Speaking Sensis

Hi again, and thanks for taking the time to find out more about how Sensis is bringing buyers and sellers together. In today’s update you can read about a tasty new way to demonstrate the value of Yellow® Pages; kicking off the 2010 metro canvass; more new innovations to make life easier for buyers and sellers; the phenomenal growth of mobile; and some more great news about our commitment to sustainability.


8,500 guys and girls and a pizza place
In April, Sensis ran a ground-breaking campaign that really brought the value of Yellow Pages® to life. The campaign worked a bit like this. Team up with well-known Melbourne pizza chef, Tony Fazio. Open a restaurant offering free pizza for two weeks. Don’t tell anyone the address or phone number. Instead tell them to “look it up the way you would any other business”. Then sit back and watch the dough fly.

And fly it did. Over the campaign’s two weeks, over 8,500 calls were made to Hidden Pizza, with over 70% of the callers saying they found Hidden Pizza through the print, online and mobile Yellow Pages®. That’s a lot of pizza… and a great testament to the ability of Yellow Pages® to bring buyers to your door.

Yellow Pages® Metro Canvass is up and running
Our people are now out and about talking to businesses as part of the 2010 Yellow Pages® metropolitan canvass. This must be one of the largest customer engagement programs in Australia, with consultants all over Australia contacting more than half a million businesses over the next few months.

This year, we’ve got some great new products for our customers. These include a Brisbane version of the popular Yellow Pages® In the Car book, Yellow Pages® Online Gold Plus, which is a new advertising solution for businesses without a web site, and enhanced accountability through our metered ad program.

But, perhaps the most exciting new step is a range of bundles that make it even easier for our customers to advertise right across our network. As I’ve talked about before, Yellow Pages® has evolved from a print directory to a diverse and sophisticated advertising network spanning print, online, voice and mobile. These bundles make it easier for businesses to profile themselves to potential buyers right across the network.

From the labs
Of course, we’ve been busy delivering for buyers – the people who use our products – as well.

Firstly, we’ve launched more new features to make our digital services easier to use.

Recently, we reconfigured the Yellow Pages® Online search experience. To begin with, we’ve dropped the ‘business name’ and ‘business type’ radio buttons in favour of a more intuitive search. Now, you can search for a business name, like ‘Sensis’ without having to click a ‘business name’ search button. Instead Yellow Pages® Online will drop down suggested listings relating to Sensis for you to choose from. We’ve also re-built the business profile pages to give buyers easier access to more content. The results of this have been pretty immediate, with a significant reduction in nil result searches and a big rise in interaction: most notably in the number of business profile readers clicking on email links and image galleries.

We’ve also added a series of new features to the White Pages® Online site. White Pages® is all about finding people and businesses you already know, so it’s a fair bet that you’ll be wanting to find your White Pages® contacts over and over again. Recently, we made this easier with the ability to save your contacts to a new ‘My List’ feature on White Pages® Online. We also launched send to mobile, which lets you send your listing from White Pages® Online straight to your mobile to save in your contacts.  In May, we’ll be taking this a step further by launching a new ‘save and share’ feature. With save and share, you’ll be able to save your White Pages® contacts to your pages on Facebook and a wide range of other social networks.

Secondly, we’ve made our services easier to access with new additions to our network.

As you may know, Telstra recently released the home phone of the future, the T-Hub. This is great for buyers and sellers using our services because White Pages®, Yellow Pages® and 1234 (with Whereis® coming soon) are all easily accessible right where your phone is. Just one touch of the console and you’re searching. And when you find the result in Yellow Pages®, you don’t even have to dial… just click to call.

The Yellow Pages® enhanced location search on Whereis.com I mentioned last time is also delivering results. Yellow Pages advertisers are now being profiled on Whereis.com more than 8 million times a month: a number that’s been boosted by about 2 million since we launched the enhanced location feature . This is fantastic for both buyers and sellers. It means Whereis is playing a growing role in bringing buyers and sellers together, while improving the ROI we can offer Yellow Pages® advertisers.

Finally, we’ve also been busy in the mobile space.

