How COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation and shone a light on internal communications,featuring Effie Kanyua,PR & Comms Director at Hearst

Digital transformation has been a priority for businesses for the last decade, but some have been slow to really embrace and invest in the full transition. COVID-19 has demanded that we accelerate that rate of change with many businesses having to digitise to stay afloat. We recently spoke with Effie Kanyua, PR & Comms Director at Hearst UK, about how their brands have fared during the pandemic and the digital tactics and trends that they've seen work particularly well. 

Welcome to our ‘Getting Business Back’ series where we are talking to industry leaders from agency and inhouse backgrounds about the impact of COVID-19 on their businesses and the steps they are taking as we move out of the crisis.

Here, we sat down (virtually) with Effie Kanyua, Director of PR and Communications at Hearst UK. Read on for her thoughts about the impact of COVID-19 and the transformations that she’s seen take place as a result of the pandemic.

What impact has COVID-19 had on your business and on your sector as a whole? 

We were really lucky at Hearst UK. We have 25 brands and as a business we had prepared ourselves for agile working. We had a rehearsal prior to lockdown and basically just stayed in lockdown from then. Most people might think it would be challenging to produce magazines in lockdown, but because we already had the technology in place, we were fine. From a business continuity point of view, that all worked fine.

We've actually done really well as a business. Our content has been booming. Interestingly, our web traffic has grown significantly. We've increased e-commerce by 330%, which is huge. Our subscriptions have also increased - in some brands by up to 200%. 

If you think of the likes of Good Housekeeping and Women's Health, and many of our other brands, we've always positioned ourselves as a beacon of positivity. Basically it's being able to contribute something beneficial to people's lives. So we've been sharing content such as how to bake banana bread, beauty tips from home, or how to do a DIY haircut. During this time, people have actually really reached out to our brands because they want helpful content and helpful information now that they are at home more.

We've also used a lot of data and insights to inform the type of content our audiences want, which means we can produce the right positive and engaging content that's needed now. 

Saying that, we were obviously impacted. A huge part of our business is travel retail and airplanes and trains were closed. Luckily we were still in supermarkets, but there has been a big impact and definitely in terms of advertising revenue. A huge part of what we do is in the luxury sector and with shops and retail closed, those revenue streams were pushed back. But then the positive side of course was on the digital end with the huge growth in our e-commerce and digital subscriptions and content -- and the positive impact we've been able to make through those channels during this time. Read on the full interview here.

Hanson Search has launched ‘Getting Business Back’ series where we are talking to industry leaders from agency and inhouse backgrounds about the impact of COVID 19 on their businesses and the steps they are taking as we move out of the crisis. We hope these insights help to share learns for other businesses across the industry.

More from our Getting Business Back Series:

Getting Business Back Series: Anna Hope, Managing Director, Middle East, Plus 1 Communications

Getting Business Back Series: Nicola Green, Corporate Affairs Director, O2

Getting Business Back Series: Valérie Lecasble, General Manager, H+K Strategies Paris

Getting Business Back Series: Simon Whitehead, CEO UK, H+K Strategies

Getting Business Back Series: Tim Rutter, Head of Communications, Tata Steel UK

Getting Business Back Series: Paul Davies, Managing Director, firstlight PR

Getting Business Back Series: Anne Le Brouster, Managing Director, Golin Paris

Getting Business Back Series: Russ Brady, Head of PR, Co-op

Getting Business Back: Sandrine Cormary, General Manager, Omnicom PR Group France

Getting Business Back: Mathieu Collet, CEO and Founder, Euros / Agency Group

Getting Business Back Series: Nazim Damardji, CEO and Founder, Fabriq

Alice Weightman is the Founder and CEO of Hanson Search, an international talent consultancy for the communications and marketing industry, and The Work Crowd, a platform to connect businesses to the best freelancers in communications and marketing. Contact [email protected]