Why The Economist Is An AI Outlier

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Why The Economist Is An AI Outlier

AdExchanger Talks with Nada Arnot, EVP of Marketing at The Economist
Date: December 9, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores how The Economist, a 182-year-old legacy publisher, is navigating the disruptive world of AI, changing media consumption habits, and the shifting sands of brand and performance marketing in publishing. Host Alison Schiff interviews Nada Arnot, EVP of Marketing at The Economist, unpacking brand strategy, measurement, AI’s impact, engagement techniques, and the publisher’s foray into premium video programming.

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Key Discussion Points

Nada Arnot’s Career Path & Sell Side Marketing (04:02–07:09)

• From Policy to Marketing: Nada began as a Canadian government policy strategist before pivoting to digital marketing after moving to NYC.
  • Early blogging (2004) and digital search marketing laid her foundation.
  • "I was able to own the strategy and the execution and the results, for better or worse. End to end. I really get a high off of building businesses and driving success and the grit that comes along with it." – Nada Arnot [06:37–06:56]
• Media Growth Roles: From NBC to BritBox to The Economist, her ethos is blending brand and performance, with an entrepreneurial mindset regardless of company size.

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Balancing Brand & Performance: Making the Case for Brand Spend (09:43–14:47)

• Brand as Revenue Engine: Nada frames brand marketing as a revenue driver, not just a cost center.
  • "I approach even brand marketing, things that are notoriously difficult to measure, with a measurement lens, if you will." – Nada Arnot [11:53]
• Measurement Approach:
  • Tracks brand health KPIs (awareness, consideration, familiarity, monthly usage).
  • Heavy creative testing to reach core and new (younger, female) audiences.
  • Rigorous ROI, using brand lift, incrementality measurement, and media mix modeling.
  • Recurring six-monthly measurement and reporting to C-suite for transparency and accountability.

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The Economist’s First Major Brand Campaign in a Decade (14:47–18:13)

• “Know Which Way Is Up”: The campaign positions The Economist as a thoughtful guide through chaos, deploying an omnichannel approach (TV, out-of-home, social, digital video, radio).
• Programmatic Choices: Less focus on programmatic—out-of-home and TV are seen as premium signals, less prone to “drowning out.”
  • "There is this part of the human brain... you perceive a brand to be more premium if you see a billboard for them in Times Square." – Nada Arnot [15:35]
• Serendipitous Impact: Billboards in places like Times Square appear in photos/social posts, creating organic, premium brand moments.

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Brand Strategy: Staying True & Resisting Chasing Trends (17:59–21:41)

• Distinct Positioning: The Economist avoids being a breaking news outlet, instead offering deeper, considered analysis.
• Brand Voice: Commitment to intellectual, witty, and slightly “sassy” DNA—never being trend-chasers (“We don’t want to be that brand that is trying to chase a trend... disingenuine to who we are.” – [19:24]).
• Audience Expansion: Focused on core (55+) influential readers and broadening appeal to younger, more diverse demographics without diluting core value.

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Why So Many Publisher Brand Campaigns Now? AI, Trust, & Traffic (21:41–24:16)

• AI Disruption: Publishers are being "disintermediated by LLMs" and seeing fractured relationships with audiences due to AI, search, and social fragmentation.
  • "That small little whisper of an attribution in ChatGPT will not make a brand." – Nada Arnot [23:25]
• Affirming Credibility: Brand marketing campaigns reaffirm trust and identity in an era of misinformation and declining direct traffic.

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Engaging Subscribers Beyond the Subscription (28:20–31:38)

• The “Unread Stack” Problem: Many subscribers (including the host) fail to read print editions despite best intentions.
• Multi-format Engagement: The Economist offers podcasts, narrated articles, short/long form, newsletters, and an app to fit consumption habits.
  • "We’ve created formats of our content that suit multiple different consumption patterns... all about letting people understand that those formats are available and this is how you can fit it into your day." – Nada Arnot [29:38–31:06]
• Product Design: App redesign supports both leisurely weekend and day-to-day reading/listening routines, driving habitual engagement.

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The Launch & Strategy Behind Economist Insider: Premium Video (32:02–37:19)

• Insider Product: Live and on-demand premium video, featuring editors debating weekly topics—offers “face” and personality to a byline-free newsroom.
• Differentiation:
  • Leans on editorial credibility, unique access to internal debates.
  • Not competing as a streaming service, but as a new format for engagement.
  • "There is almost like a secret sauce right there that you just can’t compete on that type of quality and unique flavor of journalism." – Nada Arnot [34:56]
• Audience Involvement: Audiences can submit questions; debate is unscripted, fostering authenticity and connection.