We launched a new CitySearch® Mobile site, with an improved look and feel, expanded TV and Movies content, a new ‘Bars’ vertical and improved mapping functionality. And we also launched new Yellow Pages® and White Pages® apps for Android devices to complement the incredibly successful launch of our iPhone apps.

Mobile coming up trumps
On that note, mobile has been an incredible success story for the buyers and sellers who rely on our services. As I’ve mentioned before, mobile usage is growing at a rate of knots. Average monthly Yellow Pages® Mobile visits for the March quarter have doubled YoY yet again. When you look across our entire network, mobile now accounts for over 13% of our total digital (online and mobile) usage.

And smart phone apps are playing an enormous role in this exciting growth. iPhone apps account for something like half of our total Yellow Pages® Mobile and White Pages® Mobile usage and these two apps still sit in the lifestyle category Top 10 in Apple’s App Store … months after they were launched.

More great news on the sustainability front
As I mentioned last month, I’m really proud of the positive contribution being made by our sustainability initiatives; such as our directory recycling program and the decision to offset our carbon emissions through Greenhouse Friendly™ accredited providers and projects in Australia.

Now, we’ve taken this a step further with the release of a new book: Small Business, Big Opportunity: Sustainable Growth. This free book, which is a complement to our highly successful advertising guide, provides practical information on how businesses can reduce their impact on the environment and save money as well.

Small Business, Big Opportunity: Sustainable Growth has been written by Jon Dee, who is the Founder and Managing Director of the not-for-profit action group, Do Something, and the NSW Australian of the Year 2010. If you’d like to order a copy, just check out the Small Business section on our corporate web site.

And finally, in more good news on the sustainability front, I’m pleased to say that our efforts to support a more sustainable future are being acknowledged. Last year we joined the global Corporate Responsibility Index program for the first time. This program is run in Australia by the St James Ethics Centre and we were incredibly proud to achieve a ‘Bronze’ rating and Best New Entry Award in our first year. Since then, we’ve put a lot more work into our sustainability commitments and, as a result, I’m told we have lifted our result even higher this year. More on that next time, when the results are out.

Until then, all the best,

Mobile phone apps – everyone is talking about them and everyone wants them.  Whether it be for playing games or finding a business, service or friend close by, people are jumping on the app band wagon and for good reason.

Apps, short for application software, add an increasing array of functions to mobile phones. At Sensis, our Yellow Pages® and White Pages® iPhone apps were some of the first on the Australian market, with the Yellow Pages® iPhone app being downloaded more than 300,000 times since its launch in August last year. The iPhone app has so far connected more than a quarter of a million people with businesses, and boosted Yellow Pages® Mobile usage by more than 50%.

And on the back of that success we have launched the Yellow Pages® Android app, which is now ready to be downloaded.   

To get the app on your Android phone, simply visit the Android Market and search for ‘Yellow Pages® Australia’ or ‘White Pages® Australia’ or follow these links from your Android phone:

• Yellow Pages® – market://details?id=au.com.sensis.mobile.android.yellow

• White Pages® – market://details?id=au.com.sensis.mobile.android.white

The free apps connect Android-enabled mobile phone users to all the helpful information that can be found at Yellow Pages® Mobile and White Pages® Mobile but enhanced with some features that leverage the enhanced capabilities of the Android platform like:

• Auto-location
  The GPS capability of Android devices allows you to search for businesses close to you. This means you don’t have to type in the location when you do a business search.

• Save to favourites and recent searches
  Create a list of favourite businesses within the app and include notes against listings i.e. “Café Grotto – great coffee, friendly service”. There’s also a list of your most recent searches.

• Auto-suggest categories
  When you start keying text for a business type search, suggestions are presented, meaning you don’t have to type the whole word if there is a match.

While the first Android devices were launched in Australia in early 2009, it will be another 12 months before they really take off.  At the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Richard Fink, Director Device Management & Operations at Telstra, announced  that the first Android handset, the HTC Desire, will be due in next month. 

“We have decided to include Android smartphones on our device roadmap now because there is real momentum building behind the platform. There is a growing range of excellent handsets to choose from, real maturity in the operating system and an ecosystem of around 20,000 apps (growing rapidly) — which gives customers unprecedented freedom to decide how their mobiles look and what they do.”

