Just six months after the launch, personality magazine Goedele, centred around Belgian celebrity Goedele Liekens was awarded Medium of the year. The Jury explains: "… in a time where everyone is fighting to maintain its place within the media landscape. Goedele has become a magazine where taboos are thrown on the table, become debatable. A strong concept packed in an innovative, trendy design…" Right after the award, Goedele reaped some monetary benefit through a special advertising campaign in the seventh issue of the magazine in which advertisers congratulated ‘La Liekens’.

On 19 and 20 March the Sanoma Magazines Top 150 gathered in Rotterdam for the annual Management Conference. This edition was labelled ‘Let’s Work’ to underline that after renewing our Strategic Framework last year it’s now time to get to work and implement. Sanoma Magazines President Eija Ailasmaa used her presentation to update the participants about the current status of Sanoma Magazines and devoted a lot of time to the economic crisis. She stressed that our strategy has not changed. The impact of the crisis however is severe. Our growth ambition is affected, and it will most likely take years before we will catch up our decrease in net sales. You can find more information about how Sanoma Magazines is doing in the economic crisis in this feature article.

Mall Inclusive. That’s the title of the first custom publication made by Sanoma Hearst Romania. Mall Inclusive is made for the Anchor group, one of Romania’s leading real estate developers. Mall Inclusive is a quarterly lifestyle magazine with shopping tips and an extensive events agenda. The 100 page magazine is distributed at the Anchor Group’s Bucuresti Mall and Plaza Romania, two popular shopping centres, and through direct mail in a 20,000 print run.

In March Independent Media launched its first parenting magazine. Mamas&Papas. The 132 page glossy bimonthly has a special 20 page insert for children and is the first magazine of this kind. It also marks the first foray of Independent Media in the parenting segment. Mamas&Papas will be distributed through supermarkets and kiosks in all Russian cities with more than one million inhabitants.

Three cheers for Hungary, as Sanoma Budapest won the €12,000 prize money connected with the 2008 Sanoma Awards. The Jury praised the Gossip 360° project, because Sanoma Budapest has single-handedly developed a Hungarian celebrity segment and dominated this market with different media ever since.

The Jury also praised the mobile application of Dutch news site NU.nl. This ilse media application was nominated for an award together with the mobile site of Sanoma News newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. Both news media had developed a mobile application simultaneously. Both nominees had to split the prize money of €3,000 for being nominated, because the projects were so similar.

TV channel Vitaya, aimed at active bon vivants, continues its cross media strategy with the launch of Vitaya magazine, a new monthly magazine for the practical, modern woman. The magazine is made by Sanoma Magazines Belgium. This is the first time in Belgium that a television channel cooperated with a publisher to launch a full magazine. During the development of Vitaya, SMB realised that the magazine had many interfaces with another magazine, Evita. That's why Evita was merged into Vitaya magazine.