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Viral Moments & Social Amplification (37:33–39:43)

• Steve Bannon Interview Example: Viral Insider content (e.g., Steve Bannon predicting Trump wins) used not for subscription churn, but to drive engagement/awareness.
  • Paid social clips are branded and distributed, with CTAs to the app or website.
  • "We’re actually not trying to drive subscriptions off the back of those videos. We’re trying to drive engagement and awareness that this product exists." – Nada Arnot [38:14]

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AI, LLMs & Publisher Adaptation (39:49–46:11)

• Ethical Sponsorship: Economist Insider is supported by Claude (Anthropic) but maintains editorial independence; no formal content licensing deals with LLMs.
  • "We will look at an issue from every angle and come out on one side or the other. Not because we’re getting ad dollars for it or because we’re being influenced in any way." – [41:10]
• LLM Traffic Impact: Experiments show the value exchange is weak: “60,000 crawls of content returns one click back.” (42:41)
• Zero Click Era Strategy: Focus more on brand marketing to offset referral losses. Not rushing LLM/content partnerships until reciprocal value is clearer.
  • "You get that whisper of a mention. So is it even worth being there?" – [42:09]
• Formats with Value: Investment in formats (video, podcasts, print) that offer unique consumer value not possible via LLM summaries.

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Views on LLM Licensing (46:11–47:32)

• Skepticism Toward Publisher Deals: Nada worries publishers are making “deal with the devil” arrangements with LLMs, trading strong brand-presence for short-term gains with little return.
  • "I do worry that some of those decisions were made a little bit in haste because they were seeing a complete fall off of a cliff." – Nada Arnot [47:04]
  • "We've gone from trading dollars for pennies for half pennies or something." – Alison Schiff [47:32]

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The “If Money Were No Object” Dream (47:45–48:47)

• Ultimate Wish: Nada would love to stage a global, premium Economist events tour—highly engaging, high-impact, community-building experiences.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I personally don’t think you can just do brand without understanding the revenue-generating bits. And you can’t just do the revenue-generating bits... without understanding brand. When you bring those two together, you have your strong engine." – Nada Arnot [09:39]
• "We’re not trying to be the next streaming service. We are just creating a format that if you want to sit back and actually listen to the debate, you can do it." – Nada Arnot [35:21]
• On AI/LLM referral value: "You get ... something like 60,000 crawls of content returns one click back. So the value exchange just isn’t there." – Nada Arnot [42:41]
• "We don’t want to be that brand that is trying to chase a trend... disingenuine to who we are. So... we want to remain true to ourselves, true to our DNA, which is very considered and intellectual, but with wit and a little bit of sass." – Nada Arnot [19:24–19:44]
• "Events also have made their comeback and people appreciate it. People appreciate swag, they appreciate physical vinyl, ... some intrinsic value... resonates deep inside our human soul." – Nada Arnot [45:07]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introductions & Nada’s Backstory: 02:11–07:09
• Brand vs Performance/Measurement: 09:39–14:47
• Brand Campaign Tactics: 14:47–18:13
• Brand Strategy & Audience: 17:59–21:41
• Publisher Brand Campaigns & AI Disruption: 21:41–24:16
• Subscriber Engagement Formats: 28:20–31:38
• Insider Premium Video Product: 32:02–37:19
• Viral Moments & Social Use: 37:33–39:43
• LLMs, Content Licensing, and Strategy: 39:49–47:32
• Unlimited Budget Dream: 47:45–48:47

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Tone and Language

Nada Arnot is candid, strategic, entrepreneurial, and occasionally self-deprecating, never shying away from complexity or challenge. Host Alison Schiff is enthusiastic, curious, and conversational, grounding the high-level discussion with relatable personal anecdotes.

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Conclusion

This episode provides a masterclass in publisher brand strategy amid digital disruption and AI upheaval. Nada Arnot shows why The Economist is an “AI outlier”—using rigorous measurement, a holistic content mindset, and unwavering commitment to the brand’s core identity to stay relevant, respected, and profitable in a world of generative search, fragmented audiences, and industry upheaval.

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Transcript

[Alison Schiff]

Foreign.

[Nada Arnot]

Welcome to Ad Exchanger Talks, the podcast devoted to examining the issues and trends in advertising and marketing technology that matter most to you.

[Alison Schiff]

This episode is sponsored by Amazon Ads. Amazon Ads offers a range of products and solutions that can help businesses achieve their advertising goals. Advertising needs a world where marketers no longer have to choose between building their brand and driving results. Amazon Ads helps marketers prioritize solutions that break down silos and simplify campaign management, enabling the orchestration, execution and measurement of holistic campaigns that achieve both objectives. We remove the guesswork for advertisers by making it simple to manage all of their TV planning and buying with Amazon Ads.

I'm Alison Schiff and this is Ad Exchanger Talks. Let's talk about some ad Exchanger y things, but with a twist. My guest this week is a brand marketer on the sell side, Nada Arnot, EVP of marketing at the Economist, a 182-year-old publisher with online chops. We'll get into what it means to run brand marketing in 2025 for a publisher that was founded in 1843 and how the Economist thinks about measurement, performance, engagement, all that good stuff. But first, save the date for Convergent TV World, taking place on March 5th and 6th at the Times center in New York City. Convergent TV World is the new name for our CTV Connect event. We'll bring together the worlds of linear TV streaming, CTV gaming, retail media and digital out of home to help you tackle the challenges of measurement, attribution and cross screen storytelling. Podcast listeners get 10% off the price of their ticket when they use the code POD10. So snag your ticket and see you there. Hey Nada. Welcome to the podcast.

