Advertisers are seeing more positive and longer-term business effects when they invest in news brands, a study published today suggests.
On behalf of newspaper trade marketing body, Newsworks, effectiveness expert Peter Field analysed 182 advertising campaigns, which previously featured as part of the IPA Effectiveness Awards.
According to the study, those ads appearing in news brands are increasingly perceived as more trustworthy and high quality by readers, which are now two of the most important factors that lead to growth for advertisers.
With the rise of fake news, misinformation and disinformation across other mediums, news brands have seen record numbers of people relying on them for trusted information and analysis.
This increased demand for trust and quality appears to have had a beneficial knock-on effect for advertisers.
Field states that over the last six years, the impact on trust in brands that advertise on a single news brand platform has increased by 17 percentage points (30% in 2020 vs 13% in 2014). When the advertising appears across two news brand platforms (print and digital) the increase over the same time period is nearly 50 percentage points higher (56% in 2020 vs 9% in 2014).
Equally, the perceived quality of a brand when appearing across two news brand platforms has nearly doubled over the last six years, rising from 15% to 28%.
He said: “The evidence is clear, news brands – and increasingly across their digital platforms – deliver incredibly strong business effects for brands. They are able to do this because of their strong impacts on brand trust and quality perceptions – two brand effects that are now most strongly linked to profit growth.”
Denise Turner, Newsworks insight director added: “It’s unequivocal, the key to profit growth today is based squarely on trust and quality. In fact, it has always been this way but somehow advertising has been distracted by madmen metrics. It’s time we got back to doing the best advertising in the best places for advertisers.”
