Executive Interview: Nick Blunden SVP, Global Head of Digital and Content Strategy at The Economist

Nick Blunden is the SVP, Global Head of Digital and Content Strategy for The Economist. Nick has held a variety of senior roles at The Economist including Global Managing Director and Publisher of Economist.com and Global Digital Publisher. In his current role Nick has responsibility for The Economist’s digital advertising, thought leadership, content marketing and integrated marketing services businesses around the world.

Before joining The Economist Group Nick was UK CEO of Profero, the world’s largest independent digital communications agency. In his seven year tenure at Profero Nick oversaw the rapid expansion of the UK business, successfully launching its media business Profero Performance and its technology business Profero Connect. In addition to Profero Nick has also enjoyed success as a Management Consultant at IBM and as a client side marketer at Energis. Droid Report recently interviewed Nick Blunden about his current role and discussed mobile insights.

Nick Blunden

Droid Report: Hello Nick, Could you tell us more about your current role at The Economist and your initiatives for 2014?

Nick Blunden: I am currently SVP, Global Head of Digital and Content Strategy at The Economist. This means that I have responsibility for The Economist’s digital advertising, content marketing, thought leadership and integrated marketing businesses around the world. In this capacity I lead a team of over sixty thought leadership editors, marketing strategists and digital specialists across three continents all focused on delivering world class marketing solutions to some of the worlds most valuable brands. In 2014 we are focused on building out our multi-platform product offering, extending our programmatic advertising capabilities and on delivering world class branded content programmes such as GE Look ahead.

Droid Report: Media organizations are aware that to succeed today, it is crucial to have appropriate knowledge of its readers to better serve them. What are your personal thoughts on deriving revenues from mobile channels?

Nick Blunden: Generating significant revenue from mobile is both a big challenge and a huge opportunity. To date mobile has been characterized by low advertising rates and somewhat transient content consumption however we believe that going forward there is an opportunity to establish mobile as the most premium of all channels. After all the mobile experience is the most personal of all media experiences. This provides great opportunities for data enabled content personalization that adds greater value to the relationship between the reader and the media owner and data driven advertising that increases the effectiveness of marketing spend.

Droid Report: Where do you see growth heading for The Economist?

Nick Blunden: At The Economist we have successfully transitioned from a print driven publication to a multi-platform media company. As a result we are very confident about the future growth of our business, which we believe will be driven by a variety of revenue streams including a growing global subscription base, increased revenue from content marketing, the transition of print advertising to digital and events.

Droid Report: What are some of the current challenges you see in digital and content strategy?

Nick Blunden: The biggest challenge in the digital and content strategy space is that it has become increasingly crowded. On the content marketing side media owners are increasingly competing with agencies, consultancies, PR firms and custom publishers to name but a few.  And on the digital side the inexorable rise of platforms like Facebook, Google and LinkedIn has made for an extremely competitive landscape.  To succeed in this environment media owners like The Economist need to focus on the quality of their relationship with their audience and on the quality of the content they produce.

Droid Report: What are your thoughts on responsive design versus native apps?

Nick Blunden: At present I believe that publishers like The Economist need to embrace both responsive design to create truly multi-platform web experiences and native apps to create truly immersive and differentiated mobile experiences. There may well come a time when these two things come together however in my opinion the technology is not quite there yet when it comes to creating rich content experiences.

Droid Report: Is there anything else you feel Android users and the Android market should know?

Nick Blunden: The huge growth in Android market share in recent years is starting to rebalance the priorities of publishers who have traditionally though iOS first. This is good news for innovation and customer choice.

The Economist online offers authoritative insight and opinion on international news, politics, business, finance, science and technology. We publish all articles from The Economist print edition (including those printed only in British copies) and maintain a searchable online archive that dates back June 1997. We also offer a variety of web-only content, including blogs, debates and audio/video programmes. Our organisation The Economist online is part of The Economist Group and is responsible for The Economist on the internet. We have offices in New York, London and San Francisco, and a growing worldwide editorial staff.

We would like to thank Nick Blunden for taking the time for this discussion and The Economist.