[Nada Arnot]

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

[Alison Schiff]

Yeah. What is one thing about you that not a lot of other people already know?

[Nada Arnot]

There's probably a lot of things about me that a lot of people don't know. Not that I'm a secret person. I don't necessarily go around sharing all the little bits and pieces. I'm very multidimensional that way. I guess I'll share one that is. The top of my mind is I love traveling, as most people do, but I've been to about 41 countries now and the most recent was Iceland, which I just got home from yesterday.

[Alison Schiff]

Amazing. Okay, well, now I want one fun fact about Iceland and then we can talk about your job and marketing the Economist.

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, lots of fun facts there too. But I think the one that sort of struck me most is how few people actually live in Iceland and particularly across Iceland. So about 390,000 people live in Iceland, but 300,000 of them live in the. In Reykjavik. So one city. That means most of that country is uninhabited, which makes it so incredibly enchanted when you're traveling through because it honestly feels like you're in Lord of the Rings. It just is completely wild.

[Alison Schiff]

I want to Google the population of my hometown right now because I'm just curious how it compares.

[Nada Arnot]

It's the same thing.

[Alison Schiff]

Well, what came up? Bergen County. I'll do the county. It's. As of last year, 978,641 people lived in Bergen County, New Jersey.

[Nada Arnot]

Right. That's incredible. And that.

[Alison Schiff]

Yeah, yeah.

[Nada Arnot]

Concentrated in one county. Yeah. It's an incredible country though.

[Alison Schiff]

So I don't know how to segue us over to your career path, so I'm just gonna do it. You've been on the sell side for pretty much your entire career. But what I think is really interesting is that you've always, it seems like you've always based on your LinkedIn, sat in a marketing role. So it's your job and now at the Economist to help advertisers like understand and tap into readers or viewers and publisher products and help them reach their goals. But it's, you know, like an interesting role to have. How did you end up in a sell side marketing role and what's kept you on this side of the business instead of going fully brand side?

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, well, I actually way back when started my career with the federal government of Canada. So I was a policy strategist in Canada and labor market strategy, completely different world, which I thought was really interesting until I realized the pace of government and the pace of my genetic makeup do not jive well together. And so at the time we were living in, in the capital of Canada, I said to my husband then let's just go down to New York for a year and just hang out and be young and free. And so we moved down and I discovered I was pregnant. So being young and free that those plans are wrong and. And I was waiting for my work visa to come in. And so I started a website for the modern expectant father and basically started early, this is 2004, started in blogging. I was ended up being one of the first mommy bloggers. Digital marketing. So paid search and organic search. So SEO was key to driving that growth. That those are basically the only tools he had at the time. But it meant that I was able to learn all the tricks of the trade and Once I had my child and I got my work visa, I had an opportunity to apply for a role at NBC in search market engine marketing, which I took and the. The rest is history. So I just, I loved it. I was able to spread my wings in driving growth for NBC and then moved on to several other big media companies, you know, expanding my, my, my remit across the board. And the reason why I love staying in house was that I was able to own the strategy and the execution and the results, for better or worse.

End to end. Right. And I really get a high off of building businesses and driving success and the grit that comes along with it. And I did do a small stint at an agency, which was really interesting as well. But I just found that owning the entire process for building revenue for, for a business from inside was far more impactful for me, and I just find that much more rewarding.

[Alison Schiff]

And I do want to talk about how you're doing that at the Economist, but a little tangent before that, can I just call out how much I love Britbox? I saw that you were the SVP of marketing there for a few years before you got to The Economist in 2023. And for people who might not know, Britbox is a subscription streaming service for British TV shows and movies, and it's the best. I grew up watching Ms. Marple and Poirot with my parents. Love that stuff. I was a subscriber for a while, but then my life got busy and I, I just let it fall by the wayside. But then seeing it on your LinkedIn reminded me that I need to subscribe again. And I had this funny thought, like, I wonder how a marketer would be able to do the attribution for that one. You know, like, it's not word of mouth, it's like word of LinkedIn. But yeah, yeah, no, we.

[Nada Arnot]

It was always interesting when I was over at Britbox because a lot of our team was sitting in London and we always sort of joke that, you know, it's the best diverse tv, but in England, it's just tv.

So it wore. It traveled much better in the US And Canada, but it was. It's great. But that's a perfect example of a role that I love jumping into where I was able to define the strategy, define the marketing channels we wanted to execute against, work on the creatives to drive that. That, especially at the time, it was the hockey stick growth, which was really exciting. And in every business I've been in, including the Economist, there's always been this entrepreneurial function to my role. So it's not into to your question about just why not just sitting purely in the brand side is because I do really love brand. But at the same time you can't just, I personally don't think you can just do brand without understanding the revenue generating bits. And you can't just do the revenue generating bits through performance marketing without understanding brands. When you bring those two together, you have your strong engine. And whether it's a big established company or a startup, I approach every role I've had as if it were a startup, as if we had limited resources but incredibly ambitious targets and.

Just work like heck to beat them.

