Newsworks study: news advertisers see ‘solid business returns’ over long term

With what it deems the correct level of advertiser investment in the news sector (higher than current levels naturally), brands could inflate profit margins by up to £1bn by 2025, claims the report.

Jo Allan, Newsworks chief executive, said: “It’s great to see an impressive shift in the last few years, despite the knock-on effect of Covid. If advertisers continue to utilize news brands effectively, their bottom lines will only improve. This research offers compelling and tangible evidence for advertisers who are looking to increase profit ROI and benefit from being in brand-safe, quality environments.”

Conducted by Benchmarking, a division of Omnicom Media Group, the report derives its findings from analysis of 1,012 statistical economic models built over the past decade.

Chief effectiveness officer Sally Dickerson explained: “This project is unique in assessing news brands’ role in overall campaign effectiveness. Significantly, it also isolates news brands’ digital spend as a structural factor. With the rise of misinformation, digital news brands offer an attractive brand-safe environment for advertisers. This research proves that they also deliver solid business returns when utilized at the right level.”

The latest survey is a direct successor to 2017’s ‘Planning for Profit’, also conducted by Benchmarketing, which found that brands were missing out on £3bn of lost profit by underinvesting in news brands. In the years since that gap has closed to £2.7bn and is predicted to fall to £2bn by 2025.

Together these reports show that media has remained surprisingly resilient, despite earlier concern of an adtech reset sparked by Covid-19.