boss Al Ghurair leading the way. While the titles continue to hit target every month, the team is now focusing on the second half – the launch of 4 new titles, and the arrival of 17 new staff by the start of August. These include 10 editorial, six sales and one on marketing.

ITP Digital

As H1 draws to a close, it has been another big month for ITP Digital and a strong end to the half. Top of everyone's agenda this month has been the ITP.net redesign, approximately six years overdue but proving well worth the wait. Led by Craig Willers and Meghna Jalnawalla the new design reflects the excellent strength and depth of ITP's regular IT coverage that makes it the Middle East's number one technology publisher. Since the relaunch ITP.net has experienced traffic levels usually reserved for the monster IT week that is Gitex Dubai. A huge well done to all of those involved. ArabianBusiness.com this month found itself in the centre of a storm – Gonu – and rose admirably to the task of covering the biggest natural disaster to hit this region in decades. The site became the home of acres of news coverage straddling many angles: hospitality, transportation, and finance. This was an example where all of ITP’s editorial teams got behind the Web and the result was dramatic. ArabianBusiness.com became identified as the source for the latest news on the cyclone and the site registered its highest-ever traffic - crossing 20,000 visits on two consecutive days. Thank you to all of the various editors, journalists and photographers who contributed to the excellent coverage. TimeOutDubai.com also showed it colours this month with Kate McAuley leading a quick, but highly effective redesign to the weekly newsletter. A big thank you also goes to Diana Milne for temporarily stepping outside her role as the Editor of Money Middle East and providing excellent coverage of the Paris air show - exclusively for ArabianBusiness.com. Commercially, ITP Digital ended the half with a record revenue month, led by TimeOutDubai.com's stellar sales performance. Stuart Morgan brought to a close a superb Q2 and took TimeOutDubai.com over the $100,000 for the first time, its highest monthly revenue to date – by a margin. Recognition must also go to Andrew Wingrove and Michael Smith for their contributions, and in particular to Gareth Jones, who between them contributed more than 50% of the original, shattered target. June was also the month that ArabianBusiness.com broke the $100,000 barrier. Strong contributions from Jason Bowman, Guillaume Massey and Diarmuid O'Malley meant that they did not miss out on the last month of the guaranteed commission for contributions. Meanwhile over at ITP.net, Colin Saldanha made the short transfer from IT print to join Karl Hougaard as the Web site begins preparations for its biggest, and most challenging months around Gitex Dubai.

Spectrum Digital Print Solutions

Spectrum welcome two newcomers this month to help strengthen our sales proposition. George Varghese joins as Business Development Executive to sell Digital Print and Ladan Rahbary joins as Business Development Manger to sell Spectrum’s new Print Management Solution. They will help to enhance Spectrum’s growing reputation in this emerging marketplace and promote our all round digital and print offering. Digital Inroads have been made into making major businesses aware of the benefits of personalized customer communications with Showtime Arabia, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and Etihad Airways indicating orders for July and others very interested in the benefits of our services. All of these will be using names and addresses from the ITP database. The first large digitally printed mailout of 50,000 pieces for Airmiles is well underway and will hit recipients during July. Other June client wins include Hertz using our Variable Data Printing to target long term rental renewals.   A major personalized Spectrum mailing campaign has been sent to our clients and prospects which will create more interest in our services.    Print Management On the Print Management side we have just completed a reprint of 12,000 496 page books for Moutamarat and hope to build on this relationship. We have put proposals to two more large businesses and are waiting the outcome. My thanks to the Spectrum production team for pulling several “rabbits” out of the hat this month most notably 130x 400 pp perfect bound books , files received from London at 4.30 am on a Saturday morning and delivered 11.30 pm the same day to the happy client ….In Abu Dhabi …that’s some doing ! Well done team.

Production

With a shortage of staff, numerous amounts of extensions and reallocating all of the Ahlan's to a new press we managed to get it all done, special mentions for the following people. Consumer - Aamar, who without any complaints took on a group of heavy weight titles, Harpers Bazaar, L'Officiel Homme, L'Officiel Femme and Viva single handed. Tyron's patience in getting the Men's Lifestyle group to press. Subramanian & Maher for their dedication in spending many hours overseeing the hand over of all the Ahlan's at their new Web Printer, Atlas. Customer - Gilbert and Ross especially as it's his first month at ITP, for their extra work in taking on the Wedding Supplements, Emirates Home as well as their own titles. Executive - James also had a good first month at ITP, under the guidance of Ali we can only expect more to come. Business - With 3 people away on holiday our star Ellie took on the responsibility of keeping 15 magazines in her care until handing them over for printing. Congrats to Matt for passing his drivers test in the UAE!

