Having a CEO who values marketing’s role beyond short-term performance can transform how it’s perceived and prioritised within a business.

For Hearst UK, the publisher behind Good Housekeeping, Elle and Cosmopolitan, that shift came nearly three years ago, when former marketer Katie Vanneck-Smith took over as CEO, bringing with her an understanding of how marketing drives long-term brand and business growth.

At the time, the media company had no “functioning” marketing department, no clear customer focus and was operating on an outdated model.

“It was very clear to me that we were still operating with a 20th or early 21st century model, thinking that marketing was done for us by the newsstand,” she says. “We were operating in a Hearst-first, not a customer-first mindset.”

With a background in marketing, including CMO of News UK, Vanneck-Smith’s goal when first joining Hearst was to transform it from a “branded house” to a “house of brands”, modernising the business and rebuilding its connection with audiences.

CMO to NED: Former marketers on the transition to non-exec

When she arrived, Hearst’s language and positioning reflected its reliance on advertisers as the primary source of revenue. “One of the things that struck me when I first walked into the building was a massive sign that said, ‘Welcome to House of Hearst’,” she recalls. “No one knows what Hearst is – we’re not an iconic consumer-first brand.”

Hearst UK is home to 16 titles, including Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Men’s Health, Women’s Health and Country Living. But internally, Vanneck-Smith says the business had fallen into a habit of talking about itself as “Hearst-first” – the parent company, rather than the individual brands consumers actually engage with.

“Many of our conversations were with advertising agencies around how to reach audiences,” she says.

Building a marketing-led team

Vanneck-Smith’s first step was to put marketing back at the heart of the organisation. She appointed chief customer officer David Robinson to drive growth and began building a marketing function from the ground up, one that could help shift internal culture and focus on understanding customers.

“Part of the task was getting the company or colleagues to think of our titles as brands, rather than products that have grown up as magazines,” she says. “They’re great brands, but we probably were lacking a little bit of confidence around some of them.”

The business transformation means marketing is now the “strategic partner” to the CEO. “Marketing is often a C-suite role in organisations, but it isn’t necessarily the strategic partner to the CEO,” she adds.

Before joining Hearst in December 2022, Vanneck-Smith co-founded Tortoise Media and held senior marketing roles at The Telegraph and The Times. As CMO at The Times, she led the paper’s move to paid digital subscriptions and was responsible for creating the UK’s first news membership brand, Times+.

Our industry grew up judging success by yesterday’s sales figures, and culturally, we’ve had to move away from that retail mentality.

Katie Vanneck-Smith, Hearst UK

Now, many of the senior leadership teams have a background in marketing. For example, Good Housekeeping’s managing director Liz Moseley, who joined the business in 2023, was once CMO of Ascential and was head of marketing at News International.

“[We’ve put] marketers into all of the key roles in our business… the only thing they’re not running at Hearst right now [is finance],” she laughs.

Data and product development also now sit under marketing, which Robinson says has been key to driving growth. The company also established an insights team to help deepen its understanding of audiences and inform product development, an area Vanneck-Smith admits had been “lacking”.

“We’ve built or strengthened those functions, and that’s been a huge enabler,” Robinson adds. “It’s given our content teams a much deeper understanding of their audiences and the utilisation of data – whether that’s for audience growth, driving more customer value or revenue from customers.”

Memberships

When Robinson joined, he found Hearst was strong at selling print subscriptions but struggled to retain readers. “We had to create much better customer choice,” he explains. One of the solutions was to introduce a membership programme for each brand.

“Instead of having a shallow relationship where we sell one type of product to customers, we developed three tiers for most of the brands that we have,” he adds. “Suddenly, we had a much broader choice for customers.”

Historically, the UK has been a retail-first market for media, with newsstands dominating sales, therefore subscription-based models have been slower to take hold, claims Vanneck-Smith.

“The UK has never been a subscription-first territory; it’s always been a retail-first territory,” she adds. “But all subscription businesses are marathons, not sprints. Our industry grew up judging success by yesterday’s sales figures, and culturally, we’ve had to move away from that retail mentality.”

Since reshaping its business model, the media company has made membership central to its efforts to deepen customer relationships and diversify revenue.

“There’s been a huge amount of work over the past two to three years, but there’s still more to do in terms of educating within the business, but also helping customers understand what that means,” Robinson adds.

Budget is eight times more likely to drive effectiveness than ROI, finds IPA research

Hearst has rolled out tiered memberships across its brands, each with different price points and benefits. For example, Good Housekeeping’s top-tier VIP membership (£149 per year) offers members the chance to test products each month, attend exclusive in-person events such as a book club, and access special discounts and rewards. The brand also offers a classic membership (print and digital) for £54.99 a year, and a purely digital membership for £19.99.

The approach appears to be paying off. The publisher delivered its first year-on-year circulation increase since 2010, up 2% in 2024, with 19.4 million magazine copies sold over the year. Across the wider industry, magazine circulation fell 7.3% in 2024, according to the latest ABC Consumer Report.

Part of the task was getting the company or colleagues to think of our titles as brands, rather than products that have grown up as magazines.

Katie Vanneck-Smith, Hearst UK

Despite the long-term decline in print, Good Housekeeping has remained resilient. Its circulation topped 370,000 last year, compared with around 400,000 two decades ago.

However, total revenue at National Magazine Company Ltd, Hearst UK’s legal name, fell 6.5% to £104.6m in the year to 31 December 2024, down from £111.9m. Digital advertising revenue dropped by £6.5m, with average monthly UK page views declining 12% to 24.3 million – a fall the company linked to changes in search engine algorithms.

For Vanneck-Smith, membership offers the long-term, relationship-driven model needed to build sustained growth. “I love membership because it drives growth across every way we measure success – customer value and volume.”

The company’s audience numbers reflect this shift, with digital subscriptions up across all brands, with a 25% increase overall in the year, according to accounts filed to Companies House in September.

Investing back in brand and marketing

Following this success, Hearst is increasing investment in marketing. Later this month, Good Housekeeping will launch its first TV advert this century, a major milestone for the 100-year-old brand.

It’s been investing in radio, with Robinson adding that above-the-line marketing has already made an impact.

“As soon as you spend some money, even on radio, suddenly the audience goes up, and therefore you’re converting a much higher number of members, which is a little bit strange when you talk to a business that hasn’t ever really fully embraced or invested in marketing before, but we’re already seeing those results, so we’re excited,” Robinson says.

Make it personal: Future marketing leaders on how to drive influence

Like many media companies, Hearst faces growing competition from social platforms and shifting consumer habits. Print advertising spend has fallen in recent years, and many publishers have leaned heavily into performance marketing to deliver short-term returns.

Vanneck-Smith understands the appeal. “I grew up in a world where we had the strapline: ‘Friends with finance, married to tech’ because that’s how, as a CMO, you could only ever been seen as a lever of growth, not a cost to the business.”

“Performance marketing is a wonderful thing, because for many of us who could never get the CFO to understand the return on investment that we made in marketing, suddenly it was there in the data – you spend a pound, you get £1.30 back. But the whole world got too excited, and the pendulum has swung too far.”

She argues that an overreliance on performance marketing has come at the expense of brand building.

“We’ve forgotten some of the basic tenets of what great marketing is and what it means for brands to be great and meaningful in people’s lives,” she adds.

“Suddenly, when you put money in the top of the funnel and see uplifts across all brand metrics, it’s just golden. It should serve as a stark reminder to all marketers who are worrying about the lower funnel: Get right up there. Get back to telling stories, get back to making consumers excited and engaged.”