When I hear that a company has a digital strategy, I say – “so what; I want to know the details of the plan and when it will deliver something that makes a difference to people”. 

It is reassuring to know that right now at Sensis people are busy delivering the digital strategy to make a positive difference to advertisers and the people who use our products and services.  Of course there are some big plans, and exciting projects as part of this, but at the grassroots its also about continuing things such as improving the way we do the basics – like improving the online user experience.  This is something we work on continually using consumer feedback and historical site data.

A few of the latest improvements for Yellow Pages® and White Pages® online sites, set to go live in March include:

• the removal of the radio buttons used to select a business type search or business name search. Instead, yellowpages.com.au will automatically determine, based on the search term, whether the user was looking for a type of business, or a specific business, and handle the search accordingly. For example, a user searching for bunnings is obviously looking for a specific business. On the other hand, a user searching for used cars is clearly looking for a type of business. We’re making this change because we know that users don’t always notice the radio buttons, and consequently accidentally run the wrong type of search, leading to poor results;
• Auto-suggest functionality is being enhanced, with business names now also being suggested;
• Update of the business profile page for Yellow Pages® advertisers. We have updated the look and feel and added new video and photo tabs for advertisers who choose this type of ad. Plus, now when you print business profile pages you will get a cleaner and simpler result; and
• Extension of “my list” tool on White Pages® online from business search to residential.  My lists allows users to “select” advertisers contact details and create personalised lists which can be shared via email with others. 

There is more coming soon in the development pipeline including work on widgets, linking with facebook and twitter, plug-ins, brand name search, geocoding and more.  Stay tuned.

Hi. I hope you all had a great Christmas break. It seems like such a long time ago now, but I really appreciated the chance to get away and recharge the batteries with my family. Of course, we’re all well and truly back in full swing now and, as always, there’s a lot happening.

December half year financial results
On 11 February, Sensis’ financials for the six months to December (1H10) were reported as part of Telstra’s results announcement. You may have already seen the headlines. When adjusted for the transfer of Trading Post to Telstra Media, the sale of Universal Publishers and the rising Australian dollar, earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was up 4.8% on flat (-0.1%) revenue.

This has been a challenging time for the advertising market. Our print directories revenue, for example, was earned at a time when the main media market (including online) declined by 8.5% and print advertising (including newspapers, magazines etc) declined by 12.5%ⁱ.

Sensis has delivered a good result in this uniquely challenged market. Underlying these results are two achievements I believe are worth highlighting. They say a lot about the progress Sensis has made in recent times:

• the growth of digital media and the evolution of our revenue mix; and
• the support we continue to receive from customers: the buyers and sellers who rely on our services.

Changing revenue mix: In recent years, we’ve broadened our horizons by expanding into both digital media and new markets, like China. In 1H07, 18% of revenue came from digital media. In 1H10 (just three years later) digital revenue has doubled to more than $300m and is now more than 30% of total revenue.

This is exciting progress. Our focus on diversity has dramatically improved the services we offer our customers and the underlying strength of our business for investors. As a result, Sensis today is the largest Australian-owned digital advertising business: a position further strengthened by our exciting investments in China, which now has the largest online audience in the worldⁱⁱ.

Continued strong support from our customers: A particularly pleasing aspect of this result is the enduring vote of confidence from our customers. Advertiser numbers remained largely intact despite the downturn. At the same time, advertiser satisfaction remained high. Advertisers gave the performance of our White Pages® and Yellow Pages® sales consultants a rating of more than 90% positiveⁱⁱⁱ, which is a tremendous ‘thumbs up’ for the work they’re doing. Finally, on the usage front, we continue to meet the needs of millions of potential buyers. The potential audience reach for Yellow Pages® advertisers grew to 11.5m unique users a month^iv, mobile usage grew by about 70%^v and MediaSmart online usage grew by 7.4%^vi.

