So, you want to build a brand?
The importance of brand in American business can't be overstated. At its core, the marketplace is an exchange of value between a company and a customer. A good or service is exchanged for money based on its utility, quality, the cost to create and deliver it, and its relative value compared to alternatives, which are sometimes competitors.
But that's just the beginning. We know what we pay for things is so much more complex. The cost between a pair of $60 Vans and $600 Golden Goose sneakers is not simply quality, cost of production and comparison. The vast majority in that delta of dollars is brand. It's what wearing Golden Goose says about you as you stroll through Publix. It's you making a statement without saying a word.
Unfortunately, newspapers haven’t clearly and consistently branded themselves for some time. While there are periodic ad campaigns, the real brand of most newspapers was established and defined when it first launched. It was editorially-driven with the mission defined by the founder, and that brand held on as long as there was a clear through-line from those founders to the people in charge.
For too long, the brand of most local news organizations has been fuzzy at best as they tried to be all things to all people, and one of the reasons they've been so susceptible to disruption. In the last 30-40 years, newspapers are more accurately legacy institutions. And institutions aren't brands.
Today, however, with new and innovative approaches to news and journalism emerging, brand is becoming more important. In an environment of fake news, digital disruption, a flood of sources, and the conscious uncoupling of subscribers and advertisers, differentiation in a crowded market is essential.
With this in mind, two news operations have launched branding projects in the last few months focused on using journalists to define quality. The most recent, at the New York Times, is a creative look at their journalists under the banner "The Truth Takes A Journalist," a continuation of their "Truth is Essential" message. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also notes the role of journalists under the banner "Press On," and reinforces a unified brand across all their content as they continue to deliver it through more channels and platforms.
From Amy Weisenbach, senior vice president and head of marketing at The New York Times Company, “
This campaign celebrates the journalists who create the stories that help our readers understand the world. The focus on the word ‘By’ personalizes who is behind the bylines readers see in The Times every day. These journalists are real people with passion for what they do, and they play a critical role in the pursuit of truth.”
The creative features 30 journalists, across a variety of roles, and will appear across a number of channels, including TikTok for the first time. While the video is compelling, drawing you in and keeping your attention, you are left to make the connection to content yourself. That said, since it is a follow on to the Truth is Essential creative, they have established context for the audience.
At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the publisher's note explains:
"You now will see a new, single masthead everywhere we publish our journalism. You will find it across all of our products, whether digital or print. No matter where you see our name, you can be confident the journalism you are reading is rigorous, fact-based local news. In today’s media environment, it is vital to know which sources you can trust."
The idea of brand has come up before of course, but really in punctuated rather than sustained ways. Periodically, publishers would realize they didn't practice what they preach - namely advertise their brand clearly and consistently to the public. They sold their products aggressively - by hawking subscriptions through telemarketing, inserts, booths, crews, and as well as merchandising and media to move single copy. But direct sales are not the same as brand building.
As they began to understand branding beyond simple marketing tactics, publishers and companies would seek to articulate a clear point of differentiation, often by noting the breadth of their coverage and community impact with a message that was almost always under the theme of "local."
As the digital era began to ascend, both as a primary competitive force and as the great revenue hope, most of the branding shifted. Now the publisher was a multi-media organization, delivering local news wherever you want it and serving advertisers with a portfolio of services, often including the words "media" and "group" along the way.
Been there, done that, got the faux Moleskine notebook.
But buying into digital content delivery and marketing solutions doesn't do anything to reinforce the value of journalism. And a media group is focused on content more than news, and journalism is a luxury, often narrowed to "investigative" and "enterprise" reporting.
The latest wave is about bringing journalism and its audience back together because to sustain and grow the mission, the margin is made when the readers and subscribers pay more. Now the value equation is more direct - what am I willing to pay for quality journalism when the advertising subsidy is gone (or at least diminished)? How high is the quality? How good is the journalism?
So for the New York Times, "The Truth Takes a Journalist," for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, you can count on them to "Press On," and at the Washington Post, they are the protection because "Democracy Dies in the Darkness."
It shouldn't be lost that these all take their cue from our times - when the era of misinformation and press attacks have benefitted web traffic and subscriber numbers but plummeted credibility. These brands are defined not just as local, or quality, but as truth and light and resistance.
It's good to see branding back on the table. It should represent a core purpose and mission, embodied in everything the organization does. It was how newspapers started, and how local news organizations will continue to thrive.