Best brand awareness campaign Independent News for Independent ...
Selling the value of quality news changed the story for Fairfax. Here’s how…
Best brand awareness campaign Independent News for Independent Thinkers
In an industry of heavily discounted news, Fairfax Media put the focus back on the quality content to successfully deliver a full-price subscription strategy. Business problem The traditional solution for attracting subscribers is to discount quality news - feeding continuous revenue leakage and baked-in attrition. For Fairfax Media, a profitable and sustainable subscriptions business meant not only convincing people to pay, but to pay full price.
Our solution Using psychographic profiling of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age audiences, we identified those most likely to subscribe derived social capital from feeling well informed and having an independent opinion on current affairs. So we shifted the brand focus from cost to quality, independent journalism, directly addressing our reader’s own most valued traits. We leveraged data analytics to understand which news content drove the highest engagement, informing the framework for our new content-led campaign ‘Independent News for Independent Thinkers’. We took provocative topics through the line to drive multi-channel consideration of our new full-price brand proposition and directly answered why readers valued our quality, independent journalism.
Results By shifting value perceptions of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age brands, we drove incremental revenue in a challenging market. Increasing brand perceptions and brand preference amongst competitors, we put the focus back on the quality content and not only convinced more readers that quality journalism was worth paying for - but that it was worth paying full price.
Increased brand preference by 3 points YoY amongst competitors
Exceeded subscriber acquisition targets by 4%
7% increase YoY in total subscriber revenue
16% decrease YoY in total subscriber attrition
Increased brand perception by 5 points each YoY across ‘trusted source’, ‘quality content’ and ‘starts the conversations that matter’
Best brand awareness campaign Independent News for Independent Thinkers
We derived insights into our customers’ news habits and highlighted the value of independent news
Our daily headlines creative was live within 3 hours of stories breaking across outdoor, display and social
First we read into subscriber behaviour. Insight arrived with psychographic profiling of our subscribers. This showed they derived social capital from having informed, independent, unbiased opinions. So our content-led campaign ‘Independent News for Independent Thinkers’ shifted focus from cost to the quality journalism we knew our subscribers valued. For the first time, we were identifying our customers and the value of our quality, independent journalism in our subscription proposition. And then we wrote for their interests. Our integrated campaign posed provocative questions on topical events, asking readers to form views from our independent coverage. We campaigned around high-impact stories, with creative live across outdoor, owned platforms and social three hours after news broke, demonstrating the insight and relevance of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age to our audience. We knew a content-first approach would drive the brand value perception we needed. Increased brand preference by 3 points YoY amongst competitors High visibility outdoor
Increased brand perception by 5 points each YoY across ‘trusted source’, ‘quality content’ and ‘starts the conversations that matter’
An integrated channel approach across the stories our readers valued
Integrated outdoor and display
Print
Best brand awareness campaign Independent News for Independent Thinkers
A truly integrated approach to achieving brand awareness
Social
High visibility outdoor
Display
Print
Media placements Large format outdoor placements drove creative impact in high-traffic areas, with subscription consideration maximised through the line into press and digital channels – mirroring daily customer interaction with our platforms. Leveraging data effectively We used digital content consumption as a proxy for subscription propensity to identify our highly engaged prospects. We then leveraged programmatic to both build an extensive 1st party targeting network and drive reach through lookalike and affinity audiences. Personalising the conversion experience We utilised personalisation tools across paywall and checkout touchpoints, reflecting prospects’ dominant news consumption and amplifying the brand value perception to end-point conversion pages.
Reader
Personalised checkout pages
Highly engaged consumption behaviour - politics
Targeted prospect
Targeted programmatic ad - politics
Personalised paywalls
Politics article page
Personalised paywall - politics
Results By putting the focus back on quality content, targeting those who truly value being well informed, and bucking the discounting trend, we were able to change the story for Fairfax. Not only did we convince more Australians to pay for the news, we shifted value perceptions of the Sydney Morning Herald / The Age brands amongst competitors and drove incremental revenue in a challenging market.
