How a united company purpose is reinvigorating Bauer Media’s portfolio of magazines

In late 2017, Bauer Media embarked on a research piece executives at the company saw as a “side hustle”.

Teaming up with British trend forecasting agency, Future Laboratories, the publisher commissioned the Female Futures study. The research looked at how far women had come in terms of achieving gender parity and how much further there was to go with the findings highlighting that Australian women had reached a tipping point.

More than half of all Australian women have become the major breadwinner in their household, up from 39% in 2006. They also outpace men in obtaining higher education. And 34% of all small business operators in Australia were now female, a figure that had increased by 46% in the past two decades.  

Despite these findings, women still have a long way to go. As Jane Waterhouse, general manager of Bauer’s insight-led brand entertainment division, Story54, told the Mumbrella360 conference in June, “This sentiment is reflected with some very sobering facts. One of those facts is that the global gender pay gap will take 216 years to close if we keep going the way that we’re going. In 2017, across the categories of health, education, politics, and economics, that pay gap actually widened. That’s the first time that’s happened since records began about 11 years ago.”

In addition to the gender pay gap, women are also set to be disproportionately affected by the rise of automation and they suffer more at the hands of an in-built bias that sees technology skewed heavily toward men.

“We realised, as a media group, we had a really big voice and we had an opportunity to do something about this through our voice,” says Waterhouse.

The realisation led Bauer to take this side project to the next level and put all of the publisher’s platforms – the company reaches an unduplicated audience of 9.2 million women every year – to work for the cause.

The Female Futures initiative was extended, spearheaded by a corporate pledge to dedicate 10 million words to empowering women by 2019.

Speaking during Mumbrella360, Nicole Byers, Jane Waterhouse and Paul Gardiner discuss how a newly defined purpose helped Bauer Media gain a deeper understanding of their audiences

Four months on from making the pledge, Bauer is well on track. Waterhouse says: “The 10 million words, which was an audacious goal, is sitting at just over five million.”

Each Monday, executives from across the company meet to discuss strategies for meeting the target and this corporate initiative has had a surprising impact on Bauer’s staff, three-quarters of which are women.

Paul Gardiner, commercial director of Bauer Media, adds: “It was really important that we were able to stand for something and the team has really connected with our conviction around creating change. As a result, we’ve moved the needle in terms of staff sentiment in a very short time.”

At a time when the magazine industry is facing a highly-publicised period of change, Bauer’s pledge has galvanised its people as much as its readers.

A recent staff engagement survey found 86% of employees said the initiative made them feel proud to be a Bauer employee with 90% praising the work. Bauer staff felt the publisher had been given a purpose and 74% shared the research findings with their friends and families.

An impressive impact

As the company purpose has spread into all facets of the business, employees are not alone in feeling a positive impact. Readers and advertisers are reaping the rewards of the shift. One example is Bauer’s Story54 division which applies this Female Futures lens to the commercial output being created for clients. This has been most vividly brought to life through the campaign for Holden Equinox featuring comedian and Instagram sensation Celeste Barber.

“What’s exciting about this is that by presenting this authentic woman, and not a husband and wife with a labrador and two kids, this different approach to marketing cars really resonated,” said Waterhouse.

Within 24 hours of going live, the first video in the series clocked up almost a million views with post-campaign research finding a 42% increase in brand consideration.

Such is Story54’s commitment to this mode of thinking, the content division is setting out to decode the expressions of Australian woman through a semiotics study called “SIGNificant”. The goal of this piece of work is to provide guidance and inspiration for marketers on how to connect with Australian women through dominant, dormant and emerging communication codes.

According to Waterhouse, one of the ‘codes’ emerging from this research ties to women and the expression of their true selves, liberated from self-doubt and cultural norms with no rules or pressures. Story54 aims to use these insights in a series of exclusive partnerships with Australian creative, media and PR agencies to shape advertising and communications pieces that reflect this new idea of womanhood.

Another example of how Bauer’s quest to drive a female future is coming to life is The Australian Women’s Weekly’s Women of the Future campaign. This year, with sponsorship partner AGL, the campaign will seek out extraordinary Australian women under the age of 35 in the fields of charity and community, business and entrepreneurship.

Nicole Byers, editor-in-chief of The Australian Women’s Weekly, says: “With the applications coming at three times the rate they did last year, we’re confident we’re going to uncover some truly extraordinary women and help three very extraordinary women on their journey to making a brighter female future.”

Driving a female-led future

As the publisher continues toward the 10 million word tally, a number of other projects are extending from the campaign. One of these extensions is Family Hour, an invitation from Bauer’s titles for families to look up and connect with one another.

Waterhouse says: “One of the things that keeps coming up in our research as a big concern for families is the amount of time children are spending on technology. We have an event coming, one hour, one night for families that’s being driven through our magazine brand networks to get families connecting.”

This sentiment ties to another Bauer project, the launch of The Australian Women’s Weekly food website, Australian Women’s Weekly Food.

“Australian Women’s Weekly recipes really are part of our national heritage and have been inspiring home cooks for generations. That legacy has only strengthened over time. Our soon-to-be-launched digital site Australia Women’s Weekly Food is welcoming, wholesome and 100% fad-free. It’s diverse but uncomplicated. It’s premium but it’s unpretentious, and the recipes that have all be triple tested so our audience really knows that they work,” says Byers.

The way in which Bauer has woven this newly defined purpose into the DNA of its business provides food for thought for companies in any sector. It demonstrates that far from being an outdated or cliched notion, purpose has the power to shift the direction of an organisation.

“Here we are, at 2018, and for us, we feel like we’ve really galvanised our workforce. We’ve arrived at what we’re called the main game. As a result, we have a much deeper understanding of our audiences. We’ve got a better understanding of her desire and we’re shaping our products and our responses to our advertisers around what she loves,” says Waterhouse.

This feature was created by Mumbrella Bespoke. To find out more about how we can help your business, click here.

SPONSORED BY Bauer Media

Bauer Media is Australia’s leading multi-platform  publisher, with investments spanning magazines, digital and live experiences.

topics Bauer MediabespokeJane WaterhouseMumbrella360Nicole ByersPaul GardinerThe Australian Women's Weekly

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