Gen-X, Millennial Digital Opps: The Economist launches campaign following CMO hire (Score 55)

The Economist unveiled a digital ad campaign promoting its 2020 election coverage. The campaign, called "Word Play," will be supported across The Economist's social media and owned channels. It will also place ads onto Wired, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, HuffPost and Quartz. The Economist worked with creative agency Superlative on the campaign. This follows the June 2020 hire of CMO Kim Miller. She has held several top marketing roles over the years, most recently serving as CMO of the Flatiron School. 

Per iSpot, The Economist has not aired a national TV ad so far this year. It spent $59k in this channel in 2019 during programming such as "Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas," "WTA Tennis," "The Evening Edit," "Bloomberg Surveillance Davos Special" and "Cavuto: Coast to Coast." It has been decreasing spend in this channel over the last few years considering it spent $1.9m in 2018. 

Magellan reports it placed around 300 podcast ads over the last year. 

According to Pathmatics, The Economist earned 1.9b impressions through Facebook ads (95%), Twitter ads (4%) and Instagram ads (1%). It placed 100% of these ads site direct onto facebook.com, twitter.com, instagram.com, yahoo.com and news.yahoo.com. It spent $14.5m in this channel over the last 365 days, a 22% increase from $11.9m spent during the 365 days prior. 

Sellers-- The Economist seems to mainly target Gen-X and millennials with a slight male skew. It has traditionally advertised through national TV and digital display ads, but it has cut TV spending to make room for additional digital ads. The increase in digital spend and emphasis on online readers indicates it may be targeting a slightly younger audience and digital ads must provide a better marketing ROI. Reach out soon offering digital display ad space to secure last-minute campaign ad dollars. 

Agency & martech readers-- As you know, new CMOs commonly review their new company's agency roster, and to the best of our knowledge The Economist has not made any changes sine Miller's hire. Reach out soon in order to be top-of-mind. Our researchers are working to confirm if the relationship with Superlative is project-based or permanent. We believe you will face media competition from PlusMedia.