[Alison Schiff]

Well, maybe that's the answer to this question, but one of your big things has been to push the economist to invest more in brand marketing and not just performance. But of course you still have to prove that brand dollars are paying off and you have to use, I guess, the same language as your CEO or your cfo. You have to talk about revenue, you have to talk about the number of subscriptions. So how do you do that? How do you translate what you do so that it resonates with those kinds of folks, the ones who set the budgets?

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's definitely not easy. But at the same time, I had the benefit, dare I say, of being a, a non believer of brand when I first got into marketing. And so like I said, I got into marketing through search engine marketing, very much one of the first digital marketers. And so at that time, digital marketers had a little bit of pretentiousness and arrogance about them, myself included, which was we can track everything so we know where our dollars are going and that's the better way to do marketing. And so that arrogance still exists, by the way. It does, it does. And I, I've now been humbled and realized actually there is a bigger picture to all of this. But when I first got into my role at NBC, I remember thinking there was my budget and then there was the budget that the nice TV channels had for their brand marketing. And there was not that they didn't really have accountability, but their KPI was just driving tune in. Whether they drove tune in or not, we don't know from their marketing, but if they had eyeballs, they had eyeballs. And I remember thinking, I will never sit in a marketing role where marketing is a cost, a cost center. I want it to be a revenue generating center. And so that has always been with me. And that's a very long way of getting to the answer to your question. Which is I approach even brand marketing, things that are notoriously difficult to measure with a.

Measurement lens, if you will, like as much as we can measure. Because I also just, I don't want to be throwing dollars somewhere and hoping that maybe they're working. So for brand marketing we, we measure almost everything we can do right from the beginning of our brand health KPI. So are we moving the needle in in terms of brand awareness, consideration, true validated familiarity? So with a name like the Economist, a lot of people say, yeah, yeah, I know them. And then you say, okay, what is it? Is it a textbook? Is it a university class? Is it a profession? Or is it a news publication? It's like hero. So Economist, yeah, if only we had that superhero today. And so once those are big metrics that we, we track for brand health, including.

Monthly usage. So that's one bit. And then there's creative testing. So I make sure, and I've learned also early on in my career that I would never be the most creative person in the room. I.

Like to believe I understand a good creative. I like to believe I have good aesthetics. But I've also come to realize I've worked with amazing creatives throughout my career and I will not be the most creative person in the room. And so I'm not going to sit at a table and try to debate which one I think is better. Let the data guide us. And so we do a lot of creative testing before we go to market to make sure the creatives will resonate not just with our core demographic, who we've known and loved for over 180 years, but also the newer demographics, the younger, the more female.

Skewing population, so that we're not alienating one or the other that we resonate amongst everyone. So then we get our measurement of the creatives that we think will work. Then we put our dollars into channels and that's where we really start. And that's what the CEO and the CFO really care about, which is are we delivering a return on investment? And that's where we use brand lift trackers, we use incrementality measurement. And then most importantly is media mix modeling. So econometrics to make sure that yes, when we place a dollar in tv, we're getting a solid return back. And that has always been the guiding force. And so every six months we run that measurement again to make sure we're still on the right path. And we incorporate the learnings from the last readout into our next media planning. And that just brings Everyone along for the ride. Not only are we showing the numbers to the C suite, we're also bringing them along every step of the way so that they know that we are being very responsible with how we're managing our brand strategy.

[Alison Schiff]

Well, speaking of putting dollars into channels, you guys just launched this very big brand campaign earlier this year. It was the Economist's first brand campaign in more than a decade. And obviously you were spearheading it, the tagline, although I saw you quoted as saying this is more than a tagline, but know which way is up to reposition the Economist as like a guide through the chaotic, crazy, noisy world that we live in. And it was a very omnichannel campaign. There were some TV spots out of home in London and New York. There were radio ads, digital video on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google, like, of course. What about good old programmatic online advertising? Like, it's less flashy. Was it part of this effort?

[Nada Arnot]

Not as much. And largely because.

It'S so easy to get drowned out. Right. So when you're, when you're playing in that digital advertising space, you're also competing with a lot of other content on, on, on the website that you might be on. And it's. There is this, this part of the human brain that whether you're consciously thinking or not, that you, you perceive a brand to be more premium if you see a billboard for them in Times Square, because they must have really made it in order to be able to afford that billboard in Times Square, versus a lot of people can. Different brands, big, small, can afford digital advertising. Not to say that it's. I'm not, don't mean to undermine it in any way, but it is just, it's, it's a very different medium. And it reminds me back when I started NBC, our CEO at the time had said, well, this is the new world for us. But you have to remember we're, we're trading up ad dollars for digital pennies. And it's because it became really easy for people to get into digital advertising. But it also meant for the, the, you know, the, the publisher that they weren't making a lot more, as much money off of that advertising placement. But it also just means there's a lot more noise and a lot more rotation through that ad space.

[Alison Schiff]

It's a hamster wheel.

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alison Schiff]

I mean, with out of Home, I guess there's also the added benefit of maybe showing it in people's holiday snaps. Right. Like, oh, people are going to go home to Milwaukee. And the Economist campaign is Going to be behind, you know, the Smith family with their arms around each other.

[Nada Arnot]

Oh, for sure. When last year was late December, we were running our first billboard there and I think we were. There was a pop up concert of some sort and I can't remember who it was.

