How Our Media Leads 14 Brands into the Digital Future with Purple
Following a management buyout from the Immediate Media Group, Our Media faced the challenge of migrating 14 brands including BikeRadar, Gardens Illustrated and Homes & Antiques from an in-house WordPress platform. Using Purple Editor and Purple Experience, the company successfully migrated all 14 websites within 12 months through an innovative master template approach. This transformation marks a turning point: from traditional print-first processes to a future-ready content-first philosophy.
Client
Using Purple since
Products used
From Print-First to Content-First Setup
- Technical dependency on an in-house platform
- Overcoming print-first in favour of a content-first strategy
- Migration of 14 brand websites within a tight timeframe
- Lack of responsiveness to events due to separate workflows
- Building a scalable foundation for multi-platform publishing
Following successful independence, Our Media faced a crucial decision. The proprietary platform had powered the brands for years, but the move away from Immediate meant that the business had to review its platform options. The team wanted a more flexible foundation for the next phase of growth and this marked an opportunity to develop a strategy that was right for the new business. Azir Razzak, CTO at Our Media, took on the task of developing that new digital strategy: "We had an in-house platform and I wanted to first examine what options we had for the future."
This analysis revealed fundamental challenges. Print was traditionally treated as the primary product, whilst digital content was only produced as an afterthought. This workflow led to significant inefficiencies: content was created twice, response time to current events was too slow, and different teams worked in separate silos. Azir recognised the need for a paradigm shift: "We had been focusing on print and producing digital content afterwards. Plus, there was a lot of duplication."
The requirements for the new technology partner were clearly defined: a SaaS solution with continuous innovation capability, flexibility for individual customisations, and a partner who could share and implement the ambitious medium-term vision of a multichannel publishing strategy.
“It was certainly a major project when we embarked on migrating all 14 websites to the Purple platform. The Purple team took the time to understand what we were looking to deliver and helped us every step of the way providing support, guidance and expert advice as we went. As with all projects we came up against a number of unforeseen challenges and our partners at Purple took them all in their stride finding ways forward when we were stuck. And now that we have migrated, we are looking forward to an exciting digital future!”
Master Templates as the Recipe for Success
- Successful migration of all 14 brand websites to Purple
- Implementation of an innovative master template approach
- Complete integration of important third-party providers for ads, affiliate etc.
- Partnership-based project delivery with can-do mentality despite complexity
- Unified editorial user interface with minimal learning curve
The decision to work with Purple came after a thorough evaluation process. As Our Media was already using Purple Apps, it made sense to examine the CMS solution's capabilities more closely. After a product demonstration in Bristol, it was clear: Purple offered exactly the combination of technological innovation and collaborative partnership that Our Media was seeking.
"We wanted to react quickly in a rapidly changing digital world: Apple News, syndication partners and less dependence on Google Search. A platform approach allowed us to focus on content whilst our partner handled the technology," Azir explains the decision. The advantages of a SaaS solution were compelling: continuous maintenance and innovation, the possibility for individual customisations, and above all, the vision of a true multi-platform publishing strategy.
The migration project proved ambitious. “The project was complicated from the start – we had to migrate 14 websites and every single migration was different,” Azir recalls. Each website was therefore treated as its own migration, beginning with a single brand as a pilot project. A particular success was the implementation of the master template approach. Purple developed three master templates together with Our Media, which served as the foundation for all brand websites. This ambitious approach made it possible to use common building blocks across all brands whilst allowing brand-specific customisations when needed. "Creating the master templates was tricky, but we achieved it and so laid the foundation for all websites," Azir emphasises.
The integration of third-party providers was also central to Our Media's business model, which relies on advertising, affiliate marketing and native ads as core revenue streams. Purple implemented connections to important systems such as Skimlinks, Awin, Squirrel, and Trackonomics for affiliate marketing, Zephr for login and registration, Google Ads and Ozone for ad delivery, as well as a custom video player and podcast integration. Additionally, all frontend development was undertaken by Purple, maintaining close collaboration with the Our Media team throughout.
"Our Purple project team had a refreshing can-do attitude, by which I mean they always looked for solutions and didn't let problems stop them," Azir praises. This solution-oriented approach was crucial for project success, particularly given the complex data migration.
