ZAHRA: Dictionary definition
1. (Swahili) n. A rare plant of the arid regions of central Africa.
2. (Arabic) n. brilliant dawn.
3. (Irish) n. a smart, solution based media & content marketing company.
Zahra Media Group was founded in 2003 in Dalkey, and has grown to become one of Ireland’s leading cross-platform media companies. It holds a unique position in the media landscape, by combining both consumer and corporate expertise into one focused informed strategy that benefits businesses. After merging with eumom in 2017, Zahra Media Group became the go-to resource for brands looking to engage parents in Ireland.
Its Consumer Division publishes the newsstand titles Easy Food and Easy Parenting in print and online formats, as well as managing their respective brand extensions which include award ceremonies and international publications. Its Custom Content Division helps leading Irish brands drive engagement, loyalty and sales, through original and valuable branded content in the form of blogs, digital strategy, branding, internal publications and annual reports.
Q&A with Annette, Gina, Olive and John
We sat down with the Zahra Media Group Board of Directors to talk about what they envision for the future of the company, lessons learned during the recent merger and their predictions for the rest of 2018.
How do you describe Zahra Media Group to people who aren’t familiar with our company?
Gina: Zahra Media Group is a cross-platform media company that has the unique ability to connect brands to audiences through great content, deep communities and meaningful touchpoints, online and offline.
What is your favourite part of being involved with Zahra Media Group?
John: The wealth of ideas and willingness to pursue new thinking and opportunities.
Annette: Working on brands that are meaningful and purposeful to their audiences and the teams that create them.
When you think of Zahra Media Group, what is the one word that comes to mind?
Annette: Expertise. Our food division is peopled by food experts rather than media people. Our Content agency grew out of our publishing expertise and benefits from our proven ability to engage audiences and build communities around a chosen subject. In our Parenting Division, our continual multiway engagement with mums across our numerous touch points ensures that we can expertly advise brands.
What trends in the marketplace do you think Zahra Media Group is suited to tackle?
Olive: Businesses today need to deliver both as a brand and as a media platform in order to win & hold share of voice and share of market. This requires highly collaborative cross-functional teams to maintain this type of always-on brand engagement & content, and is not always easy to assemble or implement.
At Zahra Media Group, this is how we work every day because we are a publisher, a content developer, a community brand, an advertising platform and a marketing agency. We literally practice what we preach every day across our own brands (eumom, Easy Food, Easy Parenting, etc) and with our advertising partners and content marketing clients.
John: The need for targeted relevant content.
What are you most looking forward to in 2018 for Zahra Media Group?
Gina: 1)Further bedding in the merger with eumom, 2) rolling out our extended service and product offering to clients now that we have a bigger portfolio across the group and 3) enhancing our Parenting platform through content and the addition of innovative new products and services to our community.
Annette: Putting into action the exciting ideas that we are planning across our company. Being part of a merger means that we have fresh eyes looking at the business, people and brands. New team formations can make magic happen. Being a more significant size creates new opportunities for our people and I am really looking forward to seeing the team grow in expertise and experience.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned from the merger last year?
Olive: People make mergers work, not numbers or spreadsheets. Spending time with your new partners at the initial stages and getting to know each other really pays off in the long run.
[vc_single_image image=”323″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”left-to-right”]
ENVIRONMENTAL PROCESS
We recognise that as a publishing company, our activities have an impact on the environment in terms of paper use and energy consumption. We aim to reduce our environmental impact through better paper management and energy monitoring and as such, we have taken the following actions:
1) All paper used by Zahra Media Group is FSC accredited. The Forest Stewardship Council A.C. (FSC) promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world’s forests.
2) When selecting printers to work with we rigorously check their environmental credentials, preferring to work with carbon-neutral printers.
3) Zahra Media Group is signatory to Environmental Standards for the Press Industry (ESPI), which promotes a reduction in wastage and is dedicated to the improvement in efficiency of supply to retailers and thereby reducing the number of magazines printed.
4) Zahra Media Group is a member of the Green Press Partnership, which promotes the increase in the usage of environmentally friendly raw materials and promotes recycling (GPP has increased recycling of newsprint in Ireland from 28% in 2002 to 89% in 2012 as verified by RPS and recognised by the Department of Environment).
5) We have also implemented a recycling and reuse system for paper in our office that has seen us nearly halve our paper waste.
6) We have facilitated staff that wished to avail of the government’s ‘Cycle To Work’ scheme; implemented a ‘Switch off campaign’ for computers and lights in the office; only procure fair trade coffee and tea for the office; only purchase sustainable stationary and also encourage employees to work from home (when and where feasible) in order to reduce their commute time and associated carbon footprint.
ZAHRA HELPS
Zahra Helps is a registered Irish charity that does work in Vietnam and South Africa. The charity is funded by Zahra Media Group, which donates 10% of its profits to the charity and covers all administration costs. So really everyone we do business with contributes.
All administration costs are covered by Zahra Media Group, which means that 100% of funds go directly to the projects that we support.
It is our philosophy to partner with not-for-profit organisations in each country that can oversee and monitor the distribution and application of money to carefully chosen projects.
[vc_single_image image=”324″ img_size=”570×720″ alignment=”center” css_animation=”right-to-left”]