Episode 193

Inside The Economist’s Ferrari strategy

The Economist’s president Luke Bradley-Jones looks to Ferrari as an example of a brand that’s been able to use scarcity to drive value. Ferrari has avoided the trap of many luxury brands in chasing scale and in the process diluting their brands. While The Economist won’t limit the amount of people who can subscribe, it follows the less-is-more strategy in sticking to its legacy values and hand-crafted journalism while modernizing its distribution and presentation.


Transcript
Brian:

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Brian:

Okay, welcome to the Rebooting Show.

Brian:

I am Brian Morrissey this week my guest was the Economist President, Luke Bradley Jones.

Brian:

You know, one of the core challenges facing legacy media brands is how to compete in a decentralized

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media environment that rewards individual voices over a collective institutional voice.

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That was the way to go in the analog era.

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just think of the retreat from newspaper political endorsements and even how editorial

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boards overall feel like anachronisms, and have far less impact in the discourse,

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as they say, than prominent individuals.

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This is a challenge for a brand like The Economist, mostly because it has been so

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successful in building a collective voice for, the brand around its small l liberal belief in free

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markets, free trade, and free political systems.

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It's, by the way, a set of beliefs that were the default during globalization, but are,

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are now under threat, if not in retreat, in many, if not most parts of the, of the world.

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of the defining aspects of The Economist has long been its lack of bylines.

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This signals that the magazine or or newspaper, as it likes to call itself,

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is a manifestation of what Luke calls the hive mind of its editorial team.

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You know, the Economist has rollicking debates over its editorials or leaders

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as it calls them, and comes to a rough consensus that used to an editorial line.

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That for the most part has been consistent for the past 150 or so years.

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So the question, is it becoming how to modernize this approach while not losing, what made

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the brand distinctive in the first place?

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So for the Economist, that means lifting the veil on this hive mind

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process to uncover how the sausage is.

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It did research and it found that, by keeping its journalists somewhat anonymous,

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that had led to a little bit of intrigue.

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And so they are putting that to use by making its journalists, more front and center.

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Now, whether that's how many newsletters or podcasts, and particularly through, its new

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twice weekly streaming show the insider.

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Features the economist journalists as well as guests digging into the

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biggest stories of the week, an early episode, set off a little micro drama.

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I don't think we can have full dramas these days, just micro dramas with Steve Bannon.

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when he told, the Economist somewhat incredulous editor that, she needs to accept the fact that

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Donald Trump will again run for president, even though he is not eligible to run for president.

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so.

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Luke and I get into, all of this and you know how the economist finds inspiration from

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Ferrari in trying to be a luxury brand and why human crafted journalism is actually well

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positioned in an AI mediated media environment.

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Hope you enjoy this episode.

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as always, send me a note with, feedback.

Brian:

My email is brian@therebooting.com and if you like the show, please leave it a rating or review.

Brian:

And here's my conversation with Luke.

Brian:

Luke, thank you for, thank you for powering your way through the Economist, security system.

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It was worth it, Brian, to be here with you.

Brian:

There you go.

Brian:

so anyway, this is something new we're trying called TRB Live and it's, it's

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a way, you know, to build off of.

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Both the online forums we've done that have been successful, but also, the podcast.

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And I wanted to, Luke and I have been talking about doing a podcast and I was like, you

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know, we're gonna be touching on the Economist streaming show, and so let's, let's do this live.

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And so we had a little, we had a few.

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Snafus, but that's okay.

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so we're gonna talk a lot about The Economist is, is one of my favorite brands.

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I gotta say that Luke.

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I have actually one time, even before I was in this profession, I visited

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where The Economist is St. James Place.

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I think it was, or maybe called St. James or something.

Brian:

I have no idea.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

But I went there, it was like a pilgrimage as like a student because I was so into

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The Economist, I was a bit of a weirdo.

Brian:

But like, I think when I think about like what what brands are like well positioned right

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now, I think The Economist has a lot of the ingredients for, a successful brand, you know,

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and that is, that it's incredibly strong brand.

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it's got, a very, deep connection with its audience, with a, big subscription business.

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And, it also is focused on a very lucrative area, which it is, you know,

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the sort of global elite, if you will.

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and I, I think that there are, you know, a lot of different ways that you can

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make money with, with a brand like this.

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and it's a very differentiated brand.

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So I wanna get into to that with you and how you take this great, base obviously that

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the Economist has and modernize it 'cause every brand needs to, to modernize it.

Brian:

So, thanks for for, for joining us, Luke.

Luke:

Thanks for having me, Brian, and I'm glad to count you amongst our global elite and,

Brian:

I'm not a global elite, but anyway, you know, any of those elite brands, you know, there,

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there's always the people who are like pushing their, their nose up against the glass that

Brian:

are the bigger numbers than the actual elites.

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So, you know, that's just how the racket works.

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anyway, so let's get, let's, let's get into it.

Brian:

Like, I, I was doing like a little like, SWOT analysis of the economists before

Brian:

this, and, you know, I went through some of the strengths and I think one of the

Brian:

interesting, because I always think one of 'em.

Brian:

Our strengths are usually, you know, ends up being challenges.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And I think of the Economist as having an incredibly strong institutional voice, right?

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

But we seem to be in this age of like individuals, right?

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And how I think every brand has to figure where they play along that spectrum.

Brian:

So let's just start by like, how do you end up thinking about.

Luke:

Yeah, so it's, it's an interesting sort of, circle to try and square, right?

Luke:

Because historically we have been renowned for having no bylines in our printed

Luke:

product, whether that's the, the weekly print edition or the, or what we publish online.

Luke:

So we've had what we'd like to call the hive mind of the Economist journalistic newsroom.

Luke:

Producing this very, very well thought through, very clearly reasoned,

Luke:

fact-based, independent point of view.

Luke:

And that is the economist point of view.

Luke:

It's like it is our collective viewpoint on the world, on the stories that

Luke:

matter shaping the, the, you know, today and tomorrow around the world.

Luke:

And, that's really been a signature of our journalism.

Luke:

So then, you know, kind of forward into 21st century.

Luke:

The advent of digital and then the advent of podcasts and increasing the importance

Luke:

of, of video in, in all forms of journalism.

Luke:

And we realized that we had to find a, a way to sort of strike the right balance between that

Luke:

very, kind of deeply, deeply held point of view.

Luke:

That, that there is nothing more important than the economist point of view.

Luke:

also starting to make sure that we bring more, more.

Luke:

personality into some of our journalism in those, in those audio and video channels.

Luke:

And actually whether we serve a, like a growing audience desire to, to

Luke:

really get closer to our journalists.

Luke:

And that probably is shaped by some of those broader trends that you talk

Luke:

about, the importance of personality and the importance of individual voices.

Luke:

and I don't think we're ever gonna go right down that route, but what we are

Luke:

gonna do is we, we, we are lifting the veil and we have lifted the veil already.

Luke:

on our journalists, on our newsroom, and that started with podcasts over the last

Luke:

two or three years where we have, yeah, five weekly podcasts hosted by the same people.

Luke:

Those people have followings.

Luke:

So we're not in the business of kind of keeping our, our journalists completely anonymous.

