On 18 May 2018, the first global alliance was announced by FIPP representing global magazine media and the newspaper industry’s WAN-IFRA for cooperation in the forthcoming World Publishing Expo, and DCX, Digital Content Expo. Although, FIPP and WAN-IFRA have worked together in a contructive association in the past, the official alliance is a step towards working closely for benefit of their respective members while dealing with the challenges faced by print media industry.
Currently, newspaper and magazine media companies face a number of common challenges including the transformation of legacy media businesses to compete in a digital world. Many of the challenges and solutions are similar, from developing multi-platform strategies and new business models to devising innovative ways of storytelling and producing content. Cost-effective ways of distributing and sharing and dealing with powerful platforms like Google and Facebook present another day to day challenge.
WAN-IFRA will host IFRA world publishing expo and DCX digital content expo in Berlin from 11 October 2018. The expo will display a range of software programs via innovative technology and systems in print and digital media production of newspapers and magazines. The alliance between FIPP and WAN-IFRA will allow FIPP to participate in the expo and promote the event to its membership across the world. The partnership will address the challenges faced by newspaper and magazine industry by bringing the two closer and work to create innovative ways of dealing with them.
CEO of WAN-IFRA, Vincent Peyregne, commenting on the purpose of the alliance, said, “Newspaper and magazine publishers are faced with similar business and technological challenges for which they use the same solutions in the areas of software, hardware, materials and production and workflow systems. I am pleased that we cooperate with our friends from the World Magazine Association FIPP at the exhibitions for the first time. We need to join forces together to address collectively the future challenges of the publishing industry.”
James Hewes, CEO of FIPP expressed enthusiam for the collaboration and commented, “FIPP is delighted to be working with WAN-IFRA and Publishing Exhibition GmbH on the IFRA World Publishing Expo and DCX Digital Content Expo. This is the most exciting – but also most disruptive – time to be working in the publishing industry, making it more vital than ever that industry bodies work closely together to help our members take advantage of all the opportunities open to them. I’m sure this will only be the start of our collaboration and I look forward to working with our friends at WAN-IFRA on further projects in the near future.”
