The Economist launches AI-translated videos to engage young audiences in multiple languages

The Economist has developed several ways to engage with younger audiences.

A key product for this was their “bite-sized” news app called Espresso, which launched in 2014. In September, they began making it available to students worldwide for free.

Students, said Liv Moloney, are “a huge funnel for us, but we know the price is a really difficult thing for them.” That's why we used to have a big discount for students. Instead, we decided to make this little news app available to you worldwide for free. “Obviously video is a big part of that because that’s how young viewers expect to consume news.”

Another advantage is the use of multiple languages, which is made easier by AI.

For readers who want this option, everything in the app can be easily translated into four languages ​​(Spanish, German, Mandarin or French), Moloney said.

“The entire app is translated into these languages ​​for you, which is brilliant and amazing. And obviously this app is a great testing ground to test products like that,” she said.

Using AI to translate video content

To further this, Moloney said The Economist's video team has also tested reaching groups in multiple languages ​​with its videos.

“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-syncs and translates our videos at the same time.”

To do this, members of their team upload them to the platform they use and then send the videos to native speakers for review.

“The amazing thing about the platform is that if there's a bit of a weird translation or the word isn't quite right, you can change the script and that will fix the video as well,” Moloney added.

They also launched on TikTok and Instagram in Spanish, which they said was just a few weeks ago, “but we've already seen one of our videos have over half a million views on TikTok in Spanish, which is pretty amazing.” “Is,” she said.

The Economist uses multiple platforms (including YouTube, etc.), which helps the publisher get a good number of views per video, Moloney noted.

All of their AI-translated videos are clearly marked as such.

“We are completely transparent with the audience that we are doing this,” she said.

The Economist only launched this feature about four or five weeks ago, Moloney said, but they've already received great feedback as well as a large number of video views across all platforms.

Current and always current videos, true to The Economist brand

The way they commission their videos sets high standards in terms of both video quality and journalistic production. The focus is on concise explanations of difficult questions, and they use both Economist journalists and Economist graphics, or a mix of both.

The video team consists of 16 journalists, including producers, editors and motion graphics designers.

“We feel our motion graphics really set us apart from our competitors,” Moloney said. “We make maps, we make clever animations, we make data. When we decide to make a video, we focus on a specific question that people ask and make sure we answer it.”

In terms of content, the goal is a balance between topicality and evergreen, she said. The Economist never focused on this Breaking news, and their video goals are consistent with that, but they aim to provide explanatory videos in a timely manner.

“Maybe 24 hours later we’ll have a brilliant explanation about why you need to understand something or how you should think about it,” Moloney said.

Her evergreen videos are often extremely popular, Moloney said.

In addition, they film a major investigative video every month, such as a recent one that shows how disinformation can spread so quickly online.

They have also started filming their podcasts.

“We don’t publish our podcasts in their entirety. We use it to publish advertising clips once a week. Our podcasts are now behind our paywall, so that’s our way of getting people to listen and pay to subscribe,” said Moloney.

Moloney also showed a very different video that The Economist is producing with its language columnist Lane Greene.

“This is one of our most popular and well-known strands. It is completely automated and has more than 3 million views across all platforms,” she said.

“It’s a very different example of our journalism being incredibly popular and true to our brand,” Moloney said.