Research by Newsworks & Magnetic
Newsworks and Magnetic team up to explore the quality context published media provide and how it affects brand advertising, including new analysis of the IPA databank by Peter Field.
We have become focused on efficiency rather than effectiveness. Programmatic practices have led to an emphasis on delivery costs and rapid results. Context presents untapped value that delivers business outcomes.
Industry headlines about brand safety mean now is the moment to re-evaluate context, look at the evidence and provide an argument for re-investment in high quality environments such as published media.
All media is in a battle for attention and multi-media consumption has become the norm. Consumers are, however, still prepared to give published media their undivided attention, they see the value that advertisers are perhaps neglecting to fully exploit.
With the explosion of content, advertising has more competition, as a result it has become more interruptive, or designed to look more like content. Consumers have responded in turn by blocking ads. They are, however, more likely to welcome advertising in published media environments because it’s less interruptive and more contextually relevant.
The mind set in which published media is consumed is quite different to competing alternatives such as social media. While social media consumption has been linked to anxiety, published media results in a confident and happy mind set, which makes consumers more receptive to advertising messages.
Published media, whether in print or online, offer advertisers a number of qualities that distinguish it from other environments. Research by Lumen consistently proves that published media command higher levels of attention, particularly compared to the amorphous mass of content online. A number of studies also suggest that published media achieves an elevated trusted status.
The benefit for advertisers includes increases in brand KPIs such as ‘relevance’ and ‘consideration’. Published media are characterised by quality journalism designed for clearly defined audiences. They offer advertisers a quality context that is highly relevant. These qualities explain published media’s continued success at driving business outcomes for advertisers.
But if published media are targeted does that mean it’s less effective when it comes to reach? This is an important question, because we know from research by Byron Sharp and Les Binet and Peter Field that a reach based strategy is the best way to achieve profitable business growth.
The pursuit of reach has played a part in shifting spend towards digital. There is an argument that it’s important to reach the consumer where they are, and increasingly they are online. However, this is an oversimplification, because not all reach is equal. Published media provide high attention reach that is highly successful at driving brand salience, confidence and differentiation. Furthermore, with the launch of AMP in 2018, we will be able to report full cross-platform reach and demonstrate the continued growth of published media.
So consumer attention is high, the quality context is providing a rub effect on KPIs for brands, but what of business outcomes? This is the ultimate measure we should be focused on if we want to demonstrate the untapped value of published media.
Both Newsworks and Magnetic have done work with renowned research expert Peter Field that demonstrates uplifts in very large business effects if newspapers or magazines are included in a campaign. For the first time we have joined forces to uncover what business outcomes published media have in common. Interestingly, it’s customer acquisition that is the shared strength.
Could the context offered by published media, which better facilitates brand discovery, offer a complimentary route to new customers? One that is an alternative to the precision point targeting and optimisation of a purely digital driven customer acquisition strategy?
Whilst digital has undoubtable delivered cost efficiencies, newsbrands and magazine media warrant more serious consideration for the value offered. Now is the time to exploit this opportunity, especially as evidence suggests their contribution to very large business effects is only increasing.