Luke:

You know, they're listed on our website.

Luke:

We're very proud of who they are, and a number of them have got real followings in social, so

Luke:

they don't have to sign a kind of a, an oath of, secrecy when they, when they join the economy.

Luke:

and podcasts have been a good way of just sort of breaking people into that more public realm.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

But the, the, the thing which is really taking it up a notch is the, the, the new premium video

Luke:

product that we just launched three, three and a half weeks ago called The Economist Insider.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

And that for the first time is actually really fully, instead of having kind of produced

Luke:

podcast shows on topics which have been pre predetermined, that is lifting the veil on

Luke:

the discussions, the debates that go into.

Luke:

those hive minds, you know, written articles that appear in the weekly edition.

Luke:

and so we have a weekly show every Thursday hosted by our editor-in-Chief Zani, Minton

Luke:

Bird Beos, and our deputy editor, ed Carr.

Luke:

They are the, they are the two co-hosts of the show every single Thursday.

Luke:

And then we have a second show every Tuesday, which deep dives into a range of topics from

Luke:

geopolitics to defense to economics, and, and.

Luke:

Technology and they're all hosted by the same people, you know, for each

Luke:

of the shows as they come around.

Luke:

So we're gonna start making, if not superstars outta these people, then certainly they're

Luke:

gonna become known as the hosts of these shows.

Luke:

And the shows are gonna be watched by, already are being watched by a really.

Luke:

Decent number of people every week.

Luke:

and, and that, that I think is where we're gonna try and strike this balance where the, the core

Luke:

written product, which is the majority of our output remains, no bylines remains the, the

Luke:

collective viewpoint of the economist brand.

Luke:

But every week we're gonna lift the veil with the economist insider on a Tuesday, on

Luke:

a Thursday, and you're gonna see inside, you know, sort of behind the, behind the curtain

Luke:

as it were, and see how the magic is made and really get closer to the senior editors

Luke:

that are, that are shaping the stories that we, we print every week in our, in our, yeah.

Brian:

And I guess that will also like provide, a look into the sort of debates that go into

Brian:

coming up with an institutional point of view.

Brian:

Because I think about.

Brian:

You know, like a lot of times in America we go back to like the editorial page

Brian:

endorsements of like, political candidates.

Brian:

Right?

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And the idea that there's like an editorial board is a little anachronistic

Brian:

in these, in this day and age.

Brian:

You know, I know like the Washington Post, you know, famously sort of

Brian:

pulled its endorsement of Kamala.

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I'm not sure if people vote based on like who the newspaper, editorial board says to

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vote for, But like there's this idea that it's just this one, like voice from above.

Brian:

Right?

Brian:

And obviously with the rise of podcasters, there's a lot more trust in individuals.

Brian:

But talk to me about the, the strategic context of what, like what is the job that, That the

Brian:

streaming show the insider is going to do.

Brian:

I mean, you're like the, the Economist is part of the economist group, right?

Brian:

It's a subscriptions are, you know, the lion's share of the business.

Brian:

You have, I think, uh, about 1.25.

Brian:

Million, subscribers.

Brian:

Digital is obviously growing, very quickly.

Brian:

85% I believe, of new subs are now digital.

Brian:

Yep.

Brian:

so is this a, so what is the job this is doing?

Brian:

Is this to, is this to mitigate churn?

Brian:

Is this to bring in new subscribers, or is this to diversify with, with sponsorship?

Brian:

I mean, I know that Claude is, is at least the launch sponsor.

Luke:

Correct.

Luke:

I, I think it's a mixture of, of a number of those things, but first and foremost, it's really

Luke:

delivering on what our customers were asking for.

Luke:

So the first thing I did when I arrived here just over a year ago is commission a big piece

Luke:

of research to understand which elements of our proposition, our service, were customers satisfied

Luke:

with, what did they want more or less of?

Luke:

And the, and the theme that came out of that.

Luke:

incredibly clearly was that that customers wanted to get closer to our journalists.

Luke:

They wanted to understand more of the thinking behind what they were reading

Luke:

every week and the written outputs.

Luke:

And they wanted to have more of a chance to ask questions.

Luke:

They wanted to have to be in a conversation is had proximity.

Luke:

And actually at the same time, I went along to my first Monday morning meeting and I'd

Luke:

been a subscriber to The Economist for however many decades, but had never realized kind of

Luke:

you get this polished output, this very clear.

Luke:

settled, authoritative point of view on, on a big story, right?

Luke:

As if it's kind of absolutely on literally anything too, whatever,

Luke:

whatever you might wanna, the

Brian:

confidence of saying what Sri Lanka needs to do in its trade policy, it doesn't.

Brian:

Like, it's amazing.

Brian:

No

Luke:

doubt, no doubt.

Luke:

and yet I went into this Monday morning editorial meeting, which happens every, every

Luke:

week, the whole of the newsroom gathered in person and, and zoomed in from around the world.

Luke:

And the level of discussion, debate, discourse that was happening around each and every

Luke:

lead article being published that week.

Luke:

So the, the author would pitch their idea that every, this happens every Monday.

Luke:

They pitch their idea to the news, really at sort of five minutes to talk through, you know,

Luke:

kind of what they're gonna say about, you know, Iran Israeli relations or whatever it may be.

Luke:

And then the whole of the newsroom gets to opine on that point of view.

Luke:

So hands go up.

Luke:

Zani is chairing the meeting, and you get this really robust debate.

Luke:

It's like a kind of, it's like a university tutorial on steroids where

Luke:

you have this just sheer brain power.

Brian:

Yeah.

Luke:

Dissecting whatever's been proposed, you know, kind of saying what's missing, what's wrong,

Luke:

what they disagree with, what they agree with.

Luke:

And then the, the, the, the author has like a couple of minutes to respond to this like

Luke:

litany of points and off the back of that, Zani chooses the leaders and those leaders then go

Luke:

and get written and published in that week's.

Luke:

weekly, weekly edition, and that's kind of the linchpin of our output.

Luke:

Those leading articles are kind of our point of view on the most important stories or

Luke:

the most interesting stories of that week, and I sat there and it just blew me away.

Luke:

Seeing that kind of discourse and debate that that feeds every single point of

Luke:

view, that then gets positioned and published as a very clear, authoritative.

Luke:

Perspective.

Luke:

And I kind of thought if, if I find that so interesting as, as a long time subscriber

Luke:

and I've got this research in my hand saying that's what customers are after.

Luke:

How do we bring that to our customers?

Luke:

And short of inviting 'em into the newsroom every Monday there's be a little bit crammed for space.

Luke:

why don't we create a show where the editors all get together?

Luke:

And, and replay some of that debate.

Luke:

And that's what we're doing in our weekly show every, every Thursday with Zani.

Brian:

So right now it's open to everyone, but this is gonna be sub, I think it is.

Brian:

I'm a subscriber, so like I, I.

Luke:

Subscribers only.

Luke:

It's open to all our subscribers.

Luke:

Yeah, we've made it available to all our subscribers.

Luke:

Okay.

Luke:

And we're off to a great start.

Luke:

So, kind of three weeks in, we've got about 20% of our base have

Luke:

already watched at least one episode.

