FT’s letters campaign aiming to set post-pandemic agenda

Each letter focuses on a different issue facing the world, highlighting the scale of the challenges and opportunities before us as well as the editorial breadth offered by the pink broadsheet.

Seeking not just to report the news agenda but lead it, the agenda-setting promotion positions the FT as the go-to destination for coverage of technology, climate change and social issues.

Each open letter has been penned by an FT journalist reporting in the field, with members of the public invited in turn to submit their letters – the strongest of which will be published in the next phase of the campaign later this autumn.

Finola McDonnell, chief communications and marketing officer at the FT, commented: “The pandemic has given everyone pause to reflect on what matters in life and how we could organize ourselves differently in future. We wanted to capture some of those reflections and put them out there for business leaders and those in positions of power to think about and act upon. We are at an inflection point, and the FT is positioned to encourage and lead debate about what comes next.”

George Bryant, chief creative officer of The Brooklyn Brothers, added: “The global pandemic has wrought change and demanded evolution – economically and socially – on a scale that no one could imagine. ‘Letters to This New World’ is a global platform for FT and its community of leaders to share ambitions and collectively write a new agenda.”

The global launch will be led, naturally, by the print and online editions of the FT itself, augmented by brand creative spanning international digital, audio, cinemas and out-of-home (OOH) channels. This activity will center on ‘The Speech’, a 30-second TV spot to be broadcast in the UK, US and Germany.

The ambitious global messaging follows the 2015 acquisition of the FT by Japanese media business Nikkei, with a promise to make the business ‘stronger’.