Distinctive and engaging – Zetland hoping to hit the right tone with its expansion strategy
With more than 40,000 paying members, Zetland has carved out a significant position in the Danish media market since its 2012 launch.
Its distinctive format – publishing only a few in-depth, explanatory and often character-driven stories a day – has captured international acclaim. At its core is a focus on audio: each team has dedicated audio specialists, and all articles are recorded by the journalists themselves.
But another key aspect of Zetland’s success that has perhaps received less attention is its prowess in mission-driven campaigning. In particular, the annual “ambassador campaigns,” where existing members are recruited to find new ones, have been instrumental to its growth.
That campaigning expertise was successfully exported to Finland, where Zetland launched news startup Uusi Juttu a year ago following a highly successful crowdfunding campaign. It already has more than 20,000 paying members.
The company recently concluded another launch campaign, this time in Norway. Its second offshoot, Demo, is set to go live later this year.
We spoke to Jakob Moll, co-founder and international director of Zetland, to learn more about its expansion strategy, the “style crisis” in legacy media, and why Zetland is heading to Germany next. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
WAN-IFRA: What was the original spark behind Demo? Why did you choose to go to Norway?
Jakob Moll: One of the things that led to Demo was meeting Ingrid (Tinmannsvik, co-founder of Demo), at a conference in August 2024. We talked about possibilities in Norway and realised almost immediately that our thinking and values very much overlapped.
The other thing was the success of Uusi Juttu in Finland. It was a sort of a pilot project, and we immediately thought, “Okay, if this is possible, then what are the next steps? Where can we take this?”
Norway is of course culturally similar to Finland and Denmark in many ways. We also had a great network in Norway. It seemed like a pretty obvious next step because I was in dialogue with Ingrid and really believed in her ability to be a central figure in the project.
You mentioned in your LinkedIn post that Demo’s crowdfunding campaign didn’t go as smoothly as that of your earlier expansion in Finland with Uusi Juttu. [Demo reached its goal of 5,000 members but just before the end of the campaign.] Why do you think that was?
There’s probably a lot of factors, but one is that the journalism market in Norway is famously saturated, while there was perhaps a lack of competition in Finland.
It is also a challenge to reach people and create awareness. We were able to use social media to reach the younger half of the Norwegian population, but we had much greater success in Finland in connecting with people in their 40s, 50s and 60s. And people of that age typically have more money to spend and have a stronger history with journalism than younger people. Somehow it didn’t work out as well in Norway when it came to connecting with these people.
In Finland we also got attention from legacy media, but in Norway we very much had to rely on social media. We ended up running a big ad campaign through Amedia, the local media giant, to find other ways to reach the older demographic.
In such a competitive market as Norway, what would success look like in terms of milestones, or a North Star?
When we help launch a new publisher, we basically have the same two goals across markets, one relating to our mission, the other to our business. First, we want to contribute – to the width and quality of democratic discourse and to the reimagining of news journalism, especially with younger generations in mind. Secondly, we want to build financially sustainable membership businesses as quickly as possible.
That’s also the goal in Norway. Luckily, Demo offers something entirely different than any existing publisher. Norwegian newspapers have been digitally innovative, but in other ways they are quite traditional with a surprisingly tabloidy bend and a lot of focus on opinions.
You’ve been open about your ambition to keep expanding to new markets. Do you know where you’ll go next?
Germany is where our focus will be this year. We have hired the first people in Germany, so that ship is already sailing.
We also have plans beyond Germany. Last year, as part of our annual ambassador campaign, we promised our members that we would launch in a polarised European country – so we will exploring those possible markets this year. Of course, we also hear people saying, “Looks like you’re surrounding Sweden…” and obviously that’s one of the countries we’re also thinking about.
What’s your timetable with Germany?
We’ll prepare the crowdfunding campaign this year, but whether the actual campaign starts this year or early next year depends on how the market reacts when we go public later in the year.
Once your expansions launch, what does Zetland’s ongoing relationship with them look like?
We share a mission and a technology platform, but apart from that each publisher is fundamentally independent, both editorially and strategically, even though Zetland is the majority owner.
People actually sometimes misunderstand this because of how other publishers have tried to create franchises by cloning their existing businesses. We just don’t believe in that model. News publishers are cultural products that exist in a society, in a moment of time, and need to truly reflect that context.
