Search results for: Month: April 2020

Cause and Effect: How global media brands can engage audiences for action around climate change

By Katya Ionova, Creative Director, UK & EMEA, Business Insider – Member of the World Media Group

With the COVID-19 pandemic presenting an existential threat to many areas of economic activity and human development, it’s no surprise to see governments worldwide prioritising economic recovery above all else. But as we mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day today, let’s not forget another of our existential threats – climate emergency.

In late January, when COVID-19 was beginning its global assault, we were embracing the Decade of Action with a renewed commitment to sustainability at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Climate change and sustainability were the most discussed topics. For the first time, WEF’s Global Risk Report was dominated by the environment, with “failure of climate-change mitigation and adaption” cited as the year’s number one long-term risk, according to impact, and top second risk when measuring event likelihood.

Now, just three months later, we’re approaching Earth Day with 2.5M confirmed cases and 175K dead as a result of coronavirus. What may not be so apparent is the direct cause and effect relationship – both positive and negative – between these two existential threats. Global warming has been linked to an increase in diseases that could transfer from animal to human, and mass globalisation has facilitated the spread of such diseases. With more than a fifth of the global population under lockdown, however, COVID-19 could trigger the largest annual fall in CO2 emissions ever this year, due to interrupted energy demand and reduced economic activity.

In 2019, the “Greta effect” elevated climate change onto the global stage and into our collective consciousness. Now, COVID-19 has taken that a step further by enforcing behavioural change on a global level. As we prepare for life after COVID-19 – whatever the “new normal” may look like – we have a real opportunity to impact long-term change. As media organizations with global footprints, we have a responsibility to think about our own cause and effect: the critical issues we choose to cover, from pandemics to sustainability, have the potential to empower audiences into making meaningful and positive change.

At Business Insider that can be seen in our dedication to reporting on companies that balance profit with purpose. In 2018, our CEO and founder, Henry Blodget, issued a call for “better capitalism,” saying that sustainable economic growth comes from providing value for all stakeholders: employees, customers, and society. Since launching the Better Capitalism platform, sustainability has been a core editorial pillar of the company, with a focus on companies that deliver practical outcomes, not just PR hype.

We tell stories about the people and organisations working to solve our biggest problems. One of our most popular series was Saving Our World, a 2018 in-depth newsroom examination of how climate change is altering the way we eat, live, and power the world. This resonated deeply with our audience with engagement far surpassing our expectations.

In 2020, our focus is on the Circular Economy. Coinciding with the UN General Assembly in September, we’ll be launching Closing the Loop, a series about how corporations are operationalising closed-loop systems, and what it will take to make these practices widespread.

We’re not alone in our efforts. Many other World Media Group brands are dedicating more time and resources to ‘impact’ or ‘solutions’ journalism. The New York Times, for example, delivers a comprehensive weekly newsletter from its climate team with stories and insights about climate change, and tips on how to help.

The Washington Post launched Climate Solutions in partnership with Rolex last year, with a focus on individuals, companies, and other organisations that are exploring ways to address our most significant environmental problems. The series highlights people who are committed to reducing their own carbon footprints, and its Climate Curious feature provides readers with ideas for doing the same.

Last September, The Economist dedicated its weekly edition to climate change, with Editor-in-Chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, saying, “Climate change is sometimes portrayed as something capitalism cannot deal with – or worse, does not want to deal with. That is not our view. Our reporting clearly shows the scale and scope of the problem; we accept that it cannot be solved simply; but we think free markets, smart regulation and liberal values are the key to an effective response.”

 The Economist continues to report regularly on climate change and produces a fortnightly newsletter featuring climate-change analysis. The Economist Films has produced three series of ‘The Protectors Oceans’, examining the science and radical thinking at work in tackling the crisis facing the world’s seas; and The Economist Group’s World Ocean Initiative (WOI) fosters a year-round global conversation on the greatest challenges facing the seas and the progress towards building a truly “blue” economy.

Bloomberg Media launched Bloomberg Green in January, a new editorial platform dedicated to the business, science, and technology of climate change. Focussing on climate change news, analysis and solutions, it includes a website with a global, interactive climate data dashboard, a daily email newsletter, a podcast and a magazine.

Finally, National Geographic has created its first ‘flip’ issue this April to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. The issue features two magazines in one, revisiting environmental milestones of the past half-century and looking ahead at the world our descendants will inhabit in 2070. The magazine presents two possible outcomes – firstly, a verdant green earth in which we have successfully reversed climate change; then a browner earth suffering from longer droughts, deadlier heat waves, fiercer storms, and more.

As we approach this year’s Earth Day, ask yourself, which outcome do you want to be responsible for creating?

The next few months will be key. As we search for the path towards the strongest possible economic recovery, media companies have a choice about the causes we continue to spotlight. The COVID-19 outbreak has given us a unique opportunity to heal the planet, but will we be prepared to socially distance ourselves from unsustainable business practices needed to flatten the curve of the persisting environmental crisis?

