In Brief

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. This is an oversimplification, not all reach is equal. 

With the growth of programmatic we have become focused on efficiency rather than effectiveness, emphasising delivery costs and rapid results, downgrading the importance of context, buying audience exposures at the lowest possible cost, in the fastest possible time, irrespective of where that may be. Context presents untapped value that delivers business outcomes.

Context is powerful. It influences how the message is understood and received. It creates an openness to advertising and, perhaps most importantly, it impacts brand health and perceptions and drives sales. 

Key Findings

• 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. 58% of magazine readers don’t do anything at the same time (Newsworks PWC Battle for Attention)

• The mindset 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 mindset. A study conducted by academics at the universities of California and Yale found that actions on social media such as clicking a link, updating one’s status, or clicking ‘like’, were associated with a decrease of 5-8% in self-reported mental health. Furthermore work conducted by Yahoo, ‘Receptivity of Emotions’, finds that reaching consumers when they are feeling upbeat could increase the effectiveness of advertising by 24%.  

• Research by digital luminary Lumen consistently proves that published media online command higher levels of attention, particularly compared to the amorphous mass of content online. 

• Published media is associated with strong increases in brand KPIs. A Yahoo study showed that quality editorial environments generate three times the lift in emotional resonance, 72% lift in ad recall and 26% more positive emotions 

• The AOP’s ‘Value of Trust’ study established that quality publisher environments online achieve a higher level of trust with consumers and that this translates into stronger performances in trust-related measures for advertisers

• ComScore’s ‘The Halo Effect’ shows that display and video ads on premium publisher sites have an average of 67% higher brand lift than non-premium sites. Quality publishers are also more than three times as effective in driving mid-funnel brand metrics, such as favourability, consideration and intent to recommend.

• For the first time Newsworks and Magnetic have joined forces to uncover what business outcomes published media have in common. Interestingly, it’s customer acquisition that is the shared strength. Business effects like these measured by renowned effectiveness expert Peter Field are the ultimate measure we should be focused on if we want to demonstrate the untapped value of published media. Campaigns including newspapers or magazines were 67% more effective at delivering new customers than campaigns without them in the six years ending in 2016. 

Implications for Advertisers

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 undoubtedly 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.