‘Growing audiences but diminishing returns’: publishers grapple with mobile

Harris: Mobile means “now you have less to sell”

The head of digital for Condé Nast in the UK has admitted the publisher’s move to focus its GQ magazine product on mobile saw it lose ad revenues, despite growing audience figures.

Wil Harris told the International News Media Association (INMA) congress in London: “Mobile was the number one platform our audience was on so it was going to be the number one thing we had to develop.”

But when pressed on the commercial realities of such a focus by congress moderator Juan Senor, Harris admitted the company had lost income from desktop display ads and the lucrative “takeover” of a web home page.