Insight & strategy I try to put us where decisions are made, because thats where I think genuine insight can benefit the business, Thomas says. For example, the research has been used to help shape the companys advertising strategy over 2019 and into the early part of 2020. Once a [magazine] brand sees how you can help them, and what you can do for them, they quickly become advocates of an insight first approach and you have a direct relationship, and conversations where they will come to people in my team as a first port of call, Thomas says. Editorial content and advertising are two obvious areas where we can help colleagues. Where you build a brand affinity and prove your worth, thats a direct line for sharing information, and requests come back and forth. To assist with working across so many teams and titles, the company runs an internal research platform called the Lens, which allows it to quickly survey particular audiences. The Lens is used for smaller, topical pieces of research that are o en aligned to specific challenges faced by the business, strategy projects that require consumer insight, and projects focused on advertising revenue. Information from the research is available to anyone in the business through a data platform. TI Media also conducts around 30 effectiveness studies a year to evaluate its titles. Earlier this year, the Lens was used to run a weekly tracker on what the public were thinking and feeling during the pandemic. The research, which covered a 17-week period from the beginning of restrictions in March until the situation eased in the summer, was originally commissioned to help inform editorial content. However, results have also been used commercially by agencies and clients, at a time, Thomas says, when advertising spend was generally being withdrawn and media plans were being ripped up across the industry. The insight team used findings from the tracker to develop a commercially led insight bulletin, Virus Britain, to create a narrative from the weekly data emerging from the tracker. The publishing industry was badly hit by ovid , a er a tricky few years for the sector, with falling readerships and advertising revenue. TI Media still gets a large amount of income from its weekly titles, many of which cater to the Heart of Britain readership, and Thomas says the company remains print-focused from a revenue perspective. As with most other publishers, however, the print audience is falling, with new digital readers needed to ensure long-term success. Making sure the company attracts digital readers without alienating its core print readership is the big 36 Impact ISSUE 31 20_pp34-37 I&S TIMedia.indd 36 18/09/2020 11:48