News platform delivers superior advertising effectiveness and brand impact

15 March 2021: The Benchmark Series, the largest cross-media advertising effectiveness study ever conducted in Australia, finds national and metro news to be a highly effective advertising channel based on its unique ability to encode brand memories.

Advertising placed in national and metro news, in print and digital, delivers superior brand recall and purchase propensity.

The findings come from The Benchmark Series, the largest cross-media advertising effectiveness study ever conducted in Australia. Overseen by Dr Duane Varan, CEO of audience research lab MediaScience, the study included more than 5,350 participants and ran across 42 print runs and 252 websites which together created 6,037 unique brand exposures.

The study set out to understand the impact news platforms have along the path to purchase by measuring key metrics across short- and long-term memory as well as brand lift.

Dr Varan said: “This is a landmark study, both for Australia and globally. The sheer scale and scope of the cross-platform comparison is unprecedented. The overarching finding of the research is that national and metro news, in print and digital form, are extremely effective at embedding brands in people’s memories. The reason for this is that when people consume news content, they enter an active and alert state of mind and this carries over to the advertising in the channel.”

Findings of the study include:

Advertising in printed national and metro newspapers yields 8.5 times greater unprompted recall than the run of the internet*

Print, specifically, is highly effective at embedding brands in consumer memories with unprompted recall at 34% compared to 4% for run of the internet.

Ads placed within digital news environments deliver superior memory and recall

Digital news channels also deliver a strong uptick in brand recall with unprompted recall 26% for digital national and metro news versus 11% for run of the internet.

Print + digital news combinations generate 3.5 times greater brand lift compared to run of the internet

Cross-platform, these benefits are amplified with the study finding the combination of print and digital news further widens the gap on effectiveness versus other publications. The combination drives unprompted recall of 32% versus just 5% for run of the internet.

Ads placed in Total News** are 2.2 times better remembered than run of the internet

Advertising in Total News channels delivers unprompted recall of 22% compared to just 10% for run of the internet. It also yields superior sales impact with 1.8 times brand lift.

Benefits are even more pronounced among light category consumers

With light category consumers, the most important segment for brand growth, news advertising widens the effectiveness gap with unprompted recall 19% compared to 7% for run of the internet.

Ads in Total News deliver stronger brand choice lift and a high propensity to purchase

As measured via discreet choice modelling, brand choice for Total News is 14% compared to just 9% for run of the internet. Again, this gap widens for light buyers with brand lift increasing from 4% for run of the internet to 11% for Total News.

ThinkNewsBrands General Manager Vanessa Lyons said: “The findings are clear: as an advertising channel, news has the power to increase the propensity to purchase due to the halo created by the engaging, trusted and professionally produced content.

“This research, combined with the impressive daily reach of news, its vast and growing audience, and clear cross-platform performance, make a compelling case for marketers to reappraise their perceptions of news.”

* Run of the internet refers to non-premium sites including but not limited to TechRadar, The Daily Mail, Yahoo, Mamamia and Buzzfeed.

**Total News refers to the print and digital news assets of ThinkNewsBrands stakeholders News Corp, Nine and Seven West Media. This includes but is not limited to The Age, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Daily Telegraph, The West Australian, 7news.com.au, nine.com.au and news.com.au.

Media Enquiries
Brooke Hemphill
bhemphill@premiumcontentalliance.com.au
0419 351 445

About ThinkNewsBrands
Founded by Australian media owners who, collectively, have more than 100 years’ experience in producing news, ThinkNewsBrands shines a light on how and why professionally produced premium news content is the best partner for advertisers looking to grow their brands and businesses.

Find out more:
thinknewsbrands.com.au