Why marketers and brands shouldn’t turn their backs on digital publishers
For advertisers ready to walk away from digital mastheads, it pays to remember they still deliver one thing in rare supply from the rest of the digital ecosystem – the truth – argues Matt Newcomb in this guest post.
Appearing alongside vetted, fact-based content has always commanded a premium from advertisers, and in an era where a trustworthy voice is hard to find online, that premium is increasingly worthwhile.
When I say ‘the truth’ I actually mean ‘objectivity’ and ‘journalistic rigour’. Say what you will about the mastheads, professional process and standards are more central to their offering than any other online source. More than the many murky, nameless digital sites attracting significant ad spend. Much more than some YouTuber in his basement.
The notion of digital provenance is becoming crucial. Knowing where publishing material is actually coming from, who’s made it, and trusting in the manufacturing process is more important than ever for advertisers. Today – when the internet has morphed into the leading source of misinformation – reliable and trustworthy content is shorthand for premium content. For brands the logic is intuitive, appearing alongside content that’s verified, objective and fact-based makes for powerful, positive branding.
There’s research to back this up. A 2016 Comscore study, which independently used Digital Content Next’s (DCN) stable of publishers as a guide, found that display and video ads in premium environments had 67% higher brand lift than non-premium. The study also found that premium publishers are three times more effective in driving mid-funnel brand lift metrics, including ‘favourability’, ‘consideration’ and ‘intent to recommend’. While some of the uplift was attributed to better viewability rates on premium sites, ComScore credited the bulk of the upswing to the halo effect gained from appearing alongside trusted, recognised mastheads and their content. DCN represents publishers including News Corp, The New York Times, the BBC and Condé Nast.
Excellent cut-through to the need for content provenance. The unwieldy nature of the web has allowed a destructive free -fall of quality sourced content across all markets. One area gaining huge followers is the food and diet trend arena. However, lining up a food product client to substantiated news or articles has become a risk. Health claims by ‘influencers’ such as Belle Gibson, who even shared with established masthead Penguin, back up your opinion that the buck for truth has to stop with the publisher.
This is so true. Long time visitors of the brand’s content may trust information they put out but newer visitors might be doubtful so having digital publishers is very important in order to gain trust with newer readers.