Truly Madly Deeply
Newsworks is set to unveil new research at its second annual Shift 2014 conference this afternoon. Ahead of the event, David Brennan, insight consultant at Newsworks, explains some of the key themes and findings…
When Newsworks initially embarked on an in-depth study with MTM into the relationship between consumers and the different providers of news content, we had provisionally called it ‘Needsbrands’ – because we had set out to identify the importance of news in people’s lives, the different need states it satisfies and the role of UK national newspaper brands (newsbrands) in achieving that goal.
That is still very much a part of the story, but another theme came up even more clearly; which is the deep, emotional and long-term relationships readers have with their favourite newsbrands and the impact that has on advertising within them.
Hence the new title; Truly Madly Deeply.
The study used a multi-stage approach across social media, portals and specialist online news providers, which included: workshops, media diaries, an online survey, filmed in-depth interviews, as well as looking at the role of news provided by newsbrands, TV channels, programmes, radio news and online sources.
As you might imagine, we discovered that news is important to people across a variety of subjects and providers, addressing a number of important need states, ranging from passing the time to being in the know and feeling uplifted.
For every one of those need states, newsbrands scored more highly than any other commercial competitor, particularly in the more emotional areas, such as comfort and nostalgia, relaxing and me-time or feeling uplifted.
Newsbrands sit right at the core of the news eco-system in consumers’ minds. Unlike the other news providers, they are not simply there to tell us the news, they are the news; often unearthing, investigating and delivering the main stories of the day, with a distinct tone of voice and personality that marks them out in their readers’ minds.
Against all of these different needs for news content – from headlines or short overviews all the way through to in-depth articles and analysis or expert opinion – newsbrands are still seen as the best source.
Until recently, it was predicted that the depth of this relationship would noticeably decline as new digital competitors began to replace newsbrands with their own news content. Whether it was Sky News, Huffington Post, Google or Facebook, it was assumed that this was the news landscape of the future.
In fact, the reverse appears to be happening. Newsbrand content on mobile devices, laptop or PC screens, via social media or through the search engines is becoming more ubiquitous, better read and more engaging than ever before. As with most legacy media, it has been a case of ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’.
Those who access their favourite newsbrands across both print and online are consistently more positive about their relationship with that newsbrand across every one of the dimensions we tested – with particularly strong skews towards ‘feels relevant to me’ and ‘makes me feel involved’.
So we can conclude from this far-reaching study that news is an important and engaging media experience, with a large repertoire of providers addressing a number of need states. Newsbrands stand out as the core players in this eco-system, addressing these need states better than any other commercial competitor, seeing a benefit from the new digital platforms in deepening that engagement and offering an engaged audience and powerful advertising context as a result.
The latter appears to be particularly positively affected by this relationship, both explicitly and implicitly.
Find out more at Shift 2014 – #shift2014 – or via newsworks.org.uk