Luke:

A really good share of that base have watched two or more episodes.

Luke:

So, we've seen really rapid early adoption of the service given it's completely new.

Luke:

We started from 0% awareness on October the ninth.

Luke:

Three weeks in, we're up at 20% of the base already using the, using the product.

Brian:

So you're basically betting that this kind of insider approach to

Brian:

video can be a subscription product?

Brian:

I mean, usually I think people think of video as more of a top of the funnel product.

Brian:

Advertisers love video, et cetera, right?

Brian:

Like it just plays in into that.

Brian:

I don't think.

Brian:

People are as habituated to, or maybe not.

Brian:

May I, I just see video used, differently a lot of times.

Brian:

So w why, why is this important to, I would guess it's to keep subscribers happy, finding value,

Brian:

and therefore the job it does as churn mitigation.

Brian:

But you know, I'm sure you think that the economists has 1.25 odd million

Brian:

people paying them that there can be.

Brian:

Several million other people who are paying and there's 10 million people who

Brian:

are, there's 10 million plus people who are playing paying the New York Times.

Brian:

I didn't think that that would ever happen.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

Why wouldn't there be 5 million people paying the economist?

Luke:

I would like that.

Luke:

I'd like that a lot.

Luke:

And listen, I hope it plays a role in that, right?

Luke:

Because we're going out, we're breaking these shows.

Luke:

Part of how we're making the shows is we're interviewing interesting people.

Luke:

So in our second week, we interviewed Steve Bannon.

Luke:

We wanna make sure we've got a, a wide array of, of personalities.

Luke:

Broke news there too.

Brian:

Broke news.

Brian:

Not, not the best part of, not the best news to break, but broke.

Luke:

It certainly got some attention.

Luke:

So it went viral on, on social and, and got a lot of, lot of pickup and a lot of

Luke:

different outlets and that sort of thing.

Luke:

Really just, you know, kind of gives oxygen to the brand and, and we're not gonna go,

Luke:

we're not gonna, we're not gonna chase clicks, but we are gonna interview people who

Luke:

we think have got a really important point of view and, and whether or not you agree

Luke:

with him, half of America agrees with him.

Luke:

So, we wanted to hear what he had to say and, and, and give him a chance to talk about that.

Luke:

And so that's the sort of, the show that we're trying to make where

Luke:

we, we have really robust debates.

Luke:

Some often just amongst ourselves, but often with guests who might have

Luke:

the same or a different point of view.

Luke:

You know, the week before we had Mark Carney, where there's probably a lot more alignment

Luke:

with our, with our subscribers in terms of his world outlook, but that's gonna do a great job

Luke:

for helping attract people to the brand as well.

Luke:

But I think more than anything, Brian, you know, apart from giving customers

Luke:

what they said they wanted, the strategic value of this is that we are really.

Luke:

Trying to build a moat around what product is in a world of ai, right?

Luke:

And as, as the kind of the, the volume of AI generated content continues to grow and

Luke:

people get used to LLMs and AI aggregators over time, and they get their news from that

Luke:

source, how do we create something that's truly differentiated, that is leaning into what is

Luke:

unique about the Economist, which to my mind.

Luke:

A human crafted, artisanal journalism.

Luke:

It's the sort of the, you know, we see parallels with some of the top fashion

Luke:

brands out there who really think about the quality of what's made and how it's made,

Luke:

and the fact that that is human originated.

Luke:

And by leaning into that video product, we're putting our human senior editors

Luke:

right front and center of that experience.

Luke:

And so we also see it as a, as a really valuable, kinda robust way of, of defending against some

Luke:

of the trends coming out of the AI space right

Brian:

now.

Brian:

Yeah, talk to me about it being like a premium product, right?

Brian:

Because I mean, the Economist costs a lot of money, right?

Brian:

Like I think your average revenue per subscriber is probably twice what?

Brian:

The times is thereabout.

Brian:

So then the times just came out there at like $10 per month, 120 or so a year.

Brian:

My napkin mask put you guys somewhere around two 20 or something of that nature.

Brian:

But like, talk to me about like how you play on that premium and because like,

Brian:

like you're saying, like luxury brands.

Brian:

have struggled honestly with digital media because it's harder.

Brian:

It literally, the, the entire point of the internet sort of runs against like what luxury.

Brian:

It's, it's antis scarcity.

Brian:

It's anti-friction.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

I mean, I don't know, like you go around Milan, you gotta like ring doorbells to

Brian:

get into stores just to buy something.

Brian:

I don't know if you've thought about trying that.

Brian:

Maybe that's something

Luke:

we've

Brian:

we've thought

Luke:

about it.

Luke:

We've thought about it and scarcity.

Luke:

Is a really, you know, fascinating topic and, and the best brands have managed that very well.

Luke:

You know, Enzo Ferrari, you know, had this, this famous saying that he wanted to make

Luke:

one fewer Ferrari than there was demand for in the world, which is a really neat way of

Luke:

thinking about how you sort of really control.

Luke:

And also,

Brian:

by the way, ano another brand that is like literally their, their ecosystem around it

Brian:

are people that do not actually own Ferraris.

Brian:

Yeah, absolutely.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

They've, they've, they've got a lot of, they've got, they've got a big ecosystem

Luke:

and, and not that many people buying 'em, but, it works very well for them.

Luke:

And so we thought about that, but I kind of to limit the number of people who could have, the

Luke:

economist feels a little bit counterintuitive when, you know, part of our mandate is to

Luke:

spread the word and play, you know Yeah.

Luke:

Influence people around the world in their points of view and their, and their decisions.

Luke:

Mm-hmm.

Luke:

It's, it is an interesting concept, but it's not one that we've decided to run with yet to

Luke:

actually limit the number of, subscriptions that we put out in the marketplace.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

But what we can do is we can, we can create content that is scarce in its

Luke:

nature and we think, you know, to have access to the editor inchi of our.

Luke:

Of, of the economist every week is something which is unprecedented

Luke:

for existing or historic customers.

Luke:

And if we do that and we don't make it available anywhere apart from behind our paywall,

Luke:

then that creates something which is really valuable and quite scarce in nature for our

Luke:

existing customers and our future customers.

Brian:

So do you have like a big subscriber goal paying subscriber goal?

Brian:

Like, I mean, you know, I think, again, I go back to the New York Times,

Brian:

you know, they go out and, and put.

Brian:

A big subscriber number out there.

Brian:

they're, they're aiming for 15 million by the end of 2027, and I think that can be like galvanizing.

Brian:

I'm just wondering what the ambitions are because as I said, like I think

Brian:

you guys can probably, I would.

Brian:

Guess your research shows you can play on both sides of the price curve.

Brian:

There are people, and I think this is the tricky part when you're gonna be like a luxury good,

Brian:

is you probably have a lot of people who are paying you 200 odd dollars a year that should

Brian:

be paying you thousands of dollars a year or could be paying you thousands of dollars a year.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

But, and you know, I think you guys tried this with espresso and whatnot.

Brian:

There's a lot of people who would absolutely love to have access to the economists

Brian:

at a slightly different, price point.