Blanking on the singer, but it was a pretty famous singer and our billboard was in the background and so it was on all these Instagram pics because it just happened to be in rotation when she was singing. But yeah, you get sort of the sort serendipitous brand spots in everyone's photos.

[Alison Schiff]

I mean that's serendipity. But how would you describe the more like considered brand strategy for the Economist? Like the marketing philosophy for like a. It is a legacy publication. You've been around since 1843.

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's the. There are a few things that we think about in terms of the brand strategies. One.

How do we communicate our point of difference versus all the other news publications? We are not a headline breaking news outlet nor will we ever be. What we are is sort of considered take on the headlines. You come to us not to find out whether something just happened. You come to us to understand what does that mean and what does that mean not just for today but for tomorrow and for all the other sort of adjacent spaces in, in different industries. And so we want to make sure that we preserve that. Right. You don't want in any way to want to come out of the gate and try to be the parent that's saying six, seven, right. Just to be cool to, to resonate with the younger kids.

[Alison Schiff]

I had to look that up, by the way. I was watching south park and there's a whole storyline about 6, 7. My boyfriend and I were so confused. And then I looked it up and there's no reason behind it. I'm like, I don't understand anything.

[Nada Arnot]

There no reason behind it which just completely. Just compopulates you further.

So we don't want to be that brand that is trying to chase a trend. Right. And trying to show up in the world that is disingenuine to who we are. Right. So in terms of the brand strategy, we want to make sure we remain true to ourselves, true to our DNA, which is very.

Considered and intellectual, but with wit and, and a little bit of sass to it. So we maintain that tone, voice and then premiumness and then the other part of strategy is who we're going after, right. So we. Our target audience. Like I said, the. There's a core, the 55 plus that we've always attracted and they're the most influential people in the world. Leaders across industries and governments all read and subscribe to the Economist. But then we also want to branch out and reach the younger demographic, the students, the young professionals, male and female, so that it's more balanced. So again, that's part of our strategies. How do we take our brand and make it better understood within those other demographic spaces to make sure that they understand that we aren't just about economics and finance, that we do have culture content, we have health and wellness content, we have all the, this breadth of, of content and then making sure that we show up where they are. Right. And that might be the traditional, a lot of it is the, the traditional marketing channels which is targeted for from our perspective. But from a consumer perspective, it's almost serendipitous that you're watching CNBC and then you see an ad for the Economist, right? You're waiting at the gate at JFK and you see an ad for the Economist on the TV screen there, or you're Dr. You're going through the World Trade center on your commute and you see an ad for the Economist. Like those are to the consumer serendipitous moments. We've targeted those spaces because we know the psychographic and the demographic target audience is already hanging out in those spaces.

[Alison Schiff]

So one more question before we take a quick break to hear from our sponsor. I'm curious why there are so many, or it seems like there are so many publishers running big brand marketing campaigns for themselves right now. Because this year it's been the Guardian, NBC News, Reuters, the San Francisco Chronicle, I think the Houston Chronicle, Wired, you guys, of course. And I literally googled why are so many publishers running brand marketing campaigns right now? And an article in Adweek from October popped up with that exact headline. So I'm not the only one wondering. And that story, you know, talks about declining referral traffic and AI related disruptions to search and young people finding their news in other places. And all of those things are true. But I feel like there's also a trust element here. Like with mainstream and legacy journalism under attack and misinformation out there and polarized narratives, these campaigns feel like they're also about reaffirming credibility in some way. So, yeah, I'm just curious what your take is.

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, I think that's right. I think the, the again, I haven't spoken to other publishers about why they're running their brand campaigns, but my hunch is that it's primarily.

Because we are being as, as publishers, we're being disintermediated by LLMs, right? AI and organic social and social are fragmenting the way people get their news, but especially LLMs has just decimated referral traffic and organic search traffic in particular to publishers. And once you start doing that, you're also then.

Fracturing the relationship between the reader and the publisher brand. Right? And the further you get away from understanding where your, your news source is coming from. So that small little whisper of an attribution in ChatGPT will not make a brand. And over time you don't know what is right and what's wrong. And so that's part of the reason why I think publishers are investing in brand marketing. And then the to your second part of the question, their narrative or their brand story is about truth and facts. And we're all somewhat saying the same thing because again, in a world of disinformation, especially when it's and hallucinations now, when especially it's appearing in LLMs, you need to be very clear as to why you do need to go to the news publisher source. And that's part, I think, of the overarching industry brand strategy.

[Alison Schiff]

So we're going to talk more after the break about LLMs for sure. And we'll also talk a little bit about a new product that the Economist launched, launched recently, a premium video product. Other good stuff too, so stick with us.

[Sarah Sluice]

I'm Sarah Sluice, editorial director at Ad Exchanger, and I have with me here today Ludo Develant, the product marketing lead at Amazon Ads, our podcast sponsor this month.

[Alison Schiff]

Hello Ludo.

[Ludo Develant]

Yes, hello. Thanks for having me.

[Sarah Sluice]

So to start things off, what is the biggest opportunity right now for advertisers in the streaming TV market?

