Managing multiple brand identities cost-effectively on a single platform

The challenge: Aiming for a clear and harmonized ecosystem

The digital presence of the WSOY publishing family was fragmented. Different publishers used multiple publishing and e-commerce platforms, managed by various partners. This made site maintenance, security updates, and further development slow, expensive, and cumbersome.

The goal was to create a clear, harmonious, and centrally managed ecosystem that minimizes technical risks and eliminates overlapping work. Strategically, we decided to separate the e-commerce business from the brand-specific sites. All e-commerce operations for the publishers were centralized into a single Shopify-powered online store, kirja.fi.

The role of the publisher websites was defined as high-performance digital business cards and brand sites. Their task is to showcase books and authors while seamlessly driving high-intent traffic to the kirja.fi store.

The solution: A cost-effective and scalable multisite architecture

The publisher websites were updated in phases using a WordPress Multisite solution. This allows multiple websites to be created and managed under a single WordPress installation. In a Multisite setup, different sites share a common technical core and modules. This yields significant cost savings in development, as only one theme needs further enhancement. Key benefits include the straightforward deployment of new features across all sites and centralized security updates.

Despite using the same shared theme, each site can be customized with brand-specific colors, styles, and logos. Plugins are always installed at the Multisite level, allowing us to either enforce them across all sites or activate them only for specific selected brands. This solution ensures enterprise-level scalability and minimizes technical debt.

implementation: design, accessibility and smart automation

User experience and search engine visibility

We designed a new WordPress theme that ensures a unified structure and user experience across different publisher sites. Even though all sites share the same foundation, the theme adapts smoothly to each publisher’s unique visual identity. Because the site’s visuals rely heavily on book covers and author photos, we kept the color schemes and typography subtle.

The renewal was a natural opportunity to focus on usability and the overall user experience. Since the new theme was built on a solid foundation from the start, further development saved both time and costs. Search engine visibility was also core to our design and development. Our solutions ensured that the sites are perfectly indexable and easily discoverable by both search engines and users.

Independent content management and accessibility

WSOY’s content creators and marketers can now build content and layouts entirely independently using a modular setup. The block-based Gutenberg architecture enables versatile content management, future development, and optimization without requiring code changes. We focused heavily on making the tools as effortless as possible for marketers, which includes compiling ready-made components into a reusable library and hiding rarely used features. We built the platform for a long lifecycle: by separating theme aesthetics from core functionalities, the user interface and visual design can be refreshed fluidly in the future.

We incorporated core accessibility principles into the renewal. We simplified and unified site navigation, improved search functions for books, authors, and the sites themselves, and designed clear, logical structures and user journeys. Tracking and analytics were fine-tuned to accurately monitor traffic moving from the brand sites to the online store and measure digital marketing effectiveness.

Smart integrations into backend systems

Since most of the site content is pulled automatically from backend systems, we built integrations to reduce manual work and minimize technical risks. We connected the web platform seamlessly to the client’s existing systems, such as Product Information Management (PIM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM). Author and product details, photos, and news feeds update automatically across the sites, keeping dynamic content fresh at all times. Finally, automated integration tests ensure that developing new brands won’t break the existing connections on published sites.

the outcome

The collaboration delivered a sustainable digital ecosystem that serves the organization’s evolving needs long-term. The platform’s efficiency and scalability are proven in practice: the ecosystem currently features five published brand sites on their own domains: WSOY, Tammi, Johnny Kniga, Bazar, and Docendo.

Deploying new brand sites on this polished foundation requires only a fraction of the hours compared to a traditional project. WordPress Multisite makes expanding the portfolio remarkably fast: as more sites were launched, the workload for a new site dropped to just 5–10% of the original core site’s development hours.

A large corporation with multiple brands selling similar products gained strong, distinct online presences for each identity without the high overhead or security risks of scattered platforms. Direct traffic is funneled clearly from the brand environments straight to the Shopify e-commerce engine, and onboarding the remaining family brands onto this proven solution will be seamless.