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January 2007 - Strategy Magazine
Who to watch

Adaptation: Random House's Lisa Charters
Random House's Lisa Charters is quick to respond to consumers' oft-changing online media habits

by Annette Bourdeau
page 22

While the phrase "adapt or die" has now become a cliché, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better term to describe how Lisa Charters operates. From launching one of the Canadian publishing industry's first websites in 1994 to launching multiple targeted sites for Random House of Canada this past year, Charters, VP, director, online sales and marketing, is quick to react to rapidly changing technology to avoid being rendered irrelevant.

"She is a visionary within a very staid industry - what she's doing in book publishing is so forward-thinking," notes Adam Froman, president of Toronto-based Delvinia, Random's interactive agency. "There's a lot of handholding we have to do with other clients. Lisa doesn't need that. She's very knowledgeable, so you can't really snow her over with the dazzle."

Froman points to the fall launch of content-rich consumer-facing websites that each cater to different targets - avid readers, mystery fans, book club members - as especially noteworthy because it recognizes that a one-size-fits-all approach just doesn't cut it anymore. "We've created different websites for different targets," explains Charters, "instead of trying to crowd all those readers into one."

The new sites, as well as the redesigned main sites randomhouse.ca and mcclelland.com, have all been optimized to accommodate content like podcasts, blogs, video and discussion forums. The site for avid readers, booklounge.ca, gives users a sneak peek at upcoming books, as well as author posts about the writing process and weekly author interview podcasts. "We wanted to give these avid readers - the word-of-mouth agents - access to books that aren't published yet," explains Charters. She has also set up a BookLounge channel on YouTube to broadcast video interviews.

To add to the exclusive feel of booklounge.ca, Charters opted to make the site registration-based - an idea she took from another category, music. "She had a really clear vision of the experience she wanted readers to have online - she looked to other media groups to see what they were doing," says Froman. Charters noticed that many artists, like U2 and Sting, offer site membership benefits, and she found the concept appealing. "I realized that there was value behind that wall," she says. Such value-adds include geo-targeted invites to "exclusive" book-related events, and access to videos of author interviews. "So far, the opt-in rate has been high," says Charters. "[The U.S. office] is watching closely. Ours is the first website that is membership registration driven."

Brad Martin, president/COO at Random House of Canada, credits Charters with getting everyone internally revved up about the ambitious site launches. "I'm excited about it, and that's probably because Lisa got me excited about it," he says. "Lisa is a great communicator and is passionate about what she does." Charters was Random House Canada's first employee dedicated to online marketing when she began there in 1999; she now has a team of six.

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