[Ludo Develant]

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[Sarah Sluice]

So streaming delivers that same mass reach people love with TV advertising. But less waste, more, more personalization. When advertisers consolidate their streaming TV investment with Amazon ads, what happens?

[Ludo Develant]

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[Sarah Sluice]

So we've got inventory and identity as the two unique pieces. So let's close with looking ahead. Where do you see advertising on streaming TV heading in the next few years?

[Ludo Develant]

So I think streaming TV is really democratizing access to TV advertising. The barrier to entry are coming down with more self service options without minimum budget or year long commitments. So for instance at Amazon we have Sponsored TV which is our self service streaming TV solution for businesses of any size without any commitment in terms of minimum budget. And the second driver is AI tools that make video advertising creation both accessible and also very affordable. And I think this means that small businesses who could never afford TV before will join the game. And all in all, I think we could go from thousands of advertisers to potentially millions of TV advertisers in the next few years, which will unleash a new golden era for creativity with more choice and more entertainment for consumer.

[Sarah Sluice]

So we will be seeing more small advertisers entering the TV market using AI to create their ads. Totally agree with that prediction. Thank you Ludo. And thank you to Amazon Ads for supporting our podcasts.

[Ludo Develant]

Thank you for having me.

[Alison Schiff]

All right, we're back and I want to start with a sort of facetious question, if you don't mind. But it comes, I promise, from a genuine place. How do you encourage people not just to subscribe, but to actually read and engage with Economist stories and writers? And the context in which I asked this question. My boyfriend subscribes to the Physical Economist magazine. It shows up every week in our mailbox along with the New Yorker, which we also don't read. And I'm chagrined to admit it. And it's not because we don't want to read these things and enrich ourselves. It's just that life intervenes and then we end up with this unread stack on the dining room table just guilting us for being total philistines. And I don't think this is just an us problem. I suspect others suffer from the exact same experience, the best of intentions, and then they just don't end up getting to it. And then the news is old when I have a moment and so I end up missing a lot of probably really good analysis. So how do you get people to take the next step from a marketing perspective and actually consume what they've aspirationally subscribe to?

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah. And then if it makes you feel better, you are not alone.

It is a common.

Concern not just among our subscribers, but I think among any subscribers to a pure print publication.

But that's the beauty of not being purely print, that we are actually more digital than we are print these days. And we've created formats of our content that suit multiple different consumption patterns.

[Sarah Sluice]

Right.

[Nada Arnot]

So we have longer form videos, we have short form videos, we have podcasts, we have narrated articles, we have short articles, long articles. So all those and newsletters and so all those, those different formats allow our subscribers to fit our journalism into their daily lives. And our job, it's actually not my team's job. It's. It's a really talented team, counterpart team in the Economist that focuses on driving that engagement. And it's all about awareness, just all about letting people understand that those, those formats are available and this is how you can fit it into your day, right? And then it just becomes habit and then people understand, right? I can listen to the world in brief, first thing I do when I wake up and it's five minutes and that's amazing, I got my news there. Then on the commute I'll listen to a podcast or some narrated articles. And the way that the app we just recently, almost a year ago now relaunched, has.

The design built in so that there is a more leisurely long form reading weekend experience that you can indulge in or just daily what you need to consume in order to stay on top of whatever key news facts. And this is how you can build your playlist to listen or to read. And that's proven quite successful. And it just helps habituate people to where to fit us into their day.

[Alison Schiff]

I mean it's a perfect time of year to set some resolutions. So I'm going to start reading the magazines in my mailbox and I'm also Going to start exercising.

[Ludo Develant]

There you go.

[Nada Arnot]

There you go.

In the magazines. If you start with the leaders, if you commit to reading leaders and you've.

[Alison Schiff]

Gotten in, that'll be my gateway.

[Nada Arnot]

Exactly. You've gotten in.

[Alison Schiff]

Well, I want to switch gears and talk about a new product, another form of content. Although I have to say, I kind of hate the word content, even though I use it all the time because it makes it feel like we're producing widgets or something. And so much thought goes into, like, every word choice. So anyway, I hate that I just called it content, but you just released a premium video product that I teased before the break called Insider, and it gives subscribers free access to these live and also some on demand shows featuring your senior editors at the Economist debating and analyzing the issues behind the journalism that you produce. And sometimes you also have guests. And it's very polished looking. It's very cool. It kind of feels like a video podcast to me in a way. But how do you differentiate the Economist Insider, like in the. I don't know what to call it, the premium video space, because everyone look at us pivoting right back to video, apparently. So there's a lot of competition for people's time. We were just talking about it. Yeah. I mean, how do you stand out?

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, I mean, I think for, for us, we have a. A couple of benefits and then.

Different angles of appeal. For Insider, One, historically, we are a news publisher without bylines. Right. So you really never understood or knew who was writing the article that you're reading, which is part of the democratic nature of our newsroom and makes.

The quality of your journalism so strong, because there's the internal debates that go on in the newsroom around every angle of a story. And you also don't get the most senior writer always getting their article published on the homepage, for example. It's very much of access to everyone. But we also know, again, with social media and now with LLMs, people do value the human.

