Newsworks, the industry body for the newspaper sector, recently released findings that examine the role of ‘newsbrands’ (the combination of print and digital newspapers) within the current adverting landscape.
Over the years, people assumed ‘attention’ meant the amount of time devoted to content. This belief led to a push to equate advertising money with time spent. It also contributed to the huge growth in digital spend followed by a decline in print spend and circulations.
Newsworks’ research shows that attention and results go beyond the length of time spent consuming it. They instead look to define quality time. Research showed that newspapers come out on top when it comes to the following attention drivers: people regularly putting time aside for them; feeling a personal connection with titles; giving people something to talk about; and ensuring people trust the content.
Newsworks also researched how campaigns performed when using or not using newsbrands. They looked at 76 cases across 2012 and 2014 and found that including print newspapers in the media mix could improve the business effectiveness of campaigns by 36%. Yet, the biggest effects occurred when campaigns used both print and digital newspapers. Compared with campaigns that used either one or neither, newsbrands increase performance by 58%. This positive improvement in business effectiveness runs across all business measures and KPIs. Furthermore, newsbrands also improve the business effectiveness of other media. For example, it can push TV effectiveness up by 65%.
Using our ARMalytics platform to measure and record campaign performance, we have repeatedly seen the strong performance of press activity. We can also see how the various media channels work together to deliver better campaign results.
The focus of the Newsworks research has been to show that newspapers remain a strong medium that is generally undervalued from an investment point of view. It also makes the case that using press doesn’t have to be an ‘either/or’ situation, that using it alongside other media actually helps increase results for those channels as well. If you want to find out more about these findings and other work they have done, then visit their website.