Driving customer value with a commitment to innovation
Critical to achieving all of these objectives is our commitment to continually improve the quality of our services for both buyers and sellers. In just two months since my last update, we’ve been able to:

• launch Yellow Pages® enhanced business search in Whereis.com. Now, when you search on Whereis® for the address of a Yellow Pages® advertiser, you’ll see the business details of the advertiser pop up. A simpler experience for buyers and more potential returns for advertisers. In just one month, this new service has resulted in almost half a million new views of Yellow Pages® advertiser listings; and,
• launch the Yellow Pages® In the Car Book in a number of new markets following successful trials in Melbourne and Sydney. We’ve already seen ‘In the Car’ usage double year-on-year and there should be more growth to come as the books are distributed in these new markets;
• begin trials of a new ‘midi’ Yellow Pages® Book in Sydney. This smaller sized book is designed to be easier and more appealing for apartment owners living in high density areas;
• re-launch www.yellowadvertising.com.au – the Yellow Pages® advertiser site. This site gives advertisers ready access to the information they need to make the best advertising decision for them.

We’ve also seen positive activity in Location & Navigation. The Whereis® Navigator GPS service for mobile phones is growing rapidly and had a record month for subscriptions in December. There are also some early signs of a potential turnaround in the sat nav sector after a difficult 18 months or so.

And in MediaSmart, we’re working on phase 2 of our online targeting capability. When launched, advertisers will have the ability to target not just on the basis of user demographics but also online browsing behaviour (using purchase life cycle, life events and interest triggers across specific site categories, such as auto or small business). We’re also working to extend these capabilities to mobile. Ultimately, this will provide digital advertisers with the ability to deliver highly targeted cross platform advertising.

Behind the scenes, we’ve also switched Yellow Pages® over to the new iGen system. This is our largest ever technology innovation program and, after a few nervous weeks, the transition is now starting to show meaningful progress.

Its common knowledge major systems redevelopment projects are often difficult but, I must say, that’s pretty cold comfort when you’re going through one. While the program has been mostly successful, we are disappointed the upgrade didn’t go exactly to plan and we’re very conscious of the impact it has had in areas such as customer care levels.

Nevertheless, I’m pleased to say the biggest system challenges seem to be behind us and iGen is now stable and operating effectively. We have dedicated teams working through the backlog of change requests and service orders to bring us back to our usually high standards of customer service. And I’m also pleased to see our latest regional books – the first produced using iGen – are now being distributed.

Moving forward, we can look forward to delivering real customer benefits from iGen. These improvements will impact areas such as customer care, speed to market, search capabilities, product integration and content management – among many other capabilities.

Print and online directories certified carbon neutral
Recently, in a world’s first for a major directories company, we announced our print and online directories have been certified carbon neutral through the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Friendly™ program. We have committed to offset the carbon emissions of our directories through Greenhouse Friendly™ accredited providers and projects. At the same time, we have committed to reducing our operational greenhouse gas footprint by 5% year on year to 2012.

We also recently celebrated ten years of directory kerb-side recycling. This program has been an immense success. Recycling rates are up from 4% in 1999 to 96% recycled or re-used today. As a result, more than 175m directories have been recycled since 2000.
I’m incredibly proud of these achievements. Together, these two initiatives demonstrate not only our commitment to sustainability but our success in turning that commitment into positive action.

Federal Court copyright decision
Recently, a single judge (Justice Gordon) of the Federal Court found there was no copyright in the compilation of factual information in our White Pages® and Yellow Pages® print directories. ‘Factual information’ in this case refers to the names, numbers and addresses contained in the directories but, importantly, does not affect copyright in display ads. Not only is this outcome disappointing for Sensis and Telstra, it has far reaching implications for any business that invests in the development of compilations, such as customer lists, postcodes, TV guides, anthologies, racing information, and marketing lists.

We have been granted leave to appeal the Federal Court’s decision and are likely to do so. In the meantime, there is a critical assurance I want to make – particularly to our customers: our success as a business is not solely reliant on copyright protection.

For more than a decade now, Sensis has been operating in a competitive market in both print and online. In print, competitors have been copying our data for years in certain markets. And, in online, we’ve been operating in the same market as some of the world’s largest online businesses for the same period of time.

Despite this competition and the negative comments you occasionally read in the media, our business and, most importantly, the value we offer both buyers and sellers are stronger than ever.

