The Value Of Newspapers
Maureen Duffy, CEO of the Newspaper Marketing Agency, explains the group’s £22 million effectiveness research programme, which looks at the true engagement and brand building value of national newspapers…
At MediaTel Group’s recent ‘Future of National Newspapers’ seminar, a press buyer attendee put it to the panel that what national newspapers really needed to overturn negative and limiting perceptions of the medium was a set of specific engagement (brand) metrics.
The Newspaper Marketing Agency agrees. That’s why its £22 million effectiveness research programme first launched in 2004 set about to answer this very need, and to provide robust evidence of the medium’s ability to build brands. Since then, with 27,000 interviews, 200 focus groups, in-market testing for 20 major brands, sales and website traffic analysis, and the largest ever neuroscience study of the impact of advertising on the brain, we’ve gone a long way to providing proof of the engaging national newspaper medium.
In an age when marketers increasingly need to measure the impact of advertising on the value of brands, newspapers need to stand up and be counted. For too long they have been viewed as the home of retail and detail, ruled out for emotionally engaging campaigns. And while conventional thinking dominates, commentators continue with refrains of ‘the death of the newspaper’ rather than looking at the value of newspapers to brands and the dual potential of their online and offline properties.
The most recent stage of this multi-million pound study has taken metrics developed and validated in 2004 (which assess at the different roles newspapers can play in a multi-media campaign) into in-market effectiveness studies. In 2006, six major brands took part – Kraft Philadelphia, Toyota Yaris, L’Oreal Garnier Nutrisse, Guinness, Shredded Wheat and Walkers Sensations. The tests were designed to measure the impact of TV and newspaper advertising (a combination shown to be the best brand building partnership in previous studies) and their success was measured both by brand tracking and by the leading-edge science of Brain Fingerprinting.
Brain Fingerprinting, devised by the US neuroscientist Dr Lawrence Farwell, uses electrical brain responses to detect whether something is stored in the brain. It has been rigorously validated, and is admissible as evidence in US courts. When it comes to advertising, it can pick up what consumers notice in an ad, and what is significant to them. Its technology was applied to all six NMA in-market tests, measuring 23,000 brain wave responses from 237 people who had been exposed to either TV ads alone, newspaper ads alone, a combination of TV and newspapers, or no ads at all.
Aggregate results showed the powerful brand building combination of TV and newspaper advertising, with a 72% incremental effect on brand impact compared to TV solus. Similarly, the impact on consumers’ emotional brand affinity was 85% greater for those seeing both TV and newspaper ads than for those seeing only TV. Whereas many advertisers would acknowledge newspapers’ ability to deliver rational messages, evidence of their emotional resonance overturns traditional thinking. On that emotional brand affinity measure, newspapers alone actually generated a +42% incremental effect over TV solus.
Just as striking was the effect on tracking metrics. The NMA’s research partner, Millward Brown, conducted over 12,000 interviews among more than 6,000 respondents. Once again, the engaging and emotional power of newspapers was demonstrated. The TV plus newspaper combination delivered an increase in “bonding” with the brand – the primary measure of loyalty used by Millward Brown and correlated with brand market share – more than five times the increase generated by TV alone. Adding newspapers also produced double the increase in brand involvement and delivered 47% stronger emotional identification.
For clients, evidence of brand engagement through advertising is further evaluated through shifts in consumers’ responses to key brand communication statements. For all six advertisers in the NMA 2006 tests, the effect of adding newspapers was to significantly strengthen and deepen brand communication. Moreover, seeing newspapers also had the unique benefit of actually enhancing the response to TV: involvement diagnostics showed that TV ads were more actively engaging when seen in conjunction with newspaper advertising.
As well as deepening the emotional connection, newspapers proved themselves a spur to action. Research agency dunnhumby showed an average 5% incremental sales uplift as a direct result of newspaper advertising over and above the effect of TV and promotions. And with the unique dual platform of both print and online vehicles, newspapers were also shown to drive substantial traffic to brand websites. Analysis by Sophus3 determined a 44% in unique visitors to Toyota Yaris’ homepage – 21% from online and 23% from the print versions.
The NMA has responded to the valid call for brand metrics that demonstrate newspapers’ real value to advertisers. The metrics are in place. The proof is extensive. Further studies are underway looking at both print and online newspaper campaigns. National newspapers are engaging consumers, they are building brands, they are evolving and, importantly, they are more accountable than ever.