Search results for: Month: May 2024

Key Takeouts: Trend and insights from WMG Content Creatives

The World Media Group hosted its annual Agency Advisory Board this week, where a group of senior agency executives shared best practice and discussed the topics affecting the media  industry.

This year’s session began with a discussion about Creative Solutions with a panel of experts from three of the World Media Group members’ Content Studios. Ibs Ajayi, Global Head of Films at Economist Impact; Helen Collerton, Content Strategy Lead at Create, CNN International’s Brand Studio; and Katya Ionova, Head of Creative Strategy and Global Brand Partnerships at Business Insider discussed the topics and trends they are currently seeing in the market. Here are some key takeouts from the conversation.

Increased use of data

There’s been a big shift in understanding of audiences as quality media brands benefit from more insight into their first-party data. Creatives and Strategists are increasingly required to analyse the data to strengthen their creative campaigns and find white space for content.

At CNN’s Create studio, for example, the ability to work with global data from a variety of different markets has provided a much deeper understanding of which specific products are performing better in different territories. At Economist Impact, data is analysed in real-time to optimise live programmes, and user behaviour data is continuously evaluated to inform everything from design to content enhancements.

Multi-platform campaigns to reflect the customer journey

A deeper understanding of the customer journey is changing the way creative campaigns are conceptualised because publishers know that viewers won’t interact with every single touchpoint of the campaign.

Publishers that were traditionally linear have had to adapt in response to this. Seventy-five percent of CNN’s campaigns, for example, are now multi-platform, which reflects a bigger trend of brands putting marketing budget across multiple platforms, not just linear and TV, where viewing habits have become less predictable.

“Ten years ago, we would devise a beautiful joined up, cascading campaign hero film, and cut-down social content, and we would consider it all as a single narrative,” says Collerton. “Now that we can see people are interacting with a single piece of content, it’s changing the way that we provide concepts for those assets because all the messaging needs to land in every single individual piece.”

A return to longer-form storytelling

According to Ionova, long-form content is “no longer scary,” even for a digital-first media owner like Business Insider, as audiences increasingly embrace premium, in-depth content. They are seeing a shift towards longer-form content across both their website and social platforms, particularly on YouTube, a key video distribution platform for Business Insider. Data indicates that 50 percent of views now come from Connected TV (CTV), suggesting their audience is watching both short-form and long-form content on a big screen

Ajayi also highlighted a similar trend at Economist Impact, referencing ‘The Childcare Initiative Dividend’, a 16-minute film created as part of a research-driven campaign that demonstrated the economic gains countries could achieve by investing in childcare. 

Keep commercial content brief

When it comes to clearly commercial content, however, Collerton believes it’s best kept to 60 to 90 seconds or less. “Everything that we do is led by human stories, but the actual narrative is often very brand focused,” she says. ”We have to offer a huge amount of value to our audiences to maintain their attention because we are openly, honestly commercial content”.

CNN is doing some behavioural work with its C-suite audience data to find out how a decision is made, which will help to inform the optimal length and duration of content. “We’re looking at the levers we need to pull in terms of head versus heart, rational versus emotional, but also what the pathway of that decision might look like on our platform and how long it will take,” Collerton says. They now have examples of how long it takes, on average, for a C-suite leader to make a decision, meaning they can shape a campaign based on the touch points they’ve seen for this audience.

Convincing B2B to be human

Ionova has seen a growing demand for human-centric storytelling, mirroring findings from Business Insider research where 87% of readers strongly prefer person-first narratives. This trend is gaining momentum in B2B campaigns, as 84.2% of Business Insider’s audience confirms that technology, business, and innovation content centered on human experiences is more impactful and memorable.

However, convincing some B2B clients that they should be more human-centric can be challenging, Collertion says, because they are less familiar with making that type of content. A B2B firm selling insurance can tell a very human story of how it affects people’s lives, but Collerton says she finds clients often “feel uncomfortable to enter what they see as consumer space”.

Trending topics

According to Ajayi, sustainability remains a popular topic to come through Economist Impact briefs, along with AI. Rather than jumping on popular bandwagons, however, he stresses the importance of  “being authentic and looking within your organisation to see what issues align within your brand’s values.” Collerton noted that every brand seems to be far more aware of their purpose these days.

Ionova observes that sustainability has become a baseline expectation for brands, making it harder to stand out with generic messaging. She encourages brands to differentiate themselves through niche and impactful initiatives, highlighting female and youth empowerment as underserved areas that offer unique storytelling opportunities.

Collaboration and quality media

One of our audience members asked for advice on scaling a campaign so that it works across multiple media outlets yet avoids disparate messaging or diluting the tone of voice that might come from creating a bespoke campaign with one specific outlet.

The panel agreed that all of their brands (and, more broadly, all of the World Media Group member brands) are willing to work in collaboration with other media partners, as long as it’s clear from the outset of the campaign what each publisher’s role is. The creative panel cited examples of collaborative campaigns that played to the strengths of each individual outlet, and importantly, sat within the context of quality trusted journalism.