Das Migrationsprojekt erwies sich als ambitioniert. „Das Projekt war von Anfang an kompliziert – wir mussten 14 Websites migrieren und jede einzelne Migration war anders", erinnert sich Azir. Jede Website wurde daher als eigene Migration behandelt, beginnend mit einer einzelnen Marke als Pilotprojekt. Besonders erfolgreich war die Implementierung des Master-Template-Ansatzes. Purple entwickelte zusammen mit Our Media drei Master-Templates, die als Grundlage für alle Marken-Websites dienten. Dieser ambitionierte Ansatz ermöglichte es, gemeinsame Bausteine über alle Marken hinweg zu verwenden und gleichzeitig markenspezifische Anpassungen bei Bedarf zuzulassen. „Die Erstellung der drei Master-Templates war knifflig, aber wir haben es geschafft und so die Grundlage für alle Websites gelegt", betont Razzak.
Die Integration von Drittanbietern war ebenfalls zentral für das Geschäftsmodell von Our Media, das auf Werbung, Affiliate-Marketing und Native Ads als Kerneinnahmequellen angewiesen ist. Purple implementierte Verbindungen zu wichtigen Systemen wie Skimlinks, Awin, Squirrel und Trackonomics für Affiliate-Marketing, Zephr für Login und Registrierung, Google Ads und Ozone für Ad-Delivery, sowie einen maßgeschneiderten Videoplayer und Podcast-Integration. Zusätzlich übernahm Purple die gesamte Frontend-Entwicklung und arbeitete dabei durchgehend eng mit dem Our Media Team zusammen. „Unser Purple-Projektteam hatte eine erfrischende Can-do-Mentalität. Damit meine ich, dass sie immer nach Lösungen suchten und sich nicht von Problemen aufhalten ließen," lobt Razzak. Dieser lösungsorientierte Ansatz war entscheidend für den Projekterfolg, insbesondere angesichts der komplexen Datenmigration.
"The licence costs we’ve saved are equivalent to the cost of a handful of in-house developers, without the management overhead, and we get continuous innovation."
When Courage to Change Pays Off
- 14 sites live in 12 months – a full year faster than an alternative re-platform would have taken
- £100K direct savings plus 50% lower support costs versus legacy maintenance
- Continuous efficiency with a leaner team thanks to a master template
- Tech & product teams free to focus on growth initiatives instead of firefighting
The migration of all 14 websites was successfully completed, meeting every success criterion: complete content transfer, efficient editorial workflows, minimal SEO impact and seamless tool-integration. Thanks to a streamlined master-template and automation, the team shaved at least one full year off the timeline compared with other platform projects. After the pilot brand went live, the remaining sites followed in rapid succession.
“Once we saw the first success, we knew we’d solved the right problems,”
Azir recalls.
The master template continues to pay dividends: “A single change now rolls out to every brand – yet we can still tweak per site when we need to.” That efficiency lets Our Media do more with a leaner team while cutting operational overhead.
Financially, the move proved equally sound. Direct savings exceed £100 000, support costs are now roughly 50% lower than the maintenance bill for the old system, and one year after the corporate spin-off Our Media was already recording profits. The investment in Purple is also justified by the efficiency gains. Perhaps the greatest benefit: the tech and product teams now have the freedom to focus on growth initiatives rather than daily firefighting.
After Migration Comes Continuous Innovation
The successful migration marks only the beginning of Our Media's digital transformation. The next steps are already being planned: all apps will be migrated to the latest Purple Hub version to enable newsfeeds and a new UI/UX design. Furthermore, the implementation of AWS Cognito for single sign-on will form the foundation for an improved first-party data strategy.
An important future project is the integration of print workflows. "Currently we’re examining integrating these via Purple's print partners such as Tango or CX Fusion to streamline processes," Azir explains.
“It was certainly a major project when we embarked on migrating all 14 websites to the Purple platform. The Purple team took the time to understand what we were looking to deliver and helped us every step of the way providing support, guidance and expert advice as we went. As with all projects we came up against a number of unforeseen challenges and our partners at Purple took them all in their stride finding ways forward when we were stuck. And now that we have migrated, we are looking forward to an exciting digital future!” says Andy Marshall, CEO at Our Media.
The partnership between Our Media and Purple impressively demonstrates how established publishers can master the leap into the digital future. Through the bold decision to transform 14 brands simultaneously whilst adopting a modern SaaS solution, Our Media has created the foundation for sustainable growth in a rapidly changing media landscape.
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