A new integrated advertising system has gone live at the Boston Globe, enabling it to separate from that of former owner the New York Times.
The new Miles 33 system – including ad booking, CRM and salesforce.com integration, production, customer self-service, planning, accounts receivable and credit management – went live in a “remarkable” seven months.
The move follows the sale of the newspaper by John Henry, requiring its separation from the SAP-based NYT system. A tight project schedule saw all advertising-related activities of the Boston Globe move onto the new system.
The components – including multiple self-service portals and XML-based interfaces to Salesforce.com, FastChannel, AdSend, Gabriels and other third party services –went live in a private cloud that supports users in the US and India.
The advertising system not only provides all local advertising sales and order entry, but also functions as a gateway and integration hub for external ad sources.
Incoming channels include GlobeDirect, a full service direct mail operation, national ad agency content, including content from FastChannel and AdSend, as well as other media sources. The advertising system also exports content to third party systems.
Globe IT vice president Wade Sendall says many at the poublisher has been skeptical of the ambitious timetable: “In the end they proved us all wrong," he says.
Miles 33 sales and marketing vice president Albert de Bruijn says the achievement was remarkable due to the time it took and the number of departments impacted.