Recognizing “The Economist” – Originators of Using Live Trivia as a Brand Engagement Tactic

This week, it was announced that TrivWorks would have the privilege of partnering with Gothamist, NYC’s most popular local blog, to help produce their first-ever Gothamist trivia night. As the founder of a professional trivia event production company specializing in trivia team building and brand engagement events in NYC and elsewhere, I can’t begin to express how honored and thrilled I am to see this special event happen!

With this event announcement, Gothamist joins other distinguished media outlets with whom we have had the pleasure of working in recent years, helping such prestigious brands as Ad Age, Interior Design and Every Day with Rachael Ray go “offline” with unique audience engagement trivia nights to reward their most loyal enthusiasts, as well as reach potential new readers.

However, using live trivia as a brand engagement tactic didn’t originate with TrivWorks. It originated with The Economist.

“Wait – The ECONOMIST?” I can hear you thinking. “That stuffy magazine, read by snobby rich men with white hair?”

And therein lays the genius of The Economist’s brilliant brand management team. You see, the truth about The Economist is that while the perception may be one of a creaky old brand, in truth it has a ravenous fan base of enthusiastic readers of all ages, across the globe. People who read The Economist love it – so much so, in fact, that they rabidly consume anything and everything which the brand offers, including not just a weekly print edition, but a robust Website full of regularly-updated blogs, charts, quizzes, and areas for readers to comment, as well as conferences and local meetup-type social events. As of today, they are closing in on 2 million Facebook fans, and have over 3.5 million Twitter followers.

Back in 2010, one of The Economist’s loyal enthusiasts contacted the magazine’s NYC bureau, and proposed an idea: what if the magazine sponsored a trivia night, just for readers?

Rather than rejecting this suggestion or blowing it off completely, as I’m sure many other large companies would have done, The Economist’s brand team actually invited the reader in to discuss the idea further – a testament to just how much the magazine values its most loyal enthusiasts. Soon after, TrivWorks was brought on-board to help turn this idea into reality, and within two months’ time, we had an entire bar in lower Manhattan packed with over 100 enthusiastic Economist fans and friends, enjoying a fully-immersive brand engagement experience which included appropriately-customized trivia questions, branded pens, answer sheets and T-shirts for everybody, specialty cocktails, and “rock star” editorial staff members for attendees to mix and mingle with.

It was a hugely successful event, so much so that it spawned an entire series of Economist trivia nights across Manhattan, Brooklyn and even Washington D.C. It also demonstrated the effectiveness of live customized trivia as an audience engagement tool for rewarding loyal/potentially new enthusiasts.

As we embark on the next exciting chapter of branded trivia nights with our Gothamist event this October, I want to take this opportunity to recognize and thank the highly imaginative and dedicated brand team at The Economist – particularly team members Dayna De Simone and Erin Aylor – without whom so many passionate enthusiasts of various media outlets would not have had the opportunity to enjoy fun & engaging experiences with their favorite brands.