The Economist's Latest Business Unit for Enterprises

With its latest business unit, Impact, The Economist Group is stating its ambitions to work with companies like non-governmental organizations and policymakers to drive change, and—ultimately—revenue. The publisher has zeroed in on three global areas where it believes it can make progress with partners; sustainability, health and globalization, which includes topics like trade, technology in society and innovation within work. Impact pulls together existing arms of the business, including its 100-person strong research team of analysts and economists, with its branded content business, data visualization team, media strategists, events and client solutions. The publisher wouldn't share approximate headcount before publication. “Impact puts us in a position to change the paradigm through multiyear partnerships,” Claudia Malley, managing director of Economist Impact told Adweek. “The new proposition is activating seamlessly so partners don’t have to work through multiple brands and go through multiple doors." The Economist Is Selling Courses Economist Impact, what it’s calling a policy research and insights arm, has its own P&L. It wouldn’t share how much revenue it projects to make this year. The Economist Group generated an operating profit of £41.8 million in 2021, up £8.9 million, (27%) from the year before. Currently, around 20% of the work the publisher does involved this types of what it calls integrated work. The publisher currently works with between 50 and 100 clients on these types of projects. “Economist Impact leads with credibility," Christoph Woermann, CMO of Deutsche Bank Corporate Bank commented in a statement. "Our award-winning partnership connects an engaged audience of treasurers all over the world, underpinning Deutsche Bank's role as Global Hausbank.” The matter of metrics Projects coming out of Impact are comprised of three core capabilities: insights, driven by The Economist Group’s team of researchers, innovation tied to its credibility as a media organization and influence, demonstrated by its events business which gathers notable people who can advocate, for instance. Examples are its work with Google to end online violence again women and an initiative with Japan’s Nippon Foundation, Back to Blue, which aims to protect the health of oceans. The initiative with Nippon includes a multiyear research study on attitudes toward ocean pollution, digital content from The Economist and the Nippon Foundation, whitepapers and events, with the aim of building a digital community. It also reaches high-level stakeholders who can drive change as well as more local communities in order to alter the way people think about the ocean. But there’s a pressing need to design new success measures for impact. For ad buyers proving their sustainability creds, that can mean auditing the agency's carbon emissions. “For all new business RFIs, these details about the work Havas is doing around sustainability or the environment are always there,” said Tony Mattson, head of strategy at Havas Media Group. “They tend to be more operational (such as building outputs), but it’s a matter of time before it is focussed on the output of the ad campaign.” Impact is notoriously tough to measure. To help, The Economist Group is developing impact equations for each initiative across a number of metrics within the three buckets of insights, innovation and influence. That could include audience metrics like video views or dwell time. In branded content, reach is typically low given the subject matter and the intended audience, but it’s more quality over quantity, Malley notes. For influence, success metrics can be cited in a journal, research being used in keynote presentations or getting on the radar of government agencies. One example of impact is its eerily prescient Global Health Security Index measuring the world’s ability to prepare for and respond to infectious disease across 195 countries, released in 2019. The goal of the commercial project with the Nuclear Threat Initiative was to drive understanding and awareness and has since been cited 200 times in 30 top journals. “We want to measure the awareness from the insights, the engagement of the innovation and the outcome of our convening power to drive influence, together that drives impact.” A Year After Launch, The Financial Times’ Consultancy Is Booming

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The Economist Is Chasing Enterprise Budgets With Its Latest Business Unit, Impact

Clients include Google, the Nuclear Threat Initiative and Japan's Nippon Foundation

Lucinda Southern

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