Interaction. And so having our journalisms, now, our journalists, step outside of the newsroom is, Is a great way to engage and to build rapport with our subscribers. So for Insider, what's really, I think what's working for us is the fact that you never really did get to see.

Who our journalists were, nor did you actually get to see how that debate.

Unfolded every single week. Right. And now you're seeing it on stage and in these episodes. And so that's very much unique that only we can bring, because it's our journalists and we have the reputation the credibility of our newsroom. Right. So there is.

Almost like a secret sauce right there that you just can't compete on that type of quality and unique flavor of journalism. And then I guess the flip side is that we're not necessarily competing for video eyeballs. We're just adding another format to our journalism. Right. We're not trying to be.

The next streaming service. We are just creating a format that if you want to sit back and actually listen to the debate, you can do it. And if you don't have time to, you can watch a short video clip on key issues of the day.

[Alison Schiff]

I was just chuckling to myself for a minute when you said we're not going to be another streaming service. Like, oh, we won't see the Economist plus or whatever coming out soon.

[Nada Arnot]

Exactly.

[Alison Schiff]

There is a lot of interest in the journalistic process. We noticed that. And we cover a very ad exchanger. We cover a very small slice of. A small slice of the world. But we have people asking us all the time how we come up with story ideas. And we sometimes talk about our process on our other podcast called the Big Story. And people eat it up. They love knowing what goes into a story. It's so interesting because I just. I just think it's like our day to day. But people are curious.

[Nada Arnot]

They really are. We even had an internal event a couple weeks ago where I was interviewing some of our editorial staff around how they decide what goes on the COVID of our magazines.

[Ludo Develant]

And.

[Nada Arnot]

And even our internal staff found it fascinating because we're not all privy to how that process happens. And there is just something that people love to know the makings of, right. The behind the scenes, what goes into it. And there is something really intriguing about that with Insider. But it's more than just a peek behind the scenes. You're actually part of that debate because you can submit your questions and you just see it's not scripted. It just happens. And it's, it's. It's interesting and it's stimulating. And it's also just really aspirational because you're listening to some of the most intelligent people you know on.

Very complicated subject matter, sometimes just unpacking it in a way that makes sense to you suddenly. Right? And suddenly now you're part of that echelon of experts by being a viewer.

[Alison Schiff]

And there's also access to guests, sometimes incendiary. In October, the insider interview between your editor in chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, and Steve Bannon went kind of viral. Got a lot of play on Social media. There were some like, huh quotes in there. At one point, Steve Bannon says Trump is going to be president in 28. And people just have to get accommodated to that. I'm.

[Nada Arnot]

Wow.

[Alison Schiff]

But from your perspective as a brand marketer, how do you use a viral moment like that interview on social media and elsewhere to drive subscriptions and engagement and just the profile of the Economist?

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, I mean, that was, that was gold. That was video gold for sure. So we, we, at the end of every week, we take clips from the two Insider episodes that we've published for that week, and we try to take some of the most compelling or shareable clips, if you will, and package it in a container. So we have the front and the end of those clips that are branded Insider and the Economist. And we do push those through our paid video channels as a pure brand marking play. So we're trying to drive as many eyeballs to those videos as possible with a call to action to either download the app to watch more or go to the website to watch more. And that serves the, serves the purpose most. Right. We're actually not trying to drive subscriptions off the back of those videos. We're trying to drive engagement and awareness that this product exists. And this is where, this is the home for that product. This is where you can find it, along with all the other formats of journalism. And that's, that's proven really quite successful. I mean, those, those shows are, like you said, are so well produced and the, the guests and the commentary is just so strong that they carry themselves. I mean, I, I really can't take any credit for it because really what we're doing is targeting and putting money behind some really great clips.

[Alison Schiff]

It's nice to have material to work with though, right?

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Alison Schiff]

I have to ask about the fact that the launch of Insider is being supported by Claude. How did that come to be? I, I mean, I know, or at least I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, the Economist doesn't have any formal licensing deal with any LLM. But it just struck me as really a very interesting choice because of all the tension and questions about AI and ethics and trust and publishers struggling. We were just talking about it.

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, I mean, we've been writing about AI since the beginning of AI. Right. And it's something that we, we, meaning the, the newsroom, focuses a lot on in terms of what does that mean for industries, what does that mean for humanity, what does that mean for healthcare? What is all the different angles you can think of for AI and So that's very much an area of expertise and journalistic strength for us. And Claude Anthropic wanted to be a part of this, this exciting new launch. And we said that that's great, but you understand we're still very much independent and sometimes we'll speak in favor of LLMs and times, we'll, we'll speak against them based off of whatever topic and issue. And in no way are we pandering to.

Any AI company. And they were okay with it. I think they, like many other brands, like to align with the economists because we are a fair, balanced journalistic outlet. Right. We will look at an issue from every angle and come out on one side or the other. Not because we're getting ad dollars for it or because we're being influenced in any way. And you know, I think a lot of brands appreciate that, even if it means sometimes we might say something that is not as, as favorable for them.

[Alison Schiff]

I mean, that's legit. Go Anthropic. I love to hear it.

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, completely.

