Future Talks is a new digital event series by Kleine Zeitung focusing on current topics and social issues that are relevant to Gen Z. Each talk deals with an overarching theme such as feminism or sustainability. People affected by or representing the topic in question discuss it to break taboos and give the topic the media attention it deserves. The focus of Future Talks is primarily on interaction with the young community.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, no or only very limited physical events are allowed. That’s why we reacted flexibly to the situation and decided to offer a completely new, digital format. Through the implementation of the new Future Talks format, we wanted to address a new and young target audience, especially Gen Y and Gen Z, to rejuvenate the brand and give it a younger and fresher image.

We wanted to create awareness in the intended target group and introduce them to Kleine Zeitung. The free value content of the Future Talks is intended to generate brand awareness for Kleine Zeitung with a younger audience and raise the willingness to subscribe in the future. Additionally, in cooperation with Futter (the younger online platform of Kleine Zeitung), a new target group should be addressed, and the connection between Kleine Zeitung and Futter should be strengthened on a branding level.

We also wanted to create additional content for the new target group and interact with the community. They told us what they are interested in via surveys conducted through social media before the talks. Additionally, viewers are encouraged to interact with the show by asking questions using provided QR codes. We created our own event newsletter to contact interested people directly and keep them updated.

The Future Talks are available to stream one day after the event for an unlimited amount of time. So, it’s possible to rewatch the talks or catch up with the format, if anyone misses one. With short clips of the talk, we promoted the conversations afterward on social media.

Quantitatively, we wanted to increase our KPIs by 20% per talk. We defined KPIs as the registration to the newsletter, the opening rate, the performance of the talk (views, average watch time, page impressions), and the ads.

We defined 100 registrations for the first Future Talk newsletter. Our newsletter had 226 subscribers after the fourth talk and could reach a high open rate of up to 68.6%. According to a study, the average newsletter opening rate is 25.85%.

Up to 202 people watched the respective livestreams, and a total of up to 1,084 people watched the respective talks live or in replays. The best average dwell time was 16:04 minutes with a talk time of 45 minutes.

Usually, we have an older target group around 50+. With the Future Talks, we succeeded in addressing the 18-34 target group. This can partially be attributed to the successful push through Instagram. The sponsored stories were able to generate up to 741 landing page views to our Web site.

Instagram, in particular, holds huge potential and generates an enormous reach of up to 85,791 for one talk with our ads. Data shows that the desired target group can be reached via Instagram. That’s why the impressions, reach, and landing page views increased with each talk on Instagram and decreased on Facebook.

Also, our content has hit the target group. The topic of sustainability (Future Talk #3) was particularly relevant for the target group. This topic was able to achieve 8,871 pageviews to our talk within one week.

Our talk guests also advertised our Future Talks on their social media channels before and after the talk. This also draws the attention of their target group to our format and Kleine Zeitung.

Another goal was to create new monetisation opportunities through advertising for our (new) customers. They should get new platforms to present themselves (product placement and sponsoring). We acquired two sponsors for the Future Talks.

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