Newsbrand Britain: Why native isn’t church vs state

Trinity Mirror Solutions’ chief revenue officer, James Wildman, tells us how a heritage newsbrand should commercially evolve for a digital future.

Advertising’s role in funding journalism has clearly been at the front of many people’s minds recently, and it was interesting to note the issue as a recurring theme at Advertising Week Europe last week.

The most pressing question remains what role ‘native advertising’ should play as part of a commercial mix that, some say, is increasingly blurring the lines drawn between editorial’s church and advertising’s state.

In my role heading up Trinity Mirror Solutions we are looking at how to generate commercial revenues across our portfolio of newsbrands, so it will come as no surprise that I don’t share the critics’ concerns.

It has evidently been an increasing area of worry for journalists, too. During a lecture for the British Journalism Review last year, BBC economics editor Robert Peston described native ads as a “terrible Orwellian Newspeak phrase for ads that look like impartial editorial”.

Peston was right to warn of the dangers of advertisers wielding editorial influence; as we saw in the well-reported criticism of the Telegraph’s coverage of HSBC. Although he didn’t put it in so many words, independent journalism is feeling the digital pinch and this is where advertisers looking at content can bolster commercial success

The challenge for a heritage newsbrand is to evolve for a largely digital future, where news itself is largely commoditised and free, without forgetting that – outside the adland media bubble – most people in the UK are not like us.

In fact, between the top and bottom 25 per cent of earners is a huge section of people, a mass market, that we call Modal Britain. They are the people that make Britain tick and keep it ticking over, they man the call centres, drive the trains, teach our children and are at the heart of the NHS. Our content needs to serve this audience and its values.

With this in mind, my advice to any heritage newsbrand is three-fold. Firstly, understand that native advertising is inevitable and important, but this doesn’t necessitate compromising your editorial integrity.

Secondly, it’s crucial to remember that this integrity provides the foundation for building your relationship with your audience. Lastly, recognise that advertising is not the enemy of editorial but a critical partner that can help independent commercial journalism thrive.

Native advertising certainly isn’t going anywhere, and for a media business like ours it’s important to focus on better understanding how to grow our revenues across both print and digital. As an industry, we have a long way to go before we can hit that sweet spot of ‘right message, right person, right time’ on a consistent basis. For the time being, the priority for newsbrands remains meeting the needs of advertisers, and what advertisers need is reach and scale.

In my view, subscription paywalls run counter to that. The immediate outlook is that paywalls limit your ad-revenue, close you off to building meaningful native ad revenues and turn you into a niche player, which is why we’ve avoided them.

Of course, the BBC’s own compulsory subscription model seems to be working well for them. But others have to earn their income. And for all the success the likes of the FT and The Economist have had in monetising niche audiences with premium content, the jury is out as to whether the paywall will prove successful in the long-term for mainstream news, as discussed at the AWE Wired Innovation Roundtable.

Other publishers are looking to create scale through partnerships. Johnston Press and Newsquest have teamed up to create a private ad exchange to overcome a lack of scale in local news. It’s an interesting route to take, and one to watch as it could yield great results.

Trinity Mirror is benefitting as a business from last-mover advantage in digital. While my former employer, Yahoo, was born digital and grew a very large digital advertising business online over the last 20 years, we are at the beginning of our journey, relative to the revenues we generate from print advertising and cover sales.

It’s an increasingly competitive media world to be a part of, with the steadfast wide-reach of the MailOnline and relative newcomers like BuzzFeed quenching Britain’s thirst for daily disposable content.

It’s also a risky move to stay still for too long – we’ve evolved our digital offers across both regional and national newsbrands, and BuzzFeed has made some interesting moves into first-hand, investigative journalism of late.

Long-term success will come from newsbrands that marry both traditional and progressive advertising models, and attract audiences via the authenticity associated with a heritage newspaper brand. When audiences seek informed opinion and analysis, there’s still an affinity with legacy newsbrands.

To succeed, native divisions need to have strong values that reflect those held by editorial. Only then can you develop impactful advertising campaigns that are increasingly editorialised. For example, every brief we work on for an advertiser is centred on our three key audience values: Beliefs, Betterment and Belonging. These are the same values that our 1,500 journalists keep front-of-mind when writing copy, as they’re the values that Modal Britain holds most dear.

The key takeaway here is opening the discussion on how best to evolve, and offer new formats, data-driven solutions and audience at scale – without diluting your authentic voice and trusted position. Success is remaining true to your values and marrying this with a savvy commercial strategy that will reap rewards for brand clients and readers alike.