Luke:

Yeah, we've had that debate for sure, and, uh, we've run the

Luke:

numbers on a few different options.

Luke:

I think where we've netted out is we do wanna keep growing our customer

Luke:

base, but we're in the business of positioning ourselves as a premium brand.

Luke:

And so rather than going after volume growth at all costs, we wanna make

Luke:

sure that we continue to invest in.

Luke:

What the Economist experience is and what the Economist brand stands for, but that

Luke:

we maintain that premium positioning in terms of our offering, in terms of our

Luke:

pricing, in terms of our brand positioning.

Luke:

so, you know, we don't, we are, we are, we are not in the same game as the New York Times.

Luke:

New York Times have deliberately discounted very heavily, you know,

Luke:

lowered their, you know, their arcs.

Luke:

Over time, their, their average revenue per user has gone down.

Luke:

They've really aggressively gone after that volume.

Luke:

And obviously that drives a big advertising machine for them as well.

Luke:

They're a different beast.

Luke:

They're a different brand.

Luke:

they've, what they're doing, they're doing incredibly well.

Luke:

I have nothing but admiration for how they're executing on their strategy, but

Luke:

I think we are, we're more of a kind of, as we've talked about and exclusive and.

Luke:

and premium brand where we're gonna, we we're playing more in that sort of

Luke:

scarcity end of the, of the spectrum.

Brian:

Okay?

Brian:

So no dollar a week offers.

Brian:

You can't be gap, you can't be always 50% off.

Brian:

and there is a like, look, there's, there's a formula with that volume playbook.

Brian:

I think not everyone can, can run it.

Brian:

I think some brands, it's a little bit of an awkward fit when I see

Brian:

them out there with their 80% off.

Brian:

Offers, right.

Brian:

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'm like, you can't be, you can't be saying your premium

Brian:

premium out there and then like in the email, you telling me you're 80% off all the time.

Brian:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian:

It doesn't, it doesn't sit well.

Brian:

so talk to me a little bit about like how you end up, what does that mean with

Brian:

like, what you end up not doing, right.

Brian:

Like, so what are opportunities?

Brian:

'cause I think there's a, as I said, there's a lot of different directions you can take.

Brian:

A brand like this, and it has, you know, the Economist goes back to,

Brian:

what, 1843, I think it was, like, we're debating the corn laws or something.

Brian:

And, it was a little bit of a different era.

Brian:

and so there's a lot of different things you can do to that.

Brian:

But at the same time, your restriction is you gotta, you gotta, you gotta stay premium.

Luke:

we've got a relatively small newsroom compared to, our competitors.

Luke:

You know, we have just over 300 people in our newsroom, and that's, what probably

Luke:

a 10th of what the New York Times have.

Luke:

So we think we've thought about whether we expand that and whether we expand our coverage, but

Luke:

actually to maintain the level of quality and rigor that goes into every single word that you

Luke:

read or every single podcast that we publish.

Luke:

and now every single show that we make each week.

Luke:

You can only broaden that bandwidth so far without having some sort of compromise to the

Luke:

consistency and quality of what you produce.

Luke:

So we deliberately have not invested into lifestyle.

Luke:

We have not expanded coverage into more generalist news.

Luke:

We haven't gone into, sports, you know, these are areas A, which are very well served by the market,

Luke:

but b, which would inevitably involve a broadening of our proposition and, and would risk the.

Luke:

The, the, the, the incredible level of rigor and care that goes into every single piece

Luke:

of journalism that we put out each week.

Luke:

We, we, by design, have a smaller output and that allows us to be, you know, kind of

Luke:

incredibly thorough in our fact checking, which is sort of one of the, one of the hallmarks

Luke:

of our journalism that allows us to have a very, very thorough editing process, which

Luke:

involves the, the senior team every single week.

Luke:

So they're very hands on in terms of their involvement.

Luke:

You know, kind of putting the, putting the weekly edition to bed every, every

Luke:

week on a, on a Wednesday evening is always, you know, it's a crafted process.

Luke:

It's really is sort of hand stitched.

Luke:

And so I think in that way, that means that we can't ever try and go

Luke:

broader in our journalistic coverage.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

It's so, so talk to me about the magazine.

Brian:

I mean, you guys call it a newspaper I call.

Brian:

We do.

Brian:

Fair enough.

Brian:

I know I'm never gonna win that one, but that's fine.

Brian:

is still a magazine to me, but like, you know, look, it's, it's inevitably

Brian:

like, you know, the question ends up being like, what is the role of it?

Brian:

I think of the Economist as like a slightly different, like, I mean, I, there are, there

Brian:

are print publications that I. I just, I want his print and I consume mostly his print.

Brian:

The Economist is actually one of them.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

FT. Weekend is is another.

Brian:

and then, you know, niche magazine type brands.

Brian:

But, what is, what is the, because I mean that is the calling card and in some way.

Brian:

In some ways it's a little anachronistic, but I, I feel like, you know, with, with

Brian:

the economists being like, I don't think of the Economist as like breaking news.

Brian:

I know the, the, the abandoned thing with the third term was, was, was one.

Brian:

There's there, there have been others, but I look at the Economist actually as being, you know what,

Brian:

there's a swirl of stuff going through the week.

Brian:

I'm fine waiting till Saturday to figure out what, like, what all this stuff means.

Brian:

so what does the end up, you know, when you're thinking about expressing the

Brian:

brands, whether that's in podcasts or in video, and then we can talk about events.

Brian:

Like how do you end up thinking about the, the magazine slash newspaper?

Brian:

Because it is, it is the core of the brand.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

But it's not the only thing the brand does.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

it's a really interesting bounty process, right?

Luke:

Because around a third of our customers.

Luke:

are still very, very, attached to their physical edition every week.

Luke:

and totally understand.

Luke:

You're so right and actually in a world of kind of, sort of digital overload and

Luke:

especially as the, the world of AI slot comes along, that pleasure of holding something

Luke:

in your hand and being able to sit back and enjoy at the weekend as you described Yeah.

Luke:

Is gonna become more important, not less important.

Luke:

So we don't see the, the magazine as you'd like to call it, going away anytime soon.

Luke:

and we're gonna, we're gonna keep on, you know, making sure that we serve those customers.

Luke:

At the same time.

Luke:

We've got about a third of the base who kind of, you know, part, sometimes use the weekly edition.

Luke:

Sometimes they're using it on a more daily basis.

Luke:

And then we have about a third of the base who are looking for a much more frequent experience

Luke:

from the Economist through the course of the week.

Luke:

And I would say we are still tuning our model to make work out how we serve

Luke:

all three of those constituents, right?

Luke:

Because it's quite a different experience.

Luke:

We're serving up to the person who opens up their physical product in the post

Luke:

on a Saturday morning to somebody who fires up the app on a Tuesday afternoon.

Luke:

And what are they looking for from the Economist and those people who are kind of coming in on

Luke:

a digital only subscription and are digital?

Luke:

Native, they're younger in general.

Luke:

they're more diverse and, you know what, they're, they're time poor.

Luke:

You know, they're kind of used, they, they, they're used to finding things quickly

Luke:

and moving on quickly, and, and we need to create an experience which allows them

Luke:

to taste the quality of the economist and allows them to enjoy the sort of perspective

Luke:

the Economist brings to these stories.

