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Written by Ismael Nafría, journalist and consultant specializing in digital media. Author of the newsletter “Tendenci@s” and the book “La reinvención de The New York Times.”
In 2021, Spanish media group Vocento was missing out on a key sector of the audience and the advertising market, which had hit 4 billion euros for the first time. It was time for Vocento to get into sports news, with the hope to grow its business exploring the market’s several opportunities.
Vocento faced an uphill battle. Major players in the Spanish news space already fought for the attention of millions of readers. Although the group’s leadership team realized there was a constant audience growth over time in sports media, they chose not to focus on clicks and views. Instead, Vocento decided to distinguish themselves from the competition by focusing on social media and building a strong community on external platforms that can be monetized through an integrated branded content strategy. The initiative, Relevo, was produced based on two product processes: thorough user research that gave them insights about underserved audience segments, and a series of sprints that helped them develop their brand and content/social strategy. The success of Relevo has influenced Vocento to consider product thinking and methods at a larger scale, mainly in terms of putting the user at the center and working more collaboratively.
“We opted to build a brand that could be profitable without entering into the fight for the audience”, said Jesús Carrera, Vocento’s Chief Digital Officer. That was the beginning of Relevo, a digital sports media project that would grow to 260,000 followers across 4 platforms in less than 3 months.
This case study explores how Vocento has applied product processes in order to differentiate its offer in an overcrowded market.
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