Across Europe and North America, financial publishers are turning to investing competitions to strengthen reader relationships, support financial literacy, build communities, and encourage readers to return every day.

Yet the most valuable lesson may have little to do with investing at all. The real story is how publishers are rethinking audience engagement.

Rather than relying on content alone, they are creating experiences that encourage participation, habit, and long-term relationships.

Whether you are a financial publisher, a national newspaper, or a local news organisation, the underlying challenge remains similar: How do you transform audience interaction into a long-term relationship?

This article explores how publishers are using one initial experience — in this case, a stock market game — as the starting point for a broader engagement strategy.

While a game may attract attention, it is the surrounding ecosystem of content, tools, events, communities, and follow-up experiences that ultimately determines whether readers return. Having worked with publishers across Europe and North America, Norkon analysed participation and engagement patterns from more than 100,000 portfolios to identify audience behaviours and engagement trends.

What recent investing competitions reveal about publisher engagement

Looking across recent publisher initiatives, one pattern becomes clear: Investing competitions are no longer isolated experiments. They are increasingly being used as part of broader audience engagement strategies.

The recent Financial Times launch is one example of this wider movement. Over the past six months alone, similar initiatives have also been introduced by publishers in Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

For decades, publishers competed primarily through content. Today, many are complementing journalism with experiences encouraging readers to participate rather than simply consume. That shift can take many forms, from events and communities to newsletters, podcasts, educational initiatives, and interactive experiences.

Although the format is similar, the objectives differ. The Financial Times introduced a subscriber-exclusive experience, Verslo Žinios focused on market discovery, Äripäev integrated its competition into a broader investor ecosystem, and Roularta supported participants through educational content and editorial portfolios for new investors.

While objectives vary, each initiative is built around the same principle: active audience participation.

Together, these examples illustrate that the real innovation is not the game itself but the growing recognition that meaningful audience engagement increasingly comes from combining journalism with participatory experiences.

The growing popularity of such interactive experiences reinforces a broader trend across publishing: Readers increasingly expect experiences built around content, not just content itself.

The bigger lesson: the game is not the strategy, but a stepping stone

The strongest lesson emerging from these initiatives is that the game itself is not the destination but the gateway to a broader audience journey. While a competition can generate attention, registrations, and repeat visits, the most successful publishers are those that connect the experience to a wider journey.

Äripäev, part of the Bonnier Group, provides one of the clearest examples. Its competition is embedded within a broader investor ecosystem that includes editorial coverage, community initiatives, Nasdaq events, and the annual Investor Festival, creating multiple touchpoints before, during, and after the game itself.

This reinforces a broader lesson: The strongest audience relationships are rarely built around a single product, but around a connected ecosystem of experiences that helps readers discover, understand, follow, and act on the topics that matter to them.

The more closely an initiative is connected to a publisher’s broader ecosystem, the greater the likelihood of long-term engagement.

What 100,000+ portfolios reveal about investor behaviour

The portfolios created by each participant reveal a different set of insights.

Across the competitions analysed over the past 10 months, technology stocks dominated trading activity. NVIDIA consistently ranked as the most-traded stock regardless of geography. Other recurring names included Microsoft, Alphabet, AMD, Micron Technology, and ASML.

At the same time, local champions continued to play an important role. Scandinavian investors frequently selected Novo Nordisk. Dutch and Belgian participants favoured Adyen and ASML. Canadian players showed strong interest in domestic energy and resource companies, while Swiss audiences consistently gravitated toward household names such as Nestlé and Holcim.

The result is a mix of global enthusiasm for technology and local market familiarity.

For publishers, this data provides a unique lens into audience interests that traditional analytics alone cannot offer. While article consumption shows what readers read, portfolio decisions reveal what readers care enough to act on, whether influenced by market momentum or careful analysis.

It also highlights how participation can create new pathways into journalism. Readers who select a company are more likely to follow related earnings announcements, market movements, and editorial coverage. The competition becomes more than a game; it becomes a gateway into financial content.

The bigger picture

The most interesting takeaway is not that publishers are launching stock market games per se, but what those initiatives reveal about audience behaviour.

Whether the goal is subscriber engagement, financial literacy, community building, or audience insight, interactive initiatives such as investing competitions give readers an opportunity to participate rather than simply observe.

Yet the most successful interactive experiences are those creating deeper engagement and new pathways into journalism by connecting readers to a wider ecosystem of content, newsletters, podcasts, events, and communities.

While investing competitions provide the example explored here, the principle extends beyond financial journalism. It reflects a broader shift in publisher strategy: creating experiences that invite audiences to participate, return, and build lasting habits over time.

Banner image: fotofabrika

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