Digital transformation of BNN

The starting point

Badische Neueste Nachrichten is the media house for the region around Karlsruhe, Mittelbaden, the Kraichgau and Pforzheim. For 75 years and with 1,700 employees, BNN has kept its readers informed about world events and the region, across all media channels. From 2015 onwards, we accompanied BNN on its way into the digital world.

The task

The goal went beyond new products: the organisation itself was to be digitalised. Editorial, marketing and sales needed digital formats, processes and structures. Plus the skills to run them on their own.

What we did

In a first step, we built a digital team with members from all departments. Together, a lean, WordPress-based news website was created. The team took over the management and maintenance of the website as well as the new social channels. We developed formats, processes and organisational structures and introduced the right platforms. Editorial teams were trained one by one. Marketing and sales were set up digitally as well: with campaigns, expanded online services for subscribers and digital advertising products including sales, production and reporting processes.

Relaunch 2020: two portals, clearly separated

In 2020, together with additional partners, we rebuilt BNN’s news and service portals. The news portal runs on the CUE editorial system, the service portal on WordPress, home to subscriptions, service requests and classified ads. Regional front pages, curated topic pages and a news ticker structure the news offering. We were involved in strategy, UX, design, SEO and web development. We still are today.

Formats for digital journalism

A toolkit of formats was created for the editorial team: interview, listicle, news items, opinion pieces, photo galleries and cooperation formats. A dedicated longread template for big stories was added. Since 2021, the BNN+ online subscription has complemented the portfolio. Premium content is marked with a badge; longreads and galleries appear in a dark look without advertising.

A design system from 320 pixels up

The visual identity combines Helvetica Condensed as the brand typeface with ITC New Veljovic for reading text.

The extended colour palette gives blue a clear role as the indicator for interaction, while orange sets the premium accent. A unified icon collection completes the system.

Everything is built on atomic design, documented in a pattern library in Zeplin. Designed and tested from a viewport width of 320 pixels, with a smooth transition between the two portals.

The result

We gradually handed our responsibilities over to the colleagues at BNN. Today they carry the measures forward on their own. The digital team manages the website and channels itself, and the digital advertising products run with their own sales, production and reporting processes. We stay on board as a sparring partner: from strategy to web development.