How Quartz has become a global brand

Lucia Moses of Digiday writes about how business news site Quartz has become a global brand.

Moses writes, “Quartz is different because its readership has been global from Day One, and its readers tend to be decision-makers and have above-average incomes. Quartz monetizes its audience proportionately, so 44 percent of its ad revenue was billed against non-U.S. inventory last year. Those advertisers tend to be global or foreign companies trying to reach upscale readers outside the U.S., like Credit Suisse, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Economic Development Board.

“‘From the beginning, the ad marketplace has seen us as having a lot of credibility as a global brand,’ said Jay Lauf, president and publisher of Quartz.

“Quartz has been careful to keep its journalistic voice global and uniform, regardless of where stories come from. Quartz editor Kevin Delaney required hires to speak at least two languages fluently, and Quartz notes as a point of pride that, today, a total of 35 languages are spoken across the staff.

“Another pillar of Quartz’s strategy is that it hasn’t struck traditional licensing deals in other countries as other publishers including The Huffington Post and Business Insider have to scale fast and inexpensively. For its push into India in 2014, its first non-English market, Quartz teamed up with a local publishing company, Scroll.in, that helps Quartz with infrastructure and some sales and with sourcing journalists — somewhere between a licensing arrangement but not totally controlled by Quartz, either. Quartz has seven staffers there who are technically employed by Scroll but report to its newsroom.”

Read more here.