Luke:

Not breaking news, as you say.

Luke:

But a considered take on the stories that matter, but in a way which is fast and is

Luke:

suited to what they're interested in and is gonna allow them to fit the Economist

Luke:

around their very, very busy schedule.

Luke:

So we're doing a really interesting piece of work at the moment.

Luke:

We launched a a, an AI lab early this year, and we're just in the process of

Luke:

developing a prototype which is focused on that younger demographic, pure sort of

Luke:

digital led or digital native demographic.

Luke:

And, you know, for the first time we're looking at.

Luke:

Okay.

Luke:

When you look at the, the physical product that is entirely editorially curated, and

Luke:

that's about creating a, a set of, stories and, and reports and analysis, which is entirely

Luke:

curated by our editorial team and laid out by the, by the editor on Wednesday night.

Luke:

When you're moving to creating something which is trying to serve that, that sort of

Luke:

shorter, faster consumption pattern that, that, that younger demographic are looking for.

Luke:

You've gotta start looking at a different balance between, having something which is more personal,

Luke:

more suited to based, to more tailored to that customer based on their previous usage habits.

Luke:

based on what amount of time they have.

Luke:

They have half an hour, they're walking the dog, or they have a 20 minute commute on

Luke:

the way to work, having to drop the kids off and fitting around their schedule.

Luke:

That becomes a very different customer experience to the one that we've traditionally produced.

Luke:

So the brilliant thing about, you know, whilst AI creates all sorts of, you know, kind of

Luke:

interesting challenges for the publishing sector.

Luke:

It also allows us to start to make our journalism more flexible, more accessible through

Luke:

summarization, personalization, new formats.

Luke:

You know, an audio first experience potentially.

Luke:

We're looking at a whole bunch of different, you know, AI powered features, which

Luke:

creates a very, very different way of enjoying the economi on a, on a daily basis.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

And by the way, anyone has any questions, please pop them into the chat and

Brian:

I'll, I'll get to them, shortly.

Brian:

so on that, like, talk to me about the AI lab and what you're trying to accomplish there.

Brian:

I think there's some low hanging fruit when it comes to translation, for instance,

Brian:

there's Sure a ton of, you know, economists.

Brian:

S you know, can, there's, I have no idea how many like Mandarin speakers who would prefer, you

Brian:

know, to read in Mandarin than in, in, in English.

Brian:

And, and there's obviously an opportunity I always think of as versioning.

Brian:

You know, whether, whether I want to have the, the, the economist leaders in, in print,

Brian:

or whether I want have it on an app or when I, whether I want to have it read with a, a,

Brian:

a wonderful like, you know, Oxford accent.

Brian:

Like, you know, it should be, it should be all there.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

So we are doing a bunch of those things already and AI is definitely our

Luke:

friend in terms of making our content.

Luke:

More easily, accessible to to, to a variety of different customer types, whether it's the

Luke:

language, whether it's they want it audio.

Luke:

Whether they want summaries.

Luke:

So we're, we're doing all of those things already.

Luke:

We have in the Economist Espresso app, we have English, we have French,

Luke:

we have German, Spanish, Mandarin.

Luke:

So you can consume that.

Luke:

All of our journalism in any of those languages are touch with a button.

Luke:

We have AI summaries launched in our main app.

Luke:

we have text, speech, we have all of our weekly edition narrated by, by

Luke:

humans, by actors every single week.

Luke:

That comes out on our Thursday.

Luke:

So kind of for anything that we publish ahead of that Thursday, you know, weekly,

Luke:

weekly release of the, of the main edition.

Luke:

We are using text to speech to, to bring our, our, our written stories into the

Luke:

audio format because that is becoming so popular with, with many of our customers.

Luke:

So they're the sort of, they're the basics really.

Luke:

And lots of other people are using similar, AI powered features.

Luke:

The AI lab is, is trying to be much more ambitious in this nature.

Luke:

So the first part of the process was.

Luke:

A really fun part actually, which was thinking about what the world

Luke:

looks like in three years time.

Luke:

And that's a bit of a fool's errand given how fast the world is moving, you know,

Luke:

to try and work out three years out.

Luke:

But we came, we met with a bunch of publishers in New York and startups on the West Coast, and

Luke:

went to the Nordics where there's some really interesting things happening and just painted

Luke:

a picture of, okay, where's, where's the ai?

Luke:

Where's the LLM world headed?

Luke:

Where's the world of audio headed?

Luke:

Where's the world of.

Luke:

Multimodal output headed.

Luke:

What does that mean?

Luke:

That consumers are gonna be getting used to and expecting to get from

Luke:

that from their news publishers?

Luke:

what does it mean that our competitors are gonna be doing?

Luke:

So we kind of painted this picture of what the world looks like in three years time.

Brian:

Well, I'm sorry, was it bleak or what was it?

Brian:

Give, give us a preview of what the, is the world of media looking like in three years?

Luke:

It kind of depends whether you've got a, like, you know, a, a moderate or a more

Luke:

extreme view of how quickly these things happen.

Luke:

And I think that we generally own the more moderate camp, and I think that means that.

Luke:

You're gonna have, you know, the majority of people using LLMs for a wide array of use cases.

Luke:

Most people are gonna be using agents to do a lot of things that we do, you know, via browser today.

Luke:

So that means that, you know, you might have, and, and I, I don't think you reach

Luke:

a world we've got one or two dominant LLMs.

Luke:

I mean, you know, it depends on your, your sort of game theory point of view and how

Luke:

the market plays out over the next few years.

Luke:

There's, there's gonna be, I, I don't think the market's gonna be captured by one dominant

Luke:

player who could then really dictate the terms of who, you know, they become a true gateway.

Luke:

I think you're gonna have enough competition in the market that you have

Luke:

three, four material players out there.

Luke:

but people are gonna have fewer apps being of the

Brian:

foundational models.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

and, and apps, you know, and, and end user apps as well.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

and you know, kinda, those apps are gonna be doing a lot of things for you,

Luke:

so you're not gonna have nearly as many.

Luke:

Apps on your phone, right?

Luke:

Because your, your LM app is gonna be doing the weekly shopping for you and

Luke:

booking your flights and finding you the pair of trainers that you want.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

And you're gonna do all of that through one single interface, right?

Luke:

And yeah.

Luke:

And, and so as a result, the number of apps that the average Joe's gonna have on

Luke:

their phone is gonna reduce significantly over the next three in three years time.

Luke:

And so the competition can be one of those apps that people are still

Luke:

using directly becomes a lot fiercer.

Brian:

Okay, so you're, so basically it's like that you, this is fascinating.

Brian:

So like, basically there's going to be a bunch of different LLMs probably.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

You know, there's not gonna be just a couple.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

but there's gonna be, it's gonna be more agentic.

Brian:

So people are gonna be, instead of us going to information, information is

Brian:

basically going to come to us, right?

Brian:

Yep.

Brian:

Yeah, and so the directly downloading a publisher app.

Brian:

Will be like a Hunger Games kind of thing.