Increased brand preference by 3 points YoY amongst competitors
7% increase YoY in total subscriber revenue
Exceeded subscriber acquisition targets by 4%
Increased brand perception by 5 points each YoY across ‘trusted source’, ‘quality content’ and ‘starts the conversations that matter’
16% decrease YoY in total subscriber attrition
Best brand awareness campaign Independent News for Independent Thinkers
In an industry of heavily discounted news, Fairfax Media put the focus back on the quality content to successfully deliver a full-price subscription strategy. Business problem The traditional solution for attracting subscribers is to discount quality news - feeding continuous revenue leakage and baked-in attrition. For Fairfax Media, a profitable and sustainable subscriptions business meant not only convincing people to pay, but to pay full price.
Our solution Using psychographic profiling of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age audiences, we identified those most likely to subscribe derived social capital from feeling well informed and having an independent opinion on current affairs. So we shifted the brand focus from cost to quality, independent journalism, directly addressing our reader’s own most valued traits. We leveraged data analytics to understand which news content drove the highest engagement, informing the framework for our new content-led campaign ‘Independent News for Independent Thinkers’. We took provocative topics through the line to drive multi-channel consideration of our new full-price brand proposition and directly answered why readers valued our quality, independent journalism.
Results By shifting value perceptions of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age brands, we drove incremental revenue in a challenging market. Increasing brand perceptions and brand preference amongst competitors, we put the focus back on the quality content and not only convinced more readers that quality journalism was worth paying for - but that it was worth paying full price.
Increased brand preference by 3 points YoY amongst competitors
Exceeded subscriber acquisition targets by 4%
7% increase YoY in total subscriber revenue
16% decrease YoY in total subscriber attrition
Increased brand perception by 5 points each YoY across ‘trusted source’, ‘quality content’ and ‘starts the conversations that matter’
Best brand awareness campaign Independent News for Independent Thinkers
We derived insights into our customers’ news habits and highlighted the value of independent news
Our daily headlines creative was live within 3 hours of stories breaking across outdoor, display and social
First we read into subscriber behaviour. Insight arrived with psychographic profiling of our subscribers. This showed they derived social capital from having informed, independent, unbiased opinions. So our content-led campaign ‘Independent News for Independent Thinkers’ shifted focus from cost to the quality journalism we knew our subscribers valued. For the first time, we were identifying our customers and the value of our quality, independent journalism in our subscription proposition. And then we wrote for their interests. Our integrated campaign posed provocative questions on topical events, asking readers to form views from our independent coverage. We campaigned around high-impact stories, with creative live across outdoor, owned platforms and social three hours after news broke, demonstrating the insight and relevance of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age to our audience. We knew a content-first approach would drive the brand value perception we needed. Increased brand preference by 3 points YoY amongst competitors High visibility outdoor
Increased brand perception by 5 points each YoY across ‘trusted source’, ‘quality content’ and ‘starts the conversations that matter’
An integrated channel approach across the stories our readers valued
Integrated outdoor and display
Best brand awareness campaign Independent News for Independent Thinkers
A truly integrated approach to achieving brand awareness
Social
High visibility outdoor
Display
Media placements Large format outdoor placements drove creative impact in high-traffic areas, with subscription consideration maximised through the line into press and digital channels – mirroring daily customer interaction with our platforms. Leveraging data effectively We used digital content consumption as a proxy for subscription propensity to identify our highly engaged prospects. We then leveraged programmatic to both build an extensive 1st party targeting network and drive reach through lookalike and affinity audiences. Personalising the conversion experience We utilised personalisation tools across paywall and checkout touchpoints, reflecting prospects’ dominant news consumption and amplifying the brand value perception to end-point conversion pages.
Reader
Personalised checkout pages
Highly engaged consumption behaviour - politics
Targeted prospect
Targeted programmatic ad - politics
Personalised paywalls
Politics article page
Personalised paywall - politics
Results By putting the focus back on quality content, targeting those who truly value being well informed, and bucking the discounting trend, we were able to change the story for Fairfax. Not only did we convince more Australians to pay for the news, we shifted value perceptions of the Sydney Morning Herald / The Age brands amongst competitors and drove incremental revenue in a challenging market.
Increased brand preference by 3 points YoY amongst competitors
7% increase YoY in total subscriber revenue
Exceeded subscriber acquisition targets by 4%
Increased brand perception by 5 points each YoY across ‘trusted source’, ‘quality content’ and ‘starts the conversations that matter’
16% decrease YoY in total subscriber attrition