 

 

 

Working with Media in Times of Crisis – Opinion Piece by Denise Turner, Newsworks

Working with media in times of crisis

Insight director Denise Turner writes about how trusted brands should operate in the new media environment. 

Earlier this week I was delighted to take part in a webinar run by the World Media Group, a collective of major global publications.

The webinar, and ten panellists involved, set out to address the question of the role of trusted media in times of crisis.

It goes without saying that we are living in unprecedented times both in the UK and globally. So I was interested to explore the commonalities between the UK and the global stage – and spoiler alert, there are lot of similarities.

For me there are four key themes:

  1. The need for trustworthy content has never been greater. People are turning to published brands, both in the UK and globally, in greater numbers. We’ve seen news brand subscriptions (both print and digital) increase, traffic to news brand websites is up around 50% on average, and people are spending longer with content, and engaging more. We’ve been living in an era of fake news for a while now, but we know from previous Newsworks research, that people are turning more to established published media brands.
  2. This crisis is a timely reminder that we market to people, not machines. All of the brand representatives on the panel talked about the humanity in what we do. This is first and foremost a humanitarian crisis, and as a marketing and publishing community, we need to respond appropriately.
  3. Brands are developing a new language of marketing – that of humility. It’s about getting real, not over-promising and about recognising the role that brands can play, without overdoing it.
  4. This is not the new normal, rather it’s a recalibration, or a reset. Things won’t go back to how they were before, but neither will we in marketing and publishing remain in this short-term situation. As one of the panellists Janet Balis from EY Advisory put it, we need to be already thinking about the future and not get stuck in the now.

Janet’s comment reminded me of something I heard a few years ago. I had the immense privilege of listening to the late Baroness Tessa Jowell speak at a dinner. One thing she said has stuck with me ever since, and I often refer to it, when something is bothering me or I’m facing a particular challenge.

She talked about the importance of a ‘centrifugal moment’. Now I’m not a scientist, but I know that a centrifuge moves very fast and shakes things up somewhat! Baroness Tessa was referring to a particular moment when she almost gave up being an MP, but something happened to turn things around completely.

We are in a centrifugal moment right now. How we react to it, both in the now, but also preparing for the future, will ensure we emerge from this even stronger than before.

Denise Turner, Insight Director, Newsworks 02/04/20

Key Take Outs: Working with Trusted Media in Times of Crisis

Advertising and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Working with Trusted Media in Times of Crisis:

Brand safety is always high on the agenda for advertisers, but what does this mean in the light of COVID-19? That was the question posed to a panel of 11 industry experts yesterday during a webinar hosted by the World Media Group. The panel was chaired by Alex Altman, Global Client President at Wavemaker.

To view the entire webinar please click the link below:

The role of media in a crisis 

Altman’s first question, addressed to Emma Winchurch-Beale, International Sales Director at the Washington Post, was how the newspaper’s editorial team balanced the need to report what’s going on without causing undue anxiety within its audience.

“People are frightened and it’s our job, along with our colleagues in other news organisations, to be the guiding light and help them through this pandemic,” she said, emphasising the newspaper’s role was to offer reassurance by delivering trusted information, as well as practical advice. To that end, they have created a new COVID-19 subsection on the website, and most of the COVID-19 coverage is free, outside of the pay wall.

Denise Turner, Insight Director, Newsworks, the UK body for national newspapers, agreed that people turn to trusted news sources in times of crisis. She said print subscriptions and newspaper home deliveries were on the rise, and traffic to digital outlets was up by 30-50% in the UK. Engagement is also up: “There’s an uplift in not just dwell time, but also comments on articles [and] shares. So people are not just passively absorbing it, they are actively engaging with the content.”

The need for well-researched trust-worthy content

Johanna Mayer-Jones, SVP of Partnerships at The Atlantic, agreed that the significant spikes in traffic and engagement across the board are because “people are hungry and they need information and news that they can trust at the moment.”

Referencing a popular article called ‘How the pandemic will end’ by Ed Yong, she explained the importance of delivering thoughtful, well-researched, scientific-based content exploring the long-term impacts of the virus. “We want to be thinking about conversations that might take place in two or three day’s time or a week’s time and provide a different type of perspective at this moment.”

Altman turned to Damian Douglas, Managing Director EMEA at Time,
to ask how they were adapting to consumer expectation of news brands in light of COVID-19.

“First and foremost, this is a humanitarian crisis,” Douglas said, so publishers will look at it through a more humane lens. The shift in commercial modelling to make COVID-19 coverage free was really important as audiences seek accuracy, truth and insight, he said; media organisations and brands must be seen to be going into the breach and not being overly commercial.

