Are Brand-Safety Concerns Hurting Quality Journalism?

 

Stagwell’s “Future of News” project — a bid by the holding company to convince more advertisers to support quality journalism — was unveiled earlier this year. 

But according to CEO Mark Penn, the idea had been germinating since his days at Microsoft over a decade ago.

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At the time, he told an Advertising Week New York audience on Thursday, he wondered how much advertising on news programming the company was investing in, and was told “zero.” 

He wondered why and was told “that’s just the way it is.”

After doing some research, Penn determined that Microsoft should have been earmarking up to 20% of its media budget for some of its products on news programming. 

“So I filed that away,” he said.  

Fast forward a few years, after he founded Stagwell (2015) along with the rapid development of what he termed the “brand safety movement,” and Penn refocused on the topic, concluding that many advertisers were excluding news from their media budgets out of unsubstantiated concerns that supporting news would somehow hurt their brands. 

The company’s HarrisX unit conducted a survey of 50,000 Americans that found such concerns were significantly overblown.  

At the Advertising Week session Penn said many advertisers blackballing news from their budgets were making a “socially undesirable choice” because without ad support “it makes it impossible for publications to really support the staffs they want to” and which Penn has argued are critical to a healthy democracy.  

“We’ve proved the theoretical,” he said, “and I hope we get to the practical, of getting people to act.” 

Tracy-Ann Lim, Chief Media Officer, JP Morgan Chase, said news remains a consistent piece of the company’s media equation. “It’s always on for us,” she said, because that’s where the company’s customers are. 

And for those advertisers that avoid news content because they are concerned about risk, Lim added, “revisit it because risk is everywhere...It’s not about you it’s about the people you are trying to reach.” 

One piece of advice Lim offered was to avoid being “tone deaf.” There are going to be certain periods or events that take place when readers and viewers would be offended to see a particular sector advertising in news.  

New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin noted that the “real value” of news today is analysis--”behind the news and how it happened.” 

There is still some value in being first Sorkin said, but it is fleeting, not like the pre-digital days when a publication could “own” a scoop for a full day.  

The session was moderated by Anna Palmer, Founder/CEO Punch Bowl News.  


Pictured above (l-r): Penn, Sorkin, Lim

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