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Working with BrandScience, The Economist successfully demonstrated that its long term brand-building advertising campaign had directly resulted in increased circulation, revenues and customer loyalty.
Background
The Economist first worked to ensure that the right KPIs were being analysed – subscriptions and newsstand sales. Using weekly data spanning a five-year history, two interlinked models were built; one to look at newsstand and the other subscriptions. Critically, each model covered a wide range of factors, including pricing, availability, advertising and promotion, product changes, the competition, general economic context and even the impact of covers.
What did The Economist learn?
The project showed that advertising, the use of opinion-led covers and improved distribution, had all contributed to an increase in newsstand sales. The most influential element of the advertising was the outdoor campaign and, using the model, the BrandScience team was able to calculate that, over the five years, the outdoor campaign drove over 2% of newsstand sales and delivered as much as 6% of new subscriptions each year.
How was the knowledge used?
In terms of integrating project findings back into the business, most significantly, this analysis enabled The Economist to justify the need for continued investment in brand advertising, despite an extremely tough business-publishing economy. Specifically they were able to quantify and defend investment in their key ‘territory’ of outdoor. On a micro level, the results prompted further analysis looking at different poster sizes and locations. |
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