Internal Vacancies

Editor, ArabianBusiness.com Arabic ArabianBusiness.com has grown fast since its launch five months ago, but is now looking for a journalist/editor who can put their foot on the accelerator by adding the region’s largest market to its audience figures. The Editor of ArabianBusiness.com, Arabic will be expected to be able to leverage the content of the English site, as well as to develop unique content for the needs of the Arabic-speaking business community – from across the region. This is an exciting, pioneering role for Arabic Internet journalism, and comes as ArabianBusiness.com pushes one million page impressions a month. Candidates will be either senior journalists looking to take a serious step up, or existing editors wanting to prove they have the skills for the Internet age. For more information please contact david.westley@itp.com. All enquiries will be treated in the strictest confidence Editor, ITP.net ITP.net is being re-launched and we’re looking for a dynamic editor who can do the impossible - take the biggest and best technology news and reviews site in the region, and make it better still. This is a role that will require strong feature and news journalism and editing skills in conjunction with a vision of how to make copy three-dimensional and sparkle in the Internet age. This high-profile and creative role comes as ITP.net is in the process of being revamped, and its new editor will be expected to continue to develop and mould the site to better serve its audience. In the process he or she will put their stamp on one of the region’s most innovative, cutting edge and influential internet portals. For more information, please contact David Westley, david.westley@itp.com, to discuss the position further. All enquiries will be treated in the strictest confidence. Senior Journalist, ArabianBusiness.com ArabianBusiness.com is looking for a sharp, intelligent, connected, but above all “can do” business journalist with a brain bursting full of ideas coupled with the ability to execute them. ArabianBusiness.com is five months old and is already the leading source of high quality news, opinion and features for the Gulf’s business community. The successful candidate will be expected to be able to build on that success. If you think you are ready for the challenge of Internet journalism, can take flat page copy and make it a three-dimensional feature please apply, in confidence, to davidwestley@itp.com.

New Staff - June 07

Clare Volland - Sales Manager, Retail News Clare also joins ITP from the UK where she has recently been working as an HR consultant. Prior to that she worked for Terrapinn Holding in London as a Sales Manager. Daniel Prescott - Designer, ITP Business David previously worked for the Donnington valley Group in Newbury, Berkshire, United Kingdom as a Graphic Designer. David Beaver - Art Editor, ITP Business David joins ITP from Motivate Publishing where he worked as Deputy Art Director on Stuff, Business Traveller and Dubai Voyager. Dmitry Dolzhanskiy - Photographer, ITP Business Dmitry originates from Russia where he worked as a Photographer for the TNT TV Channel in Moscow. Farah Bernard - Administrative Executive, DMC Farah joins ITP at our Media City Office. She had previously worked for Veloso Quality Management in Dubai. George Varghese - Business Development Executive, Spectrum George joins ITP from India where he worked for ICICI Prudential Life Insurance & Investment as a Business Development Executive. Jeanette Johana - Credit Controller Jeanette originates from Indonesia where she worked for International Medical Corps in Jakarta as Senior Finance Officer. Kashif Rehmat - SEO Specialist, ITP Digital Kashif originates from Pakistan, but joins ITP from www.dubailife.com. He was employed as an SEO Expert in Pakistan at Next Bridge Ltd. Ladan Rahbary - Business Development Manager, Spectrum Ladan previously worked in Vancouver, Canada as General Manager of Starbucks Coffee Co. She has also been employed as Senior Sales Representative / Training Director of Excel Communications again in Vancouver. Panos Kostouros - Photographer, ITP Consumer Panos joins ITP from Athens in Greece where he worked for Studio Kitao in their photography / fashion editing department. Paul Brandist - Senior Designer, Men’s Lifestyle Paul joins ITP from the UK where he worked as Art Editor for TRMG. He has recently been freelancing for Maxim magazine. Sally Matthews - Fashion Assistant, Harpers Bazaar Sally joins ITP from the UK where she worked as Fashion and Features Assistant for The Sunday Times Style magazine. Sarah Maisey - Shopping Editor, Harpers Bazaar Sarah also joins ITP from the UK where she worked as a freelance photographic stylist working for Nokia, Rover, Vodafone and IBM amongst others. Ross Mackenzie - Production Co-ordinator Ross joins ITP from Edinburgh where he worked for Scottish Field, a lifestyle magazine, in the Graphic Design and Pre-press production department. Zeina Eid - Assistant Editor, Etihad Inflight Zeina joins ITP from Beirut where she was employed as a translator for Khoury & Tegho.

© 2007 ITP