The Editors’ View: What financial marketers need to know

We were at the CIM Financial Marketing Leaders’ Summit, where senior Financial Services marketers come together to share knowledge and best practice across the industry. The World Media Group hosted a session with a panel of top finance and business journalists, chaired by Preya Shah, Head of Sales at Reuters. Joining her to discuss the key trends and issues impacting the Financial Services sector were Izabella Kaminska, Senior Finance Editor at Politico, Tola Onanuga, Senior Editor at Business Insider, and Jason Karaian, Business News Director at the New York Times.

Winners and losers

Shah began by asking the panel who they thought were the winners of the last few months within the Financial Services sector. The panel agreed that as inflation and interest rates had risen, it was the big financial organisations such as JP Morgan and UBS, who had come out best, and were poised to continue doing so. The City of London was also a winner, beating France and Germany to become the financial hub in the Euro-dollar clearing battle. As for the losers, it seems that Crypto and Stablecoins have lost some of their lustre.

UAE – the portal to a new multipolar trading environment

According to Kaminska, “When you speak to traders, they’ll always tell you that regulation is a huge opportunity for them, because it creates arbitrage opportunities.” The whole of the West increasingly going on a war-footing undermines the old-fashioned idea of free markets, she says. “Markets are going to become much more command economy-based and traders who understand that and carve out Rick’s Café-type areas of influence in places like the UAE, which I think is going to be the portal to a new multipolar trading environment, that’s where the real opportunity lies.”

An increase in values-based investing

For Karaian, the current environment is pushing financial organisations to do things differently and reach people in a different way. “I think people are thinking more about their values and how they invest,” he says. Financial services brands are thinking about how they screen funds, and how they describe how they screen funds, in a way that attracts clients but minimises backlash from one political tribe or another. He’s noticed that fewer brands are labelling ESG investments for example, due to backlash. 

The impact of AI on Financial Services

The topic of AI and the impact it will have on the Financial Services sector was a clear theme throughout the summit, so it’s no surprise it featured heavily in our editors’ discussion.

AI offers great potential to increase efficiency and improve services for customers if companies implement it in a way that allows them to collect lots of data, said Onanuga. The big challenge, however, is figuring out how to build those efficiencies into their everyday systems.

Onanuga is also closely following the search for the must-have AI consumer products. “There’s a lot of talk about the implications of AI and how it can affect bigger picture ideas, but a lot of consumers are just interested in how it’s going to affect their daily lives. With so many companies going all-in on AI, realistically that is going to be the biggest growth area.” With that comes the challenge of ensuring regulation and ethics are keeping pace with innovation.

The unintended consequences of AI

Another challenge is weighing up savings and efficiencies against the unintended consequences of AI. According to Kaminska, “People are beginning to appreciate the energy footprint of AI, and also the new geopolitics that are emerging around it and the fusion of where capital to fund AI projects is going to come from.” She likens the development of new players and new partnerships in the AI space with the original Petrodollar relationship between America and Saudi Arabia.

The politicisation of the Central bank is another area to watch, she says, with situations like the Coutts scandal – which saw Nigel Farage’s account closed by the bank last year – occurring more frequently as AI begins to play a bigger role in the tools banks use to manage reputation.

The hidden danger for analysts

According to Karaian another unintended consequence of AI may be the longer term impact it has on the analyst community in firms such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. While AI can no doubt make analysts more efficient, it could also reduce their numbers. “They can use it to read all the S-1s that are coming out and run the numbers on various M&A scenarios, reformat spreadsheets and PowerPoints. Investment banking chiefs are very excited by that,” Karaian says. However, if AI replaces the role that entry-level analysts play in their formative years, it could potentially change investment banking career pathsandthe whole culture of investment banking as a result.

The dead internet

While we tend to think of generative AI as a shiny new technology, Kaminska pointed out that Large Language Models have been around for a long time. Although they have become more sophisticated, AI is still not good enough for Kaminska to use as a journalist – she finds it takes far too long to correct.

She talked about the theory of the ‘dead internet’: “The idea that once the amount of information on the internet is mostly generated by AI rather than humans, it creates a terrible feedback loop where we go from sensemaking to an utter collapse of sense within a very short space of time.” Kaminska likened it to being in a room where the noise level gets higher and higher until everyone starts shouting and can no longer hear.

The upside of the dead internet is that the value of a human touch increases. For example, the role of news organisations, which can bring eyewitness reports to the fore, will become even more essential as the demand for a more trustworthy means of communication returns. That’s good news for quality journalism and for our World Media Group brands. And, as Kaminska joked, who knows, it may even lead to a renaissance in print media!

2024 World Press Freedom Index indicates that journalism is under political pressure

According the 2024 World Press Freedom Index, press freedom around the world is being threatened by the very people who should be its guarantors – political authorities. 

Released today on World Press Freedom Day, the annual report produced by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) shows that it is the political indicator that has fallen most of the 5 rankings used to compile the report, registering a global average fall of 7.6 points.

