Make It Right Makes Progress

The Economist Targets U.K. Readers

Over the past decade the Economist has won over thousands of young American professionals with its concise, opinionated articles on issues ranging from monetary policy to New York fashion week.

The magazine is now trying to recreate that success in its home market: Britain.

On Friday, the Economist launches a 70-second plug to run in U.K. movie theaters, its first cinema ad in eight years. The ad is part of a drive by the magazine to drive slow-growing U.K. sales and lure younger readers.

"In the U.S. they see [the Economist] as cool," says Nigel Ludlow, U.K. managing director of the Economist Group, the magazine's owner. "In the U.K., it is a more serious perception."

The average age of the Economist's U.S. subscriber is 39. In the U.K. -- where many associate it with the right-wing policies of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher -- it is 47. Marketers prefer younger audiences, particularly wealthy ones like Economist readers, because they are perceived to be more open to advertising messages and more likely to buy luxury goods such as watches and cars.

In the spot, created by the London office of Omnicom's BBDO Worldwide agency, AMV BBDO, a man in his thirties daringly walks and jumps across wires strung around an ornate European city, some high above the buildings. The wires are red, as in the Economist's red logo.

Music rises in the background along with apparently random sounds -- such as African music, a thunder clap, a cash register -- as the man jumps from wire to wire. Each sound and wire is meant to represent an aspect of the Economist's coverage. A Hare Krishna chant alludes to articles about religion. The thunder is a reference to global warming. A computer-generated voice, which is a reference to the Economist's technology coverage, can be faintly heard saying: "If we could look into the future what might we find?"

By jumping across wires, the man signifies the intellectual connections an Economist reader can make as he or she reads different articles, according to Mr. Ludlow.

The ad is designed to appeal to intellectually curious people interested in new trends.

The ad will be shown before movies with a likely younger audience than the average Economist subscriber, including Quentin Tarantino's latest violent flick, "Inglorious Basterds." The spot will be shown on television once, during a news bulletin Friday.