News weekly The Economist is to become a new rival for the Evening Standard tomorrow as it trials selling copies on the streets of London.
Street vendors will sell copies of the weekly magazine in targeted locations every Friday as a circulation-boosting strategy.
UK sales of the magazine were up 6 per cent year on year for the first half of 2008 to 182,539, with global year-on-year growth also up 6 per cent, reaching 1,337,184.
Yvonne Ossman, UK publisher of The Economist, said: ‘The Economist is no longer a niche brand of the establishment and hasn’t been for some time. Our readers are incredibly diverse and the characteristics that connect them are their curiosity, drive, optimism and energy. We hope that by putting people on the streets we will help unite our paper with more of the people it has been written for.”
The Economist Group also announced today the opening of its Middle East headquarters in Dubai Media City.
Office set up and staff recruitment is complete, and Susan Clark has been appointed managing director of Continental Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA).
Clark said she has plans in place for developing The Economist’s presence in the region.
She said: ‘CEMEA is a large, complex and commercially exciting region. Every major product line of The Economist Group, with some products unique to the Middle East and some crossing other regional boundaries, are offered in the region and this requires a focused presence in the region and a new management approach.”
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