Nir Lempert, CEO of Israel-based Golden Pages, discussed his company’s transformation from print to a vertically focused media player. The key to transforming, Lempert said, has been about empowering consumers. And thus the advertisers and revenues have followed.

In 2004 91 percent of Golden Pages’ revenues were from print products and just 9 percent were from digital. Fast forward to 2010 and, through its vertical and digital transformation, revenues have shifted to 70 percent digital and 30 percent from print. Golden Pages identified five consumer needs — reliability, necessity, specialty, affordability and emotional involvement — and created verticals.

The transformation in strategy includes rich content built on its Internet Yellow Pages to deliver a great consumer experience. Lempert offered the example of Zap, Golden Pages’ local shopping and comparison site, which lets consumers shop and then make informed decisions based on local business information and inventory of where to buy the products. Golden Pages took the Zap model and “zapped” its Yellow Pages into verticals.