Advice for the C-suite

Altman then turned to Alison Harbert, Head of Client Marketing at Investec
to ask how she was advising clients in the current climate. The silver lining, she said, was that it had made Investec “think about who we are actually trying to help and what are we trying to help them with…what we can do that’s really relevant to them.” She also stressed the importance of moving at the right speed in the ever-changing situation.

When questioned about the legacy changes that will stay with us around homeworking, Harbert said that despite the fact we may run back to the office the moment the doors open, she hopes the time away has proved that this can work. “I think, as a human race, that this is forcing us to do some good stuff that maybe we should have done earlier.”

Altman asked Janet Balis, Global Advisory Leader for Media and Entertainment at EY, what advice she was giving to CMOs navigating the current crisis. Balis emphasised three points. “Strike the right brand voice and tone. And I think it starts with the word empathy… expressing a vulnerability in the face of an invisible force that’s larger than all of us.”

Secondly, she said while we often talk about storytelling, what’s important now is how that manifests itself with customers: “Your brand is only as good as your experience.” Finally, this is the “moment to really lean into very agile messaging and much better teaming collaboration,” she said, enabling brands to successfully change messaging at any given time.

Balis said she was now starting to see companies moving out of the initial triage moment of enterprise resiliency and looking forward – what she described as “the now, the next and beyond.”

Fake news still a threat

Addressing questions from the audience about fake news, Altman asked Stevan Randjelovic, Director of Brand Safety & Digital Risk EMEA, Group M, what he recommended. Randjelovic’s advice was firstly to invest in trusted news outlets. He also recommended human vetting of smaller regional or local publishers; using third party verification companies; and, most importantly, constantly monitoring where campaigns are delivering.

Harriet Kingaby, Co-founder of the Conscious Advertising Network, highlighted the human impact of fake news: “We talk very much about human safety as opposed to brand safety because we see that the decisions that advertisers make actually have impacts in the real world.” She cited a recent Newsworks report showing how advertisers pulling money from hard news outlets in times of crisis can cause real problems and encourage the rise of fake news.

How can brands market responsibly during crisis?

Altman’s next question, for Jack Dyson, Global Head of Content Strategy, SAP Customer Experience, was whether brands can continue to market during this time.

Dyson talked about the importance of going back to your brand values and brand purpose, and examining all of your actions through that lens to ensure you’re dealing with customers in the right way. He stressed the importance of tone, and why ‘It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it’ is absolutely critical now. All advertisers needed to do “a sense check that the right message is coming across to the right people in the right way and to the right audience, but also with the right cadence,” he said.

Time’s Douglas believes we’ll see a permanent change in how brands are looking to engage with audiences. “Pre-COVID, we were talking about a different form of capitalism, which means putting brand values front and centre.” He believes that it is the brands “working with genuine motive,’ and guiding people through the current crisis – such as McLaren developing protective wear or Louis Vuitton creating hand sanitisers – that will be remembered when we come out the other side.

Alex Delamain, President of The World Media Group and SVP Head of Sales & Client Services EMEA, The Economist, wrapped up the webinar with her key takes outs:

  1. It all starts with humanity. As publishers, we have a huge responsibility to be helpful and generous in this time of crisis.
  2. Brands must strike the right tone – empathy and compassion is key.
  3. Brands need to be connected with their customers through partnerships, relationships and ‘companionship’.
  4. Brands need to be much more agile – traditional digital transformation needs to move much faster.
  5. Brand purpose really comes into play now – we have to look at everything through that filter to ensure authenticity.

Closing on a positive note, Delamain reiterated Balis’s point: “We’re in the now, but there’s the next, and beyond. As brands, it’s really important that we start thinking about life after COVID-19 because it will come.”

Belinda Barker
World Media Group Director

Webinar – Working with Trusted Media in Times of Crisis – Final thoughts from the panel

Here is a wonderful section captured at the end of the WMG webinar when each of the panellists shared their very personal views on what has surprised them the most (in business and human behaviour) about what has happened since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

The overriding feeling was that there has been an amazing sense of community, an underlying positivity which has brought everyone together.  The world has got smaller and become a united force.  That can’t be a bad thing.

Please click on this image for the panellists final thoughts:

Panellists from L-R:

Top: Emma Winchurch-Beale, International Sales Director, Washington Post; Stevan Randjelovic, Director Brand Safety, Group M; Janet Balis, Global Advisory Leader, EY Advisory; Johanna Mayer-Jones, SVP of Partnerships, The Atlantic

Middle: Denise Turner, Insight Director, Newsworks; Alex Altman, Global Client President, Wavemaker; Jack Dyson, Global Head of Content Strategy, SAP Customer Experience; Damian Douglas, Managing Director EMEA, Time

Bottom: Alison Harbert, Head of Client Marketing, Investec; Harriet Kingaby, Co-founder, Conscious Advertising Network; Alex Delamain, SVP Head of Sales & Client Services EMEA, The Economist

To view the entire webinar, please go to: https://wmg.wavecast.io/working-with-trusted-media-in-times-of-crisis/live