Governments fail to protect journalism

According to the Index, a growing number of governments and political authorities are not fulfilling their role as guarantors of the best possible environment for journalism and for the public’s right to reliable, independent, and diverse news and information. 

RSF sees a worrying decline in support and respect for media autonomy and an increase in pressure from the state or other political actors.

At the international level, the report highlights that this year is notable for a clear lack of political will on the part of the international community to enforce the principles of protection of journalists, especially UN Security Council Resolution 2222. The war in Gaza has been marked by a record number of violations against journalists and media since October 2023. More than 100 Palestinian reporters have been killed by the Israel Defence Forces, including at least 22 in the course of their work.

Occupied and under constant Israeli bombardment, Palestine is ranked 157th out of 180 countries and territories surveyed in the overall 2024 World Press Freedom Index, but it is ranked among the last 10 with regard to security for journalists (see the 2024 World Press Freedom Index security ranking).

Journalism vs disinformation in a super election year

While 2024 is the biggest election year in world history, 2023 also saw decisive elections, especially in Latin America, where elections were won by persons who boast of being predators of press freedom and media diversity, above all Javier Milei in Argentina (down 26 at 66th), who has shut down the country’s biggest news agency in an action of disturbing symbolism.

Obstructing journalists’ work

Elections are often accompanied by violence against journalists, as in Nigeria (112th) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (123rd). The military juntas that seized power in coups in the Sahel, especially Niger (down 19 places at 80th), Burkina Faso (down 28 at 86th) and Mali (down one at 114th), have constantly tightened their grip on the media and obstructed journalists’ work. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s reelection in Türkiye is also a source of some concern. Ranked 158th, the country has continued to lose points in the Index. 

Absence of regulation around AI

In the absence of regulation, generative AI’s use in the arsenal of disinformation for political purposes is disturbing. Deepfakes now occupy a leading position in influencing the course of elections. This was evidenced by the audio deepfake of the journalist Monika Todova during the parliamentary elections in Slovakia (down 12 at 29th), one of the first documented cases of this kind of attack on a journalist with the aim of influencing the outcome of a democratic election.

Government interference 

Many governments have stepped up their control over social media and the Internet, restricting access, blocking accounts, and suppressing messages carrying news and information. Journalists who say what they think on social media in Vietnam (174th) are almost systematically jailed. As well as detaining more journalists than any other country in the world, the government in China (172nd) continues to exercise strict control over information channels, implementing censorship and surveillance policies to regulate online content and restrict the spread of information deemed to be sensitive or contrary to the party line.

Some political groups fuel hatred and distrust of journalists by insulting them, discrediting them, or threatening them. Others are orchestrating a takeover of the media ecosystem, both state-owned media that have come under their control, as well as acquisitions of privately-owned media by allied businessmen. Giorgia Meloni’s Italy (46th) – where a member of the ruling parliamentary coalition is trying to acquire the second biggest news agency (AGI) – has fallen five places this year.

Political propaganda 

Political groups often serve as channels for disseminating disinformation campaigns or even instigating them. In more than three quarters of the countries evaluated in the Index (138 out of 180 countries and territories), most of the Index questionnaire respondents reported that political actors in their countries were often involved in propaganda or disinformation campaigns. This involvement was described as “systematic” in 31 countries.

Media censorship

In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, media censorship has intensified in an astonishing mimicry of Russian repressive methods, especially in Belarus (down 10 at 167th), Georgia (103rd), Kyrgyzstan (120th), and Azerbaijan (down 13 at 164th). Kremlin influence has reached as far as Serbia (down seven at 98th), where pro-government media carry Russian propaganda and the authorities threaten Russian exile journalists. Russia (162nd), where Vladimir Putin was unsurprisingly reelected in 2024, continues to wage a war in Ukraine (61st) that has had a big impact on the media ecosystem and journalists’ safety.

Best and worst

Even the trio at the top of the World Press Freedom Index has contributed to the fall in the overall political indicator. Despite retaining its No. 1 position, Norway is among the countries that has suffered a fall in its political score. Ireland (8th), where politicians have subjected media outlets to judicial intimidation, has ceded its position as European Union leader to Denmark (2nd), which is followed by Sweden (3rd). 

The three Asian countries at the bottom of last year’s Index – Vietnam, China and North Korea – have ceded their positions to three countries whose political scores have plummeted. They are Afghanistan (down 44 places in the political ranking), which has persecuted journalists incessantly since the Taliban recovered control; Syria (down eight political places); and Eritrea (down nine political places), which is now last in both political and general rankings. The last two countries are lawless zones for the media, with record numbers of journalists detained, disappeared or held hostage.

You can read the 2024 World Press Freedom Index in full, including the state of press freedom in the world’s five regions, here.

The role of the World Media Group is to champion the values of trusted international journalism and we’re proud to support RSF and the important work it does to protect the freedom of the press around the world. Today on World Press Freedom Day, we continue to call for the release of Wall Street Journalist reporter Evan Gershkovich, wrongfully detained by Russia, and support the journalists around the world who are threatened, harassed and detained for simply doing their jobs.