1. Is creativity the missing metric?
(A view from a brand planner)

2. A view from an outsider

3. Display network as part of a campaign
Or a partnership I was NFI’d from

4. But I do build brands And I do love news brandsEE DL DT
HSBC

5. >

6. You can tell a lot by awards
Warren Beaty is really too elderly to be presenting them

7. Ends: A lot seems very tactical

8. Means: A lot seems designed to break the format

9. If news brand investment is to increase to the extent it needs to Can we go for something bigger?

10. The news is so compelling and so available that the marketing suffers by comparison
We love news, we can’t get enough – the mail alone is getting 200 million unique visitors a month. It’s a uniquely engaged media, I go and seek it out and actively read through it. While most broadcast channels happen to us, as passive recipients. You turn on the TV or radio and let its content and ads wash over you - news media is a system of active choice, at every moment. This isnt how people feel about social media with it’s binary, compulsive, passive scrolling, with algorithms that actually eliminate choice and diversity. News is an environment you come to to find something unfamilar, something… new.
And it is also an environment of choice – very few people, except the very old or the very in jail read news brands exhaustively. So if you’re already picking and choosing, it’s very easy to just not pick any of the marketing. It’s not like the toll booth of TV or youtube. We get messages simultaneously and we choose, and the truth is that very often the marketing sticks out like a fart in a lift

11. What makes news brands so compelling?

12. 1. Unparalleled societal relevance
3. Insane levels of ingrained trust
4. Unique ability to sniff out the interesting
2. Honed storytelling and craft skills

13. So how can we make the marketing more like the news
I guess really here I’m addressing all of us, media planners, clients, creative agencies and news brands themselves – we all have to play our part to make this happen in a meaningful way

14. 1. Societal relevance: Take advantage of the news
The first thing, and it something that is done but we could do more relates to that first thing

15. A newsbrand playing the news

17. 2. Storytelling skills: Sell news skills, not just news space
Vice do it, facebook does it in their own way, hell even ladbible is doing it with their joy ride

18. It doesn’t have to be shit
It doesn’t have to be shit. In a time when every brand is trying to find a global higher purpose or mission to help them innovate and be relevant you don’t even have to compromise, you can find the partners that fit

20. 3. Long term trust: Push for longer term brand building projects reflecting news brands long term relationships

22. 4. Nose for the interesting: Help brands make news of their own

24. IMHO Creativity can help us unleash a bigger role for news brands, but only if we never forget the special context of news media