Lineup Systems Partners with McClatchy to Radically Transform their Advertising and Sales Operations

The McClatchy Company (McClatchy) holds a significant place in the annals of US media, winning more than 50 Pulitzer Prizes over its 160-year history. Today, McClatchy owns and operates more than 30 newsrooms across the country.  As McClatchy grew, the company established an advertising and sales operations system that required 9 vendors in cooperation with one another to handle the different aspects of ad sales management. For an innovative and fast-moving company, this amalgamation of systems - and the complexity and cost that accompanied it - was untenable. During the Covid-19 pandemic, McClatchy chose Lineup Systems’ all-in-one ad sales management platform, Adpoint, to solve these issues.

Challenges

• Creating and supporting custom solutions had led to an increasing level of complexity and cost that was not sustainable
• With such a large network of newsrooms and strict adherence to professional journalism standards, Lineup’s team needed to address the well-documented challenges faced by larger media companies.
• The fragmented state of applications supporting the advertising and operations business needed to be centralized – migrating from nine systems to one wasn’t going to be simple, and required an experienced team to make that change.

Solution

• Consolidated multiple legacy platforms into one solution for 800 users, including CRM (replacing a leading provider), digital order management, print display management, general classifieds management, accounts receivable and invoicing functions
• Deployed Adpoint to support all ad ops needs​ within a six-month timeline
  
  

Result

“Adpoint provides us with an opportunity to consolidate our technology stack and gain efficiency by having our sales process from end-to-end all in one system…This solution will improve the speed-to-market for our sales team and drive growth."
                                                                                                                      - Jane Howard, Head of Sales Operations and Support at McClatchy

Lineup’s ethos is to work with our customers as equal partners. In this case especially, this ethos was beneficial for both parties, as both were invested in a fast and thorough migration that resulted in a changed financial landscape for McClatchy; with Adpoint now in place, McClatchy is on track to save millions of dollars per year. Despite a pandemic, financial restructuring, and sagging economy, Lineup and McClatchy found a partnership so in sync they were able to make a radical transformation in McClatchy’s sales and advertising operations.

"From the start, the Lineup and McClatchy teams were able to collaborate efficiently to meet this aggressive deadline and reach a common goal, enabling a huge cost savings for McClatchy with Adpoint. We’re thrilled with this result, and see this as the beginning of a long-term mutually beneficial partnership."
                                                                                              - Markus Feldenkirchen, President of North American Sales at Lineup Systems

About

About McClatchy
We help people and communities thrive. Through our deeply-rooted commitment to the role of local journalism, McClatchy is a catalyst for informed engagement, greater understanding, and deeper community connections. We ensure delivery of news and information essential to enhancing individual lives and improving the 30 distinct communities that are home to our journalists and iconic brands, including the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee, The Charlotte Observer, The (Raleigh) News & Observer, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. We extend our unique local and regional reach, relevance and resources to our advertising partners through fully-integrated marketing solutions

About Lineup
Lineup Systems is the leading provider of media sales technology and our cloud-based system, Adpoint, is the industry’s #1 media sales solution. Our customers include top media groups such as Gannett, New York Times, Bonnier Corp., Hearst, Metro Media, Torstar, Metroland, Block Communications, and many more. Read how these and other media groups are revolutionizing their advertising sales at Lineup.com.