Brian:

You're not gonna have, I don't know, the average person, it's like 60 apps on the phone.

Brian:

They use like 20, they'll just have a few, right?

Brian:

Like,

Luke:

right, that's exactly right.

Luke:

That number will dwindle.

Luke:

So Hunger Games is a good analogy.

Luke:

Like it's, it's, it's definitely gonna be more competitive than it is today.

Luke:

And a lot of, a lot of those end user news publishers are gonna become agentic

Luke:

powered and their business model's gonna have to change accordingly.

Luke:

And there may not be that much.

Luke:

That much, you know, money in that model to be totally frank.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

Which is why you have to think very, very hard about what do you have to do

Luke:

to be one of those apps that people still have on their phone and that they use.

Brian:

Well, I think one of the thing you have to is do you want to try to be one of those apps.

Brian:

Yeah, because for sure there's, there's a, I think the, the answer for the majority of companies

Brian:

is this is not a fight we can compete in.

Brian:

So we wanna supply, the, the apps that are there, you know, like whether that's Apple

Brian:

News is gonna get through, you know, there's lots of different aggregators as we've seen.

Brian:

The aggregators always win, and if you control the interface, you control pretty much the

Brian:

commanding heights of the digital economy.

Brian:

So I think that there's going to be some publishers who look at that

Brian:

and say, we will be wholesalers.

Brian:

We're gonna wholesale our content to a bunch of people who control the interface.

Luke:

Yeah, for sure.

Luke:

And, and it's really interesting seeing even, you know, some of the big, e-commerce companies

Luke:

already, already starting to do deals with the chat GBTs of this world and, and realizing that,

Luke:

that a big part of their business is gonna be.

Luke:

It's gonna be conducted through that LLM interface.

Luke:

And, and then, and see, you're

Brian:

still, you're still gonna have a print product in three years that is, is niche and

Brian:

expensive and people wanna like, still have it like in first class on, on, on flights.

Brian:

And next to them

Luke:

we're planning to, and, and look, we've got a, we've got a very

Luke:

loyal print base, customer base.

Luke:

You know, we hope they stay healthy for many years and, we want to

Luke:

keep on serving them for that time.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

And we, we don't, we don't see that going away.

Luke:

I think we are backing ourselves.

Luke:

I mean, we would do, but this is where it comes to the sort of, the three main things that we're

Luke:

doing to try and ensure that we have a seat at the table or an app on the phone in three years time.

Luke:

And the first is, as I said, you know, kind of what insider is, the beginning of which is

Luke:

doubling down on, on that human crafted artisanal.

Luke:

Journalistic endeavor and, and making sure that, you know, the, the mix of our

Luke:

text output versus audio output versus video output is already changing and will

Luke:

continue to change over the next few years.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

So we create something which is really differentiated, which you

Luke:

can't get in an AI news aggregator.

Luke:

and by the way, we're not doing deals with AI aggregators.

Luke:

So we've, we've passed on, on all opportunities that have come our way so

Luke:

far because we don't want to create the habit that customers think they can find.

Luke:

The economist content on chat, GBT.

Luke:

We want to, we want to maintain that direct relationship.

Luke:

So that's the first thing we're doing.

Luke:

The, the second thing we're doing is AI lab creating what we believe is gonna

Luke:

be, you know, because people become more and more used to multimodal output.

Luke:

Like, if they want it in video, they'll have it in video.

Luke:

If they want an audio, they have an audio.

Luke:

we, we wanna, we wanna create a very different experience from what the app is today.

Luke:

If you open the Economist app today, it's kind of the, the printed product.

Luke:

Within an app interface.

Luke:

It's the same content, it's the same articles, it's broadly speaking, the same experience.

Luke:

That needs to change profoundly to, as I said, hold, bring in and hold onto

Luke:

that younger demographic, the next generation of customers for the Economist.

Luke:

And that's what AI is our friend, because we think we can create very, very personal

Luke:

interfaces and very personal experiences where.

Luke:

You are being guided, saved by a, by a voice led host through the Economist experience, you

Luke:

can very easily shape that to the amount of time you have available to the sort of the themes

Luke:

or the stories that you're most interested in.

Luke:

You start to create a very, very different experience.

Luke:

If you, if you think the experience today is at the weekend, I sit down, or historically

Luke:

the experience has been, I sit down with my, you sit down as you said, Brian with your,

Luke:

with your print printed magazine, and you look at the pa, the table of contents and you say,

Luke:

okay, I like the sound of that, that and that.

Luke:

You know, and you work your way through.

Luke:

Five, 10 different stories.

Luke:

You give yourself an hour of brain food and that's a, like a really satisfying complete Oh, I go

Brian:

start to finish.

Brian:

I go, I, I go wire to wire.

Brian:

I

Luke:

like it.

Luke:

I like it.

Luke:

I didn't wanna make any assumptions, but that puts, that definitely puts you in the elite.

Luke:

In the elite.

Luke:

I slow

Brian:

down a little bit in the back when it gets to the

Luke:

financial tables, but Okay.

Luke:

Fair enough.

Luke:

I think that's reasonable.

Luke:

If you start at the beginning, what is the equivalent of that, that 20 minute experience?

Luke:

If I have 20 minutes on my commute, how do we win that person's attention?

Luke:

For that time, and actually I think The Economist does, does, does three things very

Luke:

well in that longer form version, which I think we can do in a shorter form version as well.

Luke:

It tells you what to think on the, on the stories that you care about.

Luke:

It actually tells you about the stories you didn't know were important.

Luke:

So you, you end up reading about something which is really important that wasn't on your radar.

Luke:

And the third thing is that it, it brings you some sort of quirky, amusing, more humorous.

Luke:

stories of, of, you know, kind of slow cooking in, in Bulgaria or, you know, the trend

Luke:

for, you know, a certain toy type in China.

Luke:

It just brings you that, that quirky story that you, you know, kind of, yeah, give you a

Luke:

bit of a reward, bit, bit of a payoff almost for your, for your economist consumption.

Luke:

And so what is the, what is the, the digital daily version of that, which fits into a,

Luke:

might be five minutes, might be 25 minutes.

Luke:

But it is like completely tailored to that end user's needs in a way, which at the moment, we,

Luke:

we don't, we don't tailor to the end user's needs.

Luke:

So that's, that's what AI Lab is all about.

Brian:

Um, okay, so that is gonna come out with like a new version of like the app

Brian:

or like the experience of the Economist is, is that to explain like, what,

Brian:

what, what we're gonna see out of that.

Luke:

Yeah, so it'll be, it'll be a very different, user interface.

Luke:

it's likely to be, you know, audio's gonna be a really important part of the experience, both

Luke:

in terms of how you control the app and how you decide what you want, and then how you consume.

Luke:

because I think our content is so well suited to, you know, being on the move or being on a

Luke:

commute or walking the dog, whatever it might be.

Luke:

Like, we, we, we think that our content is, is, can fit around people's lives much better.

Luke:

Through this medium.

