UBM Tech Announces Strategic Shift Toward Community-Focused Media and Events

SAN FRANCISCO, April 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Today UBM Tech, the global media business that brings together the world's technology industry through live events and online properties, announces a strategic shift in the company's focus toward a unique business model. UBM Tech will combine its industry leading event brands with its industry leading digital brands in a community-driven business model underpinned by deep analytics illustrating community interests and behaviors. This proven community model supports peer-to-peer learning and education, industry information and training and provides marketing solutions for the industry.

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Industry research shows that technology professionals value peer-to-peer content and networking, and the traditional media approach is not meeting those needs. UBM Tech's events are proven to generate strong customer engagement, delivering relevant content, education opportunities and peer-to-peer sharing. Now, UBM Tech's online communities are following suit, providing relevant, expertly curated content along with user-generated content and peer-to-peer engagement opportunities by migrating all of its media brands to its proprietary, award-winning DeusM community platform. With this move, UBM Tech will provide integrated, continuous access to live and online communities 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

"Traditional BtoB media has changed dramatically in recent years. A lot of what worked in the past is no longer viable," said Paul Miller, CEO UBM Tech. "UBM Tech is deploying a model that is truly relevant to today's technology professionals. It meets the needs of our communities with rich and authentic engagement opportunities and provides significant growth opportunities for customers and for our own business."

The UBM Tech DeusM-driven community platform provides engagement, interaction and conversation, combining the user-driven features of social communities with the high quality, expertly curated content UBM Tech audiences have come to expect. UBM Tech's online communities extend the networking, content sharing and information gathering opportunities its live event attendees value to a year-round experience.  Integrating live event and online communities based on shared interest in specialized topics not only results in stronger, more unified communities, it paves the way for continued profitable growth for UBM Tech by driving increased participation across both settings.

A recent example illustrating success is the integration of the 2013 Game Developers Conference (GDC), the world's largest and longest-running event serving game development professionals, with Gamasutra.com, a vibrant community of over 1 million unique site visitors each month, generating an average 3.5 million page views per month.  UBM Tech's content directors for this topic cross-promoted relevant content across Gamasutra.com, the GDC website and the event itself. The result was record-setting attendance of more than 23,000 professionals and more than 350 exhibitors. Gamasutra.com was also the second largest referrer to the GDC event website, and doubled the viewership of GDC-related content over the event site alone. This successful model will now be applied across all UBM Tech event and online brands.

UBM Tech is also investing significantly in several growth areas, specifically around data analytics capabilities. UBM Tech's Customer Insights Team will utilize these tools to build a better understanding of the needs of our communities, allowing us to foster deeper relationships with our customers by providing them with the right products and services at the right time.

UBM Tech will also focus on growing owned media events and content marketing services driven by market trends and customer demand. Two established owned-media examples of multi-platform programs produced for UBM Tech's valued customers though the company's Partner Solutions group are Signum (ARM Holdings) and Smart Enterprise (CA Technologies).

As a result of these investments, certain legacy areas of the business that no longer resonate with the market or meet the needs of the communities will be eliminated. UBM Tech will cease to provide print publications as of July 1, 2013. InformationWeek will continue online, where its strong brand and loyal audiences will benefit from the new community model for greater engagement. UBM Tech will discontinue the Test and Measurement World and Advanced Trading brands and will close four smaller conferences and events.

These changes do not impact the UBM Channel business which is going through a separate strategic review.

About UBM Tech
UBM Tech is a global community-driven media business that provides information, events, training, and marketing solutions for the technology industry.  Its communities inform, educate and inspire decision makers across the entire technology market—serving engineers and design professionals, software and game developers, solutions providers and integrators, networking and communications executives, and business technology professionals.  UBM Tech's industry-leading brands include EE Times, Interop, Black Hat, InformationWeek, Game Developers Conference, Byte, and DesignCon. The company's information products include research, education and training that accelerate decision making for technology buyers.  UBM Tech also offers a full range of marketing services based on its content and technology market expertise, including custom events, content marketing solutions, community development and lead nurturing programs designed to help its clients identify and participate in technology buying decisions. UBM Tech is a part of UBM plc.

About UBM plc
UBM plc (UBM.L) is a leading global events-led marketing services and communications company.

UBM helps businesses do business and helps professional people around the world succeed by enabling them to connect with each other and with the markets and communities they serve.  For more information, go to www.ubm.com; follow us at @UBM_plc to get the latest UBM news.

SOURCE UBM Tech