That’s why we work with local co-founders and put them in charge. Once the campaigning period ends, we see ourselves as gradually withdrawing. We help them get the car ready, and then it is up to them to decide where to drive it.
One aspect that stood out about the launch campaigns of both Uusi Juttu and Demo was how prominent the people behind those outlets were. Can you talk about the decision to focus so heavily on the individuals?
It’s very much a conscious decision. We believe that younger people will not trust institutions – and obviously not the institution of journalism, which is less relevant than ever to younger generations. But they might trust people who can put into words why they bring meaning to the world.
We try to focus on a team of people, as opposed to the YouTube model, where you typically have one person with a team behind them. We like the idea that we are community-based, and the co-founders should be a somewhat diverse group of people who share values and a mission.
It’s also about building trust in journalism. We tend to take for granted that people understand the value and the meaning of what we do. That’s a very dangerous path, because simply presenting information as factual doesn’t make it meaningful.
I find a lot of inspiration in the way trust evolves on YouTube. Whether it’s newsfluencers or more traditional creators, they’re very clear about their processes and why they are pursuing something. I can understand why my 20-year-old son prefers to spend time with those types of people.
Zetland has become something of a pioneer in terms of audience engagement, especially when it comes to running campaigns. What could legacy media learn from your campaigns?
I usually say that there is not one single answer to why journalism is valuable, but there needs to be an answer that you can present. “Why are we doing this? Why is it valuable? Why do we think you would benefit from it?”
When I scroll through a legacy news website or look at usual news formats, I often have a hard time figuring out what it wants with me: “What is the actual purpose of this in my life?” Those are questions that we need to answer as individual publishers, and I think the legacy media needs to lean into some of that thinking.
The other thing is to lean into two-way communication. We need to be humble and to listen. Those are two things that the news industry has not been great at.
It really begins with asking open questions, trying to figure out in deep conversations how you can create meaning and value in people’s lives. That is how you find your path. There is so much potential in that line of thinking for all publishers.
Most publishers probably view their campaigns as a form of marketing, but it seems they have a deeper purpose for you.
When we talk about paying for journalism, I think it is always going to be about a relationship. Campaigns have to start creating a relationship between me as a journalist and you as a citizen – a relationship that goes both ways, is open and vulnerable, and can evolve. That’s part of what builds trust, and it’s super important also from a business standpoint.
Have you drawn inspiration from how other organisations conduct campaigns?
We are inspired by Wikipedia. Like them, when we go out with our ambassador campaign, we are very visible for a month, to the point that some people get annoyed with us. And then we keep a lower profile for the rest of the year.
Generally, we have been inspired by people outside of journalism. For our first ambassador campaign, a lot of inspiration came from stuff like a beer brewing company that has a membership model. I thought, if they can build a really powerful community around beer, then surely we can do the same with something as meaningful as journalism.
Is there something that executives from more traditional media companies often “get wrong” about the Zetland model?
They generally don’t understand the idea of membership. Actually, during the Demo campaign, there was an opinion piece about it that had the word “membership” in quotation marks. They said “it’s the emperor’s new clothes,” as if it’s just about calling your subscribers “members” when there’s no difference. But really, it’s about reorienting the relationship in a fundamental way, or at least that’s our ambition.
But the thing they miss the most is the power of tone of voice. Lea [Korsgaard], my co-founder and the editor-in-chief, says that there’s a style crisis in journalism. Leaning into a tone of voice that is much closer to how we interact with people can be transformational, and it can make younger generations feel like there is some connection to build on.
That still eludes a lot of legacy publishers. They might have something going on with some podcast experiment, for example, but the closer you get to the core news product, the more institutional the voice gets.
And then there’s the volume problem, the idea that the more we publish, the more valuable we are. For me, that’s a theory about human attention that simply does not hold up. You can definitely publish more and create less value for society and in people’s lives. As an industry, we’re still doing it every day.
On the point about news formats and voice, do you account for cultural differences between what audiences in different markets expect from news?
I usually say that when we go into a new market, 60% of what we do in Denmark will translate. We just need to figure out what 60% it is.
But I think we easily overemphasise cultural differences when we look at younger generations. When I look at my own son and the way he relates to media, I think that sort of levels out across nations. His expectations are more similar to someone his age from Bavaria or northern Finland than somebody in his own country who is a generation or two older.
