The Economist

The Challenge

The Economist has long relied on its Reading & Noting (R&N) programme as a way of gathering structured audience feedback on its content. Traditionally, this was delivered through offline methods — printed magazine inserts and postal questionnaires. While effective in the past, this approach had become increasingly outdated, resource-intensive, and less engaging for modern audiences.

The business needed to:

Migrate R&N from offline to online, creating a more relevant and accessible solution for global subscribers.
Improve the audience experience, making participation more seamless and appealing.
Enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of data collection, reducing operational overheads.
Future-proof the programme so it could support ongoing strategic needs around content evaluation, proposition development, and reader engagement.

The Solution

Skopos designed and implemented a digital community panel solution, ensuring continuity of the R&N programme while modernising its delivery:

Recruitment: Leveraged The Economist’s subscriber lists to build a digital panel across three core territories — UK, Europe, and Asia Pacific.
Quantitative core: Digitised the magazine content to enable structured, online surveys, preserving the essence of R&N while removing offline barriers.
Qualitative layer: Introduced digital qualitative tools (discussion boards, online diaries, ad-hoc forums) to allow for deeper exploration when needed.
Improved user experience: Made participation easy, accessible, and rewarding, increasing response rates and engagement.
Scalable design: Built the programme in a way that could flexibly address both routine content testing and strategic research questions.

The Outcome

The transition to a digital model delivered significant impact for The Economist:

Achieved major efficiency gains in speed, resource requirements, and cost-effectiveness, delivering measurable bottom-line value.
Enhanced the audience experience, positioning the R&N programme as modern, intuitive, and aligned with subscriber expectations.
Provided the business with a richer and more dynamic source of insight, covering:
- Readership profiling (who engages with content, and how).
- Content evaluation (which articles, themes, and formats resonate most).
- Future proposition direction (new features, sections, or subscription benefits).
Enabled The Economist to act faster on insights, feeding findings back into editorial and commercial decision-making on an ongoing basis.
Reinforced the brand’s ability to listen to and adapt to its global readership, strengthening loyalty and advocacy.

Ultimately, the project not only modernised the R&N programme but also created a strategic audience insight asset, ensuring The Economist remains closely connected to its readers in an increasingly digital media world.

The Economist

The Challenge

The Solution

The Outcome

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