[Alison Schiff]

Well, speaking of LLMs, how are you guys adapting to generative AI search? The zero click stuff, declining search traffic, all of that. I mean, I, I know the Economist has a subscription first strategy, but still, I mean, how are you dealing with it with a marketer's head on?

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's challenging, right? Because on the one hand.

You don't want to give all your content to LLMs because as soon as you do it, you can't take it back. And what we know is the, the referral traffic from LLMs, even if we did allow it to crawl and learn from our content, is almost minimal. You get, I think it's something like 60,000.

Crawls of content returns one click back. So the, the, the value exchange just isn't there. So we need to make sure that we protect our, our content, but at the same time we don't want to be invisible because that's where people are getting their information. Then again, when you are there, you get that whisper of a mention. So is it even worth being there? So these are sort of the existential crisis discussions we have across the industry and internally. And so as a marketer, where I place my focuses much more on brand marketing. Right. The more we can get people to understand who we are and that we, we exist outside of an LLM or digital space, the, the better we are longer term. Right. Like that builds brand equity and maintains our relevance long term no matter what happens in this moment of current chaos. And then once the Dust settles a little bit like we'll have a, it's not that we'll never play in, in the LLM space. We just need to, we don't want to make a, a panic decision. We just need to make sure that we're doing what's right for, for the business in terms of how we show up in those LLM spaces and in terms of content. That's why we do produce more content like Insider and other videos and podcasts, because those are formats that people actually value more than getting the summary off of an LLM search query. So it's a little bit both sided in terms of how we're approaching it.

[Alison Schiff]

And I know I was just talking about how I don't read the physical edition, but want to. It does seem kind of like a superpower though to have that because there is this interesting trend where young people are taking a step back and they don't want to be as plugged in as I guess it was assumed they would want to be. There's that whole trend about the like, dumb phone. Right. And just spending less time on social media. And the 90s are coming back that I have lots of clothes from the 90s and I'm going to be so in fashion. But yeah, it's an, it's an interesting time to have a lot of history and legacy that you could draw on because there is an appetite for that. As much as LLMs and generative AI search is eating away at the business model for publishers.

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, I mean it's like the resurgence of events and live interactions. It, it's, you know, after Covid, a lot of brands thought, well, we'll never go back to live events. Everyone's accustomed to these video calls and what ended up happening is this still happens. But we really like that human interaction, those moments of community and, and so events also have made their, their comeback and people appreciate it. People appreciate swag, they appreciate physical vinyl, they appreciate, you know, the, all the bits that you think would go away with technology. They stay there because there is some intrinsic value to them that somehow resonates deep inside our human soul. So making sure that we have those formats available and not moving 100% away from print, for example, or only throwing brand dollars into digital spaces.

Allows us to, to remain relevant.

[Alison Schiff]

Well, penultimate question because we're nearing the end of, of this podcast, but what do you think about publishers that are striking licensing deals with LLMs? Is that a deal with the devil? Should they not be doing that?

[Nada Arnot]

I'm worried for them. I truly Am I? Maybe that's famous last words and I'll sound like a Luddite in five years time. But I am worried for them because I. Until there is a strong value exchange, whether it be revenue or traffic or branding.

There isn't a lot that you're getting in return by striking those deals. You're not getting strong enough presence to offset the declining organic search traffic, for example. And so I do worry that some of those decisions were made a little bit in haste because.

They were seeing a complete fall off of a cliff and.

They'Re not able to build their direct relationships with subscribers or new audiences fast enough. I hope there is a turnaround and I hope I'm wrong for them. But I truly believe in a vibrant news industry with multiple publishers. But I do worry that, that that's a little bit short sighted, that we've.

[Alison Schiff]

Gone from trading dollars for pennies for half pennies or something.

[Nada Arnot]

We don't even have pennies in the, in our.

[Alison Schiff]

No more pennies. You're right. They stop making pennies.

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, go.

[Alison Schiff]

At the beginning, you were talking about how no matter where you are, you operate as if you have a limited budget. That startup mentality. But let's say you had an unlimited budget and no constraints at all. What's one marketing initiative or one thing that you would love to do to grow the Economist's audience? You just, just blow it up like money is no object.

[Nada Arnot]

Yeah, I, I would love to have a, an events tour. Like I would love to do some format of a really high.

Highly engaging premium event that we can take on the road throughout all the major cities in the world. And I'm not sure what the substance of that is, but something that really draws a meaningful interaction with really important issues and bringing people together around those issues.

[Alison Schiff]

The Economist on the move. The Economist.

[Nada Arnot]

There you go.

[Alison Schiff]

Well, I'm gonna leave you with one movie recommendation. It's Icelandic because when you said Iceland at the beginning, the back of my mind I'm like, I saw a really good movie that took place in Iceland. It was a million years ago and I was stealthily like googling it while we were recording and I found it. So it's called Neu the Albino and it's from 2006 and. Or no, sorry, 2003. And it's just about this disgruntled 17 year old in a small town in Iceland and he's an albino and he just antagonizes his teachers and he's just trying to find himself and it's a really good movie. I recommend it highly.

[Nada Arnot]

That's on my list for tonight.

Amazing.

[Alison Schiff]

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