Good news lads

At a time when traditional print media is haemorrhaging staff and old school publishers struggle to make any sense of the financial opportunities available to them via digital technology, good news is hard to buy.

But what if I told you there was one UK publisher that had more than doubled its staff in the past 12 months, now employing more than 100 people in offices in London and Manchester, and had successfully cracked the elusive youth market with 50% of all UK males between the ages of 16 and 24 engaged their brands. That would be good news.

The Ladbible Group is not only reporting staggering growth in the popularity of their social media and online properties (attracting some 400 million viewers a month), it’s also pulling in some big industry names to lead the companies continued growth.

Last week Ladbible announced it had secured the services of Adam Clyne, the former head of digital EMEA at Weber Shandwick (one of the world’s leading PR agencies), to lead its charge into new international market as their new chief operating officer.

Many traditional news organisations might not consider the Ladbible as a serious competitor to their more serious approach to the news but they would be foolish to ignore the group’s meteoric rise to success.

While many newspaper publishers look back and try to protect a glorious past in paper and ink and struggle to see a future beyond the printed page, often just paying lip service to social, mobile and online strategies, Ladbible has built their business with a clear eye on the here and now which the publishers believe will see them into a bright future.

So what’s the secret to their success.

Ladbible get social media (which means by default they also get mobile) and see the medium represents a huge opportunity for growth.

While much of the Ladbible’s content might be a little immature for the mainstream media to be overly concerned with, their distribution model and commercial sense is very sophisticated.

Perhaps the grown up media could learn a lot about protecting the future of their industry by being a little more “Laddish”.