The daily newspaper started its Table Stakes project with the aim of accelerating its digital transformation and leveraging its 10th-year anniversary event to increase its digital subscriber count. When the news agenda disrupted their roadmap, L’Opinion’s Table Stakes team quickly identified a new focus audience: people who want to make the most of their last 15–20 years of working life.

Aiming to refresh its brand image and attract more male readers, the Hungarian publisher used its participation in Table Stakes Europe to start working on new types of automotive content, particularly around service and explanatory journalism. Success in this area has helped to build momentum for other experiments in the newsroom, from other focus audiences such as Wine and Tech, to a pilot around content monetisation.

The choice of target audiences within the framework of their Table Stakes Europe project quickly became evident to the Rossel Est Médias team. Operating in a region deeply attached to Champagne production, the group decided to address “those who make the wine and those who love it.”

The French media company decided to target women working in the finance sector after identifying a critical gap in the demographics of their subscribers and event attendees. The aim is to help women build careers in finance by producing content that helps them create aspirational professional paths and by providing useful networking opportunities.

The Austrian state-funded news publisher closed its printed paper during the Table Stakes Europe programme and overhauled its website and newsroom and used audience-focused experiments to test different formats of telling stories. The key goal: to reinvent public service journalism in Austria by moving away from the legacy of centuries-old print notifications to the boundless opportunities of deploying digitally-delivered news and information needed by Austrian audiences to make their lives better.

The German publisher’s second year in Table Stakes Europe allowed it to spread the audiences-first approach further in the newsroom, build on its existing audience-focused products and launch new projects.

During its year in Table Stakes Europe, the German publisher created a successful new brand for food and gastronomy content and transformed its approach to covering local music festivals. These and other audience-focused efforts have dramatically improved their performance metrics and paved the way for future digital revenue growth.

2023-04-25. “We want to create emotional touchpoints that not only strengthen the loyalty of our existing readers to our brand but also engage with new audiences who have not yet experienced our platform, allowing them to form a positive first impression through one of our verticals,” says Bettina Widmer, of Switzerland’s Blick Group.

2022-12-08. The UK publisher’s newsletter “Brummie Muslims” features a mix of content from lifestyle to food tips and political news aimed at the diverse Muslim community living in the West Midlands region. Its success has generated numerous learnings about audience engagement, and has opened the door for other possible newsletters for different communities.

2022-12-08. During its participation in the Table Stakes Europe programme, the Tribune de Genève team identified several audiences they could better target. One of these is very specific to its geographical area, namely cross-border commuters, a large group of Swiss and French people who live and work between Geneva and neighbouring France.