Luke:

and yeah, so, you know, through, through those, through being multimodal and through

Luke:

being tailored based on people's habitual usage patterns, you know, your experience

Luke:

with Economist on a Tuesday will be really quite different from my experience.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

we had a question from Sterling, proffer who had, had, had talked about like, basically

Brian:

what I said about the, how the voice of the Economist is such a hallmark of the brand.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

but then he also talked about how, you know, a lot of the attention is shifting to

Brian:

individual voices, particularly on social media.

Brian:

And he referenced Kyla Scanlon, who's a creator, who I think is.

Brian:

Is tremendous because, you know, I think a lot of times creators are, are in fluffy areas and, and

Brian:

Kyla is about economics and she's very popular, particularly among younger people and she does

Brian:

work with, with, with Bloomberg and, and others.

Brian:

How do you end up thinking about.

Brian:

Both creating these, you know, elevating these, these voices from within the Economist

Brian:

that make like the core product, but also this, you know, whether there's a role for

Brian:

the Economist to be a curator of these more, I wanna say almost like digitally native creators.

Brian:

obviously everyone operates, you know, in the digital environment, but there

Brian:

are certain like creators who are just, I don't know, they were just born for it.

Brian:

They were made for the, this.

Brian:

They're not trying to retrofit for being good at at written journalism.

Luke:

look, I have a lot of time and respect for those people.

Luke:

We've, we've talked about whether we could be a kind of curator for some of those third

Luke:

parties, but, that's not currently in our plans.

Luke:

Just to be totally transparent, we've, we, okay.

Luke:

We think we've got enough mileage to keep on expanding what the economists produces and, you

Luke:

know, keep on ensuring that that tone of voice, you know, infuses everything that we, everything

Luke:

that we make and, and that people come to us.

Luke:

I guess the reason we don't wanna do it is because.

Luke:

people come to us because they know that they're gonna get a very, very,

Luke:

very consistent brand experience.

Luke:

To your point around that tonality.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

And the, and, and, and that's goes back to why we haven't scaled the newsroom further.

Luke:

Why we maintain the, the, the production model that we still have, which is this

Luke:

sort of, you know, handcrafted, It's like walking into an Hermes shop, you know

Luke:

exactly what that experience is gonna be.

Luke:

You might not, you know, be able to afford it on that particular day of the

Luke:

week, but you know what you're gonna get.

Luke:

And, and it's always gonna be at the very, very highest quality, and it's gonna be

Luke:

very, very, you know, kind of distinctive.

Luke:

So that's what we, that's how we think about the Economist experience.

Brian:

How do you think about the talent question though, right?

Brian:

Because, you know, I always thought like with the, the biggest strength

Brian:

of the Economist is that like you.

Brian:

It almost reads as if it's written by one person.

Brian:

And it's almost like it, it's, it, it, it reads that way, you know?

Brian:

And that breaks down when you get into multimodal, when you get into voice, there's obviously

Brian:

differences video, it's gonna be different.

Brian:

yeah.

Brian:

And I wonder about like, carrying that through and also.

Brian:

The opportunity, but also risk of like developing talent.

Brian:

You know, this is something that comes up with with publishers all the time when we have our

Brian:

breakfast and dinner forums about how they want to develop like sort of in-house talent.

Brian:

But there is like some sort of like feeling like, well, I don't want to build like a franchise

Brian:

around a person who then gets substack curious.

Brian:

Right,

Luke:

right.

Luke:

It's, it's a good question.

Luke:

And my, I have, unlimited admiration for how Zani manages her talent.

Luke:

You know, because she does an extremely good job of, of not just recruiting, but then

Luke:

retaining our best people for a long time.

Luke:

And, and it is a striking feature of our newsroom that.

Luke:

Many of our people have been there for 20, 30 plus years and, and have

Luke:

really been there from the ground up.

Luke:

They might have gone and done a, a short into the ft but they've, they've nearly always come back.

Luke:

So, you know, there's, there's something quite compelling about, and I spend, you

Luke:

know, lucky to spend a lot of time on the, you know, the, the, they're on the floor

Luke:

above us in our, in our headquarters.

Luke:

And, I spent a lot of time on that floor and, you know, in the editorial meetings.

Luke:

there are not many places that allow you to have the quality of debates and write on

Luke:

the, on the quality, the, the sort, I guess the, the variety of stories that we cover.

Luke:

You know, we don't just kind of, kind of cover the main news.

Luke:

We do cover the stories that you didn't know that you cared about.

Luke:

We do cover those quirkier.

Luke:

Numbers as well.

Luke:

And so I think there's this combination of incredible intellectual rigor with a freedom to

Luke:

follow your nose and to you know, write about the things that interest you if you've got a

Luke:

strong enough or an interesting enough viewpoint.

Luke:

And I think that's a very powerful combination.

Luke:

and so yeah, even before we introduced podcasts, before we launched Insider just a few weeks ago,

Luke:

our retention rate of that top talent was very.

Luke:

Very good.

Luke:

Now you raise a quite interesting question that as we start to sort of bring more

Luke:

personalities onto the screen, they inevitably have a different voice, right?

Luke:

So SK and Josh, our defense editor.

Luke:

Is presenting inside, inside Defense.

Luke:

but you know, if you take, inside Tech, the first episode of which aired last night,

Luke:

Tom Standage, our brilliant deputy editor and, and, and sort of longtime tech writer

Luke:

is a completely different personality.

Luke:

And so you start to get some variances in that tonality.

Luke:

Yeah.

Luke:

But they've all been there so long that, that the, the, the attention to detail and the.

Luke:

The rigor that goes into their thinking, their arguments.

Luke:

They might communicate differently, they might have different sense of humor, but

Luke:

there's that consistency and that rigor and that and that sort of fact-based,

Luke:

journalism that they, they're producing.

Brian:

So final topic is around your events business.

Brian:

Something that always comes up these days with publishers are events and,

Brian:

and the Economist has, has put on.

Brian:

A, a tremendous, it puts on a tremendous amount of events.

Brian:

I always see the ads for Sustainability week and various other, niche events a lot of times.

Brian:

but you, we see, we see new entrants like SEMA four that are positioning themselves as almost

Brian:

more events company than, than publisher.

Brian:

I mean, it's, it's a model that I know well from B2B.

Brian:

It's like most B2B publishers are events, businesses with, publishing on the front end,

Brian:

How do you guys see your events business?

Brian:

It's not like, you know, I know.

Brian:

I know that, I don't know how you actually grew it, but the Economist Impact, which houses it is

Brian:

not like a growth engine for, for the business.

Brian:

And it's surprising to me in some ways because so many business publishers in particular, you

Brian:

know, they just wanna events, events, events.

Brian:

and that's usually to me, if they haven't been doing events for a while and all of a sudden they

Brian:

like discovered events, that means that their, their core businesses are doing really poorly.

Brian:

So how do you end up thinking about events?

Brian:

Because again, tremendous brand a, a great area, a tr a a lot of opportunity events, however, have

Brian:

have their nuances that, you know, there it's a pain once you get into the events business.

Luke:

Look, I think it's a great question.

Luke:

an event, just to be clear, events have been is a, is a, we've got a nice events business which

Luke:

have been growing health the last few years.

Luke:

So it's definitely an important part of our.

Luke:

our business.

