The Economist has been developing several ways of connecting with younger audiences.
A key product for doing this has been their “bite-sized” news app called Espresso, which launched in 2014. In September, they began making it free to students worldwide.
Students, Liv Moloney said, are “a huge funnel for us, but we know that price point is a really difficult thing for them. So we used to have a large discount for students. Instead, we’ve decided to make this bite-sized news app free to them globally worldwide. Obviously, video has been a big part of that because it’s a way in which young audiences expect to consume news.”
A further benefit is the use of multiple languages, something made easier with AI.
Everything on the app can easily be translated into four languages (Spanish, German, Mandarin or French) for readers who want that option, Moloney said.
“The whole app will be translated for you into those languages, which is brilliant and amazing. And obviously this app is a great testing ground to test those kinds of products,” she said.
Using AI to translate video content
In order to promote that, Moloney said The Economist video team also tested reaching groups in multiple languages with their videos as well.
“We are now using AI to translate our videos into the four languages I mentioned,” she said. “It’s really incredible because it voice clones, lip-synchs our videos and translates them at the same time.”
To do this, members of her team upload them to the platform they use, then send the videos to native speakers to check,
“What’s amazing about the platform is if there is a slightly odd translation, or the word is not quite right, you can amend the script, and it will fix the video as well,” Moloney added.
They have also launched on TikTok and Instagram in Spanish, which she said they launched only a few weeks ago, “but we’ve already seen one of our videos have more than half a million views on TikTok in Spanish, which is quite amazing,” she said.
The Economist is using several platforms (also YouTube, etc), which is helping the publisher get a good amount of views per video, Moloney noted.
All of their AI-translated videos are clearly labelled as such.
“We are completely transparent with the audience that we do that,” she said.
The Economist just launched this feature about four or five weeks ago, Moloney said, but they’ve already had great feedback, as well as a large number of video views across platforms.
Topical and evergreen videos true to The Economist’s brand
In terms of how they commission their videos, the standard is set high in terms of both video quality and the production of the journalism. The focus is on concise explanations of tough questions, and they use Economist journalists as well as Economist graphics or a mix of the two.
The video team consists of 16 journalists, including producers, editors and motion graphics designers.
“We feel that our motions graphics are something that really sets us apart from our competitors,” Moloney said. “We do maps, we do clever animation, we do data. When we decide to do a video, we focus on a specific question that people are asking, and we make sure that we answer it.”
Content-wise the goal is for a balance between topical and evergreen, she said. The Economist has never focused on breaking news, and their video aims are in-line with that, but they do aim to provide explanatory videos in a timely manner.
“Maybe 24 hours later, we’ll do a brilliant explanation about why you need to understand something or how you should think about it,” Moloney said.
Their evergreen videos are often extremely popular, Moloney said.
In addition, they do a big investigation video on a monthly basis, such as a recent one that showed how disinformation can spread so rapidly online.
They’ve also started to film their podcasts.
“We don’t release our podcasts in total. What we do is use it to publish promotional clips once a week. Our podcasts are now behind our paywall, so it’s a way for us to get people to come and listen and pay for that subscription,” Moloney said.
Moloney also showed a very different kind of video The Economist produces with their language columnist, Lane Greene.
“This is one of our most loved and recognisable strands. It’s fully made in automation and has more than 3 million views across platforms,” she said.
“It’s very different example of our journalism that is incredibly popular and true to our brand,” Moloney said.
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