Digitization solution for local publishers

The Woche-Pass was founded in 1975 as a small print shop and has developed into a cross-media company over the years. In order to counteract falling sales in the print sector, the company has now decided to develop a digital strategy for its print product «Woche-Pass».

The decision was made to create a digital ecosystem that would optimally complement the existing print product. The large existing readership was to be actively involved as content creators in order to record local events, reports and catering offers. Furthermore, the existing insertion tool for the weekly pass (recording of advertisements, classified ads, apprenticeships and the reservation of pages) should be seamlessly integrated into the new platform.

The result is a comprehensive portal in which the entire Week Pass ecosystem can be mapped. Thanks to an intuitive customer portal, the entire content is captured and enriched by readers from the region. 

In order to make optimum use of the synergies between the products, the print offering was expanded to include digital multichannel upsells. The complete solution uses Pimcore's multi-client capability to offer a white label solution for other local publishers. Four publishers are now part of the ecosystem and actively contribute to the further development of the portal.

The solution is further developed according to the principles of agile software development and new functions are rolled out regularly. This means that the wishes of individual publishers can be taken into account and it is possible to react to short-term changes in the market. For example, users are supported by an AI-powered assistant when writing editorial reports.