Trust
Trust is a fundamental currency in today’s media landscape, particularly for advertisers seeking reliable platforms for their messaging. News brands continue to be among the most trusted media channels for your brand.
Why trust matters for advertisers
Our studies into trust and news environments found that trust in a media platform directly correlates with advertising effectiveness through a number of ways.
Increased engagement
Readers spend more time with content they trust, leading to better exposure for advertising messages. Consumers are also perceive the brand as being higher quality when viewed in news brands.
1.4x
higher ad dwell time in hard news environments 1
60%
higher perceived brand quality when seen in news brands 2
1. Hard News Project
2.Trust a Newsworks report
Trust by association
News brands provide professionally-produced content in brand-safe environments and give a halo effect to brands advertising within them regardless of whether they are established or new.
Source: Trust a Newsworks report
Higher conversion
Advertisements in trusted environments see better response rates, with news brand content driving high levels of attention. Even against hard news.
261%
higher click rate 1
51%
stronger conversion rate 2
1. Attention = Sales
2. The Hard News Project
Why trust is important for consumers
In a world where fake news and misinformation is on the rise, consumers continue to turn to trusted sources to confirm the facts.
4 in 5
consumers are worried about fake news 1
78%
of young people regularly turn to news brands to verify the truth of content 2
70%
believe a world without journalism would harm democracy 3
1. Fact not Fake
2. Fact not Fake
3. World without news
Afraid for brand safety?
Over the past decade brands have become more hesitant to be seen alongside ‘hard news’ through fear of negative consumer sentiment. While there are situations when brands should understandably avoid certain content, professional, quality journalism unjustly takes the brunt of this.
Research from Stagwell shows that ads adjacent to ‘not brand safe’ stories perform equally as well as ads next to the ‘brand safe’ articles.
Source: Harris X and Stagwell – Future of News
For more on brand safety see our ‘Back don’t block’ deck and webinar for more on ad blocking from leading industry figures.
Downloads
Top reasons why advertising in news brands works
Take a look at our introductory slides to see some key stats on news brands and understand why you should use news brands in your ad campaign.
