Brand Management Case Study
Challenge
When we met Melanie Phillips she was already one of Britain's best known journalistic brands. But the Daily Mail's featured columnist, BBC broadcaster and national "lightning rod" felt there were followers outside the UK she wasn't able to reach, and people everywhere who "want to know more."
Solution
The idea we proposed to Ms. Phillips was to reposition her as a global publisher of conservative books and media visionary. We would do it by exploiting the new features of the fast-changing publishing landscape, and BMM's acumen in business development, publicity, books and technology.
Peter Thiel
Take Off
Backed by Peter Thiel among others, and targeting the same opportunity for 'disintermediation' being pursued by Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Beck in America, BMM immersed itself in:
financial projections
capital raising
title acquisition and editorial
strategic and infrastructure development
distribution deals
staffing
brand development
design and technology development
Less than 15 months later, in January, 2013, BMM began operating Melanie Phillips Electric Media and its publishing division, emBooks. emBooks was Britain's first direct-to-consumer, e-publishing company.
Our business model was built on: the editorial talent and draw of Melanie Phillips, the scale global market of conservative book buyers, the fast time-to-market, low production costs and established global distribution channels of e-books, publishing easy-to-write and edit books the length of a long-form magazine article, selling directly to the consumer, and entering into full partnerships with authors.
Launch
Electric Media was launched in the UK and America - simultaneously. The UK launch was featured by John Humphries on Britain's most influential news program, BBC R4 Today...
“Melanie Phillips, star columnist of the Daily Mail, has taken the first step to becoming a global brand.”
MEGA Influence
The Electric Media launch party in Mayfair was attended by two cabinet ministers, four members of parliament, three major newspaper editors and the former Archbishop of Canterbury and written about by all the national newspapers.
“At the launch party for Melanie Phillips’s new ebook venture last month you could be forgiven for thinking that the controversial columnist had finally arrived in the bosom of the establishment. It was hosted by Sir Rocco Forte at his flagship London hotel, Brown’s, in the heart of Mayfair, while among the guests were the Cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Patterson, the editors of The Times and Sunday Times, and many other movers and shakers from politics, business and the media.”
Guardian Angel
Melanie's searing memoir, Guardian Angel, garnered this review in the Guardian, the newspaper where she started out. Also among its publicity wins was the Daily Mail's three part syndication.
GUARDIAN ANGEL, My Story, My Britain, charts the journey of a journalist and writer who moved from darling of the left to champion of the moral high ground. This memoir of her personal and professional life reflects the cultural changes in society over more than three decades.
Diana's Baby
Continuing to exploit our ability to publish quickly, on the Prince George of Cambridge was born, Angela Levin's Diana's Baby was already on digital shelves worldwide.
“While the royal baby and future king is only a few hours old, he already has a book.”
An emBook could be purchased for the price of a Starbuck's latte. They were available for reading in our IOS app and emBooks WebApp, downloaded from emBooks.com in multiple digital formats for viewing on e-readers, and through online e-book distributors.
emBooks IOS app
“Once upon a time, she described herself as ‘the liberal who has been mugged by reality’. Now she’s rebranding herself as ‘Britain’s political conscience’ and, it just so happens, someone who would look good and sound great on Fox News. Within several hours of the launch of her new online venture, Melanie Phillips had surely achieved her objective. The headline in the Wall Street Journal? ‘Britain’s most high-profile columnist, broadcaster and author launches Melanie Phillips Electric Media: EM’.”
COMING ASHORE
24 hours before the Mayfair bash, Melanie launched the company in America in this 3 hour live interview on CSPAN's BookTV show, inDepth.
The American launch of emBooks and Electric Media
The Launch Video
Melanie's prominence in the public eye and the new visibility of her venture, assured attention would flow to our books.
PUBLISHING
The emBooks launch list included titles from the luminary author of Eyes Wide Shut, Frederic Raphael, award-winning, Daily Telegraph medical columnist, James Le Fanu, and of course from Melanie Phillips herself.
ISLAMOPHILIA
Seven months after launch, emBooks published Kindle, #1 US/UK Amazon political humor bestseller, Islamophilia by British commentator, Douglas Murray. Our production tools and distribution backend enabled us to bring it to market eight days after the headline-making terror attack in Woolwich and it immediately rose to the top of the charts.
Decoding Your Teenage Daughter
Our second Kindle best seller, Decoding Your 21st Century Daughter, was penned by British educator and celebrated headmistress, Helen Wright. It demonstrated that a short length e-book from emBooks could garner press attention equal to a full length print title from a major UK publishing house.
The Times of London gave it a front page banner headline, a page three spread and the front page of the feature section.
Here's the state-of-the-art digital home we produced for Electric Media in NY
