An online version of trendy interiors and design magazine Wallpaper
will spearhead Time’s assault on the European internet advertising
market.
The US-based publisher, part of the Time Warner empire, has appointed an
international internet chief to boost its presence on the web. Doris
Sohmen becomes new-media director for Time International. She will be
based in London.
Time already has a US site, Time.com, and an online version of its
Fortune magazine. It also has Asian sites such as Time Asia, Asiaweek
and Asia Now, the last being a joint venture with CNN. But Sohmen
admitted that the company’s European web presence was ’not highly
developed at all’.
The Wallpaper site will launch before the end of the year and is
expected to generate revenue from a mixture of advertising and
e-commerce. Sohmen was unable to offer further details.
Time’s decision to use Wallpaper as a launch pad for its European online
expansion echoes its strategy when it bought the magazine in 1997. At
the time, the move signalled the company’s determination to strengthen
its presence outside the US. The magazine has a circulation of more than
100,000.
Also on the cards are an online version of the Atlantic edition of Time,
which covers Europe, and a European extension of the partnership with
CNN.
Sohmen joined the company in 1997 to set up the Asian sites. Earlier
this year she moved to London as new-media director for Time Atlantic,
working with sales teams to develop online extensions of advertising
campaigns.
She has now been handed a global remit.
’Up until now we have been able to offer European clients a targeted
inventory on our American sites but - as we have found with our
magazines - we realise we must create sites for European audiences if
they are to be truly relevant,’ she said.
Sohmen added that as well as generating additional advertising revenue,
the move would enable the publisher to build its brand online.
Sohmen has been involved in the internet since 1993, when she worked for
Price Waterhouse as a consultant specialising in helping traditional
media companies move onto the web. She was also a financial analyst at
Hearst New Media.
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