BRIEF: Outline your objectives and the target audience

In Europe, The Economist suffers from low brand awareness. And when people are aware of it, they tend to think it is narrowly focused on finance and economics.

The main objective for this pan-European campaign, therefore, was to give a brand experience to 75,000 of our newly defined ?intellectually curious? target audience (i.e. defined using TGI analysis as young, university educated, interested in global events and issues), which would overcome their misconceptions about the magazine?s content. We were seeking to broaden our base beyond the realm of our historical business reader target.

RATIONALE: How was it approached, and what was innovative about it

Two insights were used together to inform our new brand campaign approach:

Firstly, we knew that our ?intellectually curious? audience were heavy online users, which suited our purposes because we needed to use an interactive and engaging medium that adhered to no boundaries and was inexpensively scalable: digital.

Secondly, we realized that the best way to convince new readers of the diversity of our magazine?s content was to show them some of the interesting, eclectic mix of characters who already read the magazine ? thereby using our readers varied occupations, lifestyles and interests as a reflection of the magazine?s content itself.

The Economist Thinking Space was born ? a place where we ask people: where do you get your ideas? It is an interactive site, built in Papervision with stunning photography, where we invite visitors into the lives of some of our European Economist readers ? opening the door to their physical ?thinking space? as well as their digital thinking spaces. Our diverse range of influential personalities share their thoughts, ideas, parts of their lives and the role The Economist plays in it. Users are also able to upload and tag images of their own spaces, to allow the site to become more inclusive and to grow, breaking away from the brand?s historical exclusivity.

DELIVERY: What issues affected the planning process? Did the implementation reflect the innovation of the idea?

The implementation of the campaign followed a traditional online media model using online banners, facebook ads (based around a fan page which attracted over 15,000 fans) Spotify ads and a Blogger outreach strategy to drive people to the microsite.

BUDGET: What was the budget set for the work and the actual spend

Production budget was ?110,000 and media spend was ?274,160.