It’s business as usual as far as we’re concerned. Continuing to build the returns for our customers, investors and the community is what matters.

All the best,

Bruce Akhurst

ⁱ CEASA, Main Media Report. June 2009. Note: 1H10 print directories results backdated six months to align sales cycles with the rest of the media market.
ⁱⁱ Clickz.com Web Worldwide http://www.clickz.com/stats/web_worldwide
ⁱⁱⁱ TNS, Sensis KPI Report, December 2009. Average monthly satisfaction score – July 2009 to December 2009
^iv Roy Morgan, Single Source Australia. September quarter 2009. Base: Australians14+
^v Omniture, December quarter 2009 compared to 2008
^vi Roy Morgan, Single Source Australia. September quarter 2009. Base: Australians14+

On a stunning Melbourne February morning, I had the pleasure of attending a photoshoot at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne.  Sensis brought together 17 men and women from Victoria’s emergency services who served during the Black Saturday fires for the cover shot for this year’s Melbourne Residential White Pages®. The cover of the Melbourne White Pages®, due out in May, will feature members of Ambulance Victoria, Metropolitan Fire Brigade, Victoria Police, State Emergency Services, Department of Sustainability and Environment, and Country Fire Authority.

Some of these heroes came off holidays to attend the photo shoot and others came from outside of Melbourne and directly from 14 hour work shifts. Coordinating the photo shoot itself was quite a feat. The event attracted interest of Herald Sun and Channel Nine, who grabbed the opportunity to photograph, take footage and talk to our cover heroes on the eve of the one year anniversary of the tragic Black Saturday fires. When you bring together the cream of the crop of emergency services in Victoria, it is a pretty special event. 

The group included Vicky Dunelly who served in King Lake for the Ambulance Service and was awarded a service medal at the Australia Day Awards and has also been named Volunteer of the Year. Another courageous character attending the shoot was Pat Leddin from the Kilmore Unit of the SES who lost his home while he was out fighting fires. With our covers theme for White Pages® and Yellow Pages® directories this year being Courageous Australians, it was fitting for us to recognise the great courage of the people who served during the Black Saturday fires and it’s hard to think of a better example of courage than the work of emergency services people during the Black Saturday fires.

Distribution of the first regional Yellow Pages® and White Pages® to feature courageous Australians on the covers begins this weekend in Tamworth, Dubbo, Bathurst, Albury and Launceston. The extraordinary Australians to be honoured this year include people aged from five to 78 years of age, with amazing stories from people who risked their own safety to help others, overcome personal hardships, and in many cases shown bravery that inspired others in the community, and even saved lives. All of the cover hero announcements will be published on http://www.whitepagescommunity.com.au/ White Pages® community site in line with book distribution throughout the year.

Today is an exciting day for me. Actually, it is an exciting day for Sensis. Today we announce that our Yellow Pages® and White Pages® print and online directories are certified carbon neutral through the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Friendly™ program.

We have achieved this by offsetting the carbon emissions of our directories through Greenhouse Friendly™ accredited providers and projects in Australia. I am working for the first major directories company in the world to have its print and online directories certified carbon neutral, which makes me feel pretty good. Our carbon neutrality announcement wasn’t referring to our businesses operational carbon footprint (fleet, facilities and flights) – we’re taking responsibility for the full ‘cradle to grave’ impacts of the print and online directories. That’s the production, use, disposal and distribution of the directories. We’re talking around 175,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.

We know how many tonnes we’re taking responsibility for because we”ve commissioned environmental professional services company URS Australia to undertake a full life cycle assessment on the directories. In addition to offsetting the carbon emissions through Greenhouse Friendly™ accredited providers and projects in Australia, we are also announcing our target to reduce our operational carbon emissions by five per cent year-on-year. This means we’re working with people across the entire Sensis business to embed an understanding of what sustainability is and how they can reduce emissions in their areas of the business.

It’s great to be working for a company that is committed to taking a leadership role in corporate sustainability. Read more about this exciting news here: http://about.sensis.com.au/Sustainability/Environment/Our-Commitment-to-Climate-Change