Luke:

So we're, you know, 350 million pound, 370 million pound business and a hundred

Luke:

million pounds of that is our impact.

Luke:

Business and events is a big chunk of that.

Luke:

So it's a, it is a good and important part of our business, I think.

Luke:

I think what pho are doing that is really interesting is this sort of placing events

Luke:

on a par with their written outputs in terms of their journalistic endeavor.

Luke:

So they see events as a core channel for their.

Luke:

Editorial output, and they've started in that position now.

Luke:

Like many, many sort of businesses have been around for a longer time.

Luke:

You know, publishing businesses.

Luke:

The Economist core business is, is our written product historically and

Luke:

increasingly our, our audio and video and then events as a secondary business.

Luke:

And, and so I think we start from a different position and actually I find I've been been

Luke:

really impressed by what Seven four have achieved, but it's also sort of starting to cause us to

Luke:

think a bit differently about events because they are actually a really powerful way to.

Luke:

Disseminate your journalism and, I think historically because we have this small

Luke:

newsroom and we've deliberately not expanded that newsroom aggressively, it's meant that

Luke:

there's natural resource constraints on how much we can put into events now as events and

Luke:

live experiences become ever more important.

Luke:

And I do think, you know, one of the things that when we're doing our future

Luke:

gazing for the AI lab, the importance of live experiences continues to grow.

Luke:

And so we see that as an area that we want to, pay close attention to and,

Luke:

and see more as an opportunity to.

Luke:

Also, promote our, and, and practice our journalism.

Luke:

Right?

Luke:

In a way that historically it's probably been seen as a secondary outlet.

Luke:

How has it become a more, more interesting, more important outlet for our journalism?

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

But your events business right now are typically, you don't have like a massive flagship event.

Brian:

There's no like economist festival where I can go and, I don't know, meet bartleby or something?

Brian:

not right now, no.

Brian:

But like, so most of the events you're doing are, I mean, they're fairly niche, you know,

Brian:

I mean, they're in like, you know, capital markets and, and things of that nature.

Brian:

I assume that they're either single sponsor or a couple of sponsor.

Brian:

They're not like, so I guess that's the part of events that I think about that a

Brian:

lot of these businesses have almost like a B2B sort of events business that is like.

Brian:

Not totally integrated.

Brian:

I feel like all the times with the journalistic product.

Brian:

Tell me if I'm wrong.

Brian:

About the opportunity as the brand to Yeah.

Brian:

You know, 'cause like I always go back and I understand what like, you know, Justin

Brian:

and the team they're doing, 'cause they look at like Davos massive event, right?

Brian:

That there's this like massive business and it's like you end up thinking, it's like when

Brian:

I was like Adweek, I'm like, why didn't Adweek create can like, oh, like that makes sense.

Brian:

Like

Luke:

Yeah, I think, look, Justin, who, who started out at The Economist as It

Luke:

Happens, I think has, has been really smart and in, in how they focus that business on

Luke:

sort of creating a Davos equivalent, right?

Luke:

Which is B2B by the way, just to be clear, that's B2B rather than B2C.

Brian:

Yeah, yeah.

Brian:

But

Luke:

it, but it's editorially led and I think along with many other, news publishers

Luke:

that have been around for a while.

Luke:

Our, our business has been B2B, but, and it's been, you know, kind of, we, you know,

Luke:

we obviously take great care in the quality of our events, but it's a sponsorship

Luke:

model, and that's how we've built our events

Brian:

business.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

That's what I mean by B2B.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

B2B events to me are sponsor driven.

Brian:

Right, right.

Brian:

And when you get more into like the davo, you're, you're getting, you're

Brian:

in a different category, I feel like.

Luke:

Yeah, I think so.

Luke:

Although I, I, I don't know.

Luke:

I dunno for sure, but I would've thought that PHOS events are mainly sponsor.

Brian:

No, no, they're sponsored.

Brian:

They are.

Brian:

That's true.

Brian:

Yeah.

Luke:

But, but I just think what they've done, which is smart, is they've thought

Luke:

about events as a great platform for their journalism, and I think that's where there's an

Luke:

opportunity for us to think differently as well.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

awesome.

Brian:

Well, let us leave us there.

Brian:

We're after like six minutes of the hour, so of just to like wrap up, when you're thinking

Brian:

about this, you know, three year, three years out, and I think all publishers, I love

Brian:

that you're, you're actually, thinking this.

Brian:

'cause I always ask.

Brian:

I always ask media companies and ex executives, I'm like, what does your

Brian:

business look like in three years?

Brian:

And I get a lot of misdirection and you know, people are like, ah,

Brian:

I don't want to talk about that.

Brian:

I'm like, that's not a good sign and I understand it.

Brian:

but like what do you think of when you, you went through that exercise, what do you think are.

Brian:

Because I like to think about the sort of Jeff Bezos thing of like focus on the things

Brian:

that won't change versus what is gonna change.

Brian:

'cause you're just kind of like guessing the things that are gonna change,

Brian:

particularly in a time like this.

Brian:

But what do you, when you went through that exercise, what do you think of

Brian:

the things that aren't gonna change for a brand like The Economist?

Luke:

Well, look, we're, we're going through Profounds.

Luke:

You know, global upheaval, right?

Luke:

In geopolitics and economics and technology.

Luke:

So the whole world is changing around us in, in myriad ways.

Luke:

And, you know, the exercise we ran showed that the, the way consumers are gonna, live their lives

Luke:

in three years time is gonna be very different.

Luke:

But the thing that I think remains more valuable than ever is what the Economist offers.

Luke:

And that is a, independent fact-based, fearless point of view on, on the world stories, and.

Luke:

You know, in a, in a world of AI generated news and, you know, the level of misinformation,

Luke:

disinformation that will only continue to grow, we do believe that that human created

Luke:

and crafted, fact-based independence, rigorous perspective that we create, you know, that that

Luke:

kind of has a, a, an impact and, and expertise well beyond the scale of our customer base.

Luke:

That's what's gonna remain unchanging.

Luke:

And I think so much of what we do when I. Think about the three year plan and the strategy.

Luke:

I start with, what are the things about the economists that are most precious that

Luke:

we need to build on, we need to preserve.

Luke:

And that is above all our editorial, independence and our editorial quality.

Luke:

And everything we do really is in service to those things.

Luke:

So they, that has to remain unchanging.

Luke:

The format in which we serve it up, the experience in which we create for our customers

Luke:

to make the most of that journalism will change significantly in the next three years.

Luke:

But the quality of that output and the, and the, the level of rigor and attention to detail in that

Luke:

output and the scale that we operate at, to make sure that the quality is where it needs to be, is

Luke:

not gonna change fundamentally at all in the fact it is gonna stay, it is gonna stay just the same.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

And do you have like a big subscriber number for those three years

Luke:

or no?

Luke:

we're a primarily held company, Brian, so, you know, I know the New York Times

Luke:

needs to flash their numbers around at their quarterly earnings, but, We keep

Luke:

those things to ourselves, I'm afraid.

Brian:

Fair enough.

Brian:

All right, Luke, thank you very much and thank you all for joining us.

Brian:

Appreciate it.

Brian:

Been a pleasure.

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