By Vanessa Lyons, CEO, ThinkNewsBrands
 

Even mature brands like NRMA Insurance and Tourism and Events Queensland are notching massive gains through news advertising and content campaigns – in leads, awareness, brand preference and intent, says ThinkNewsBrands CEO, Vanessa Lyons. Just ask marketing and customer chiefs Michelle Klein and Kim McConnie.
 

There’s never been more pressure on marketers than there is today.

CEOs have always expected marketing to help drive business results but the expectation to deliver maximum value as quickly as possible is at an all-time high.

Despite this, the environment is challenging. Budget constraints mean marketers must find efficiencies, and heightened sensitivity around reputation is leaving little room for mistakes to be made.

Marketing leaders must now be intensely focused on making the right decisions to deliver maximum return and impact.

Against this backdrop, news publishing stands out as one of the most effective channels at a marketer’s disposal with the power to deliver positive impact across every KPI.

Three recent campaigns – NRMA Insurance A Help Company; NRMA Insurance Help Our Highway and Tourism and Events Queensland’s Bluey’s World, For Real Life – demonstrate this compellingly.
 

NRMA Insurance repositioning as ‘A Help Company’

NRMA Insurance has been helping Australians for almost 100 years. Dedicated to building more resilient communities, NRMA Insurance embarked on a complete brand relaunch, repositioning its brand as 'A Help Company.'

Partnering with Nine, NRMA Insurance tapped into the content and stories of The Sun-Herald, leveraging the issues within to explain the perspective and the brand’s role as a ‘A Help Company’, and what it is capable of.

The Sun-Herald featured an eight-page mini-magazine, called Beyond - brought to you by NRMA Insurance – exploring how extreme weather is reshaping life in Australia, covering topics such as conscious travel, resilient housing, and climate preparedness. It also featured real-life stories on the devastating impact of the 2019 Black Summer fires.

NRMA Insurance utilised The Sun-Herald’s front and back covers, advertorial, editorial and its entire digital ecosystem to amplify visibility and engagement for the new brand.

As part of the partnership, NRMA Insurance integrated branded content and delivered an op-ed from CEO Julie Batch, reinforcing key brand messaging and thought leadership in helping Australians navigate the changing climate.

Michelle Klein, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer at IAG said, "In launching our new positioning as A Help Company, we partnered with The Sydney Morning Herald to create a mini-magazine that enabled us to engage a mass audience at scale about how extreme weather is changing the way we live. Through storytelling and associating our brand with a credible and trusted news provider, we demonstrated how we are helping Australians understand their local risks and prepare for extreme weather. Importantly, the content was educational news you can use, providing helpful advice and insights to empower readers to take action to be better prepared."

“And when we look at our metrics and customer feedback, we know that it was relatable, memorable, engaging, reinforced reasons to believe, and did a fantastic job of telling an emotional story backed by rational proof points and value messaging.”
 

NRMA Insurance Help Our Highway

In early 2024, NRMA Insurance set out to solidify its presence in Queensland. The goal was to bring its ‘A Help Company’ positioning to life in a meaningful way by showcasing its dedication to road safety and the community.

Partnering with a leading news publisher, News Corp Australia, NRMA Insurance launched Help Our Highway, an advocacy campaign gaining momentum, giving Queenlanders a voice, and calling for urgent improvements to the notoriously dangerous Bruce Highway.

The campaign leant heavily into editorial to engage readers, convey brand messages via eye-catching creative formats with impact, making the Bruce Highway issue impossible to ignore.

And boy did it have an impact, helping to secure a series of Queensland and Federal Government budget commitments for road safety measures, ultimately leading to the largest road safety investment in Australia’s history.

From a brand perspective, an On Device Research study showed ad awareness rose by 13 points, brand preference increased by 7 points, and consumer sentiment toward NRMA Insurance soared, with 78 per cent of respondents feeling positively about the brand according to a Kantar Content Uplift study.

Michelle Klein, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer at IAG said, “When you have those conversations with the editorial team and the editors, you really unlock some opportunities that maybe we weren't thinking about… What I loved about it was the long-form nature of the stories that we could tell, the ongoing drumbeat that was created around the partnership, which was so powerful and drove so much immediate change.”
 

Tourism and Events Queenland’s Bluey’s World, For Real Life

Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ) wanted to capitalise on the hype surrounding the launch of Bluey’s World, an immersive entertainment experience based on the hit TV show set in Queensland, to drive visitation to the state.

They launched ‘Bluey’s World, For Real Life’- an integrated advertising campaign designed to showcase Queensland’s unique lifestyle.

The campaign was turbo-charged by content partnerships with news publishers that brought Bluey’s world to life and raised awareness and consideration of Queensland’s plethora of tourism attractions.

TEQ collaborated with news publishers and developed longform editorial content highlighting Howard Smith Wharves, South Bank, the Great Barrier Reef, and Bundaberg. This content seamlessly integrated with print and online advertising, creating a richer, deeper and more engaging consumer experience.

Articles were placed in travel as well as lifestyle, parenting, entertainment, and general news sections to capture a broad audience, maximise reach and engage those who were and who were not actively planning a holiday.

The results were incredible. More than 300,000 leads were achieved within six weeks for Queensland tourism providers and Queensland’s total brand uplift was 13.3 per cent, with preference up 5.03 per cent and action intent up 3.58 per cent.

Kim McConnie, Group Executive Marketing at TEQ, said, “You're able to tell deeper, richer stories… What keeps us coming back to news and investing is very much the fact that it does shape the discussion.”

These case studies hammer home data from ThinkNewsBrands research that shows total news publishing delivers huge return and impact right through the funnel.

At the top, our Benchmark Series showed that ads placed in news are 2.2X better remembered than run of the internet and deliver 1.4X brand lift.

At the bottom of the funnel, our Demand Generation report demonstrated that advertising in news delivers guaranteed sales activation, returning $3.90 for every dollar invested.

The same report showed news beats most other media – including social, outdoor, cinema and search – when it comes to delivering returns across a range of sectors.

So, whether you're building a brand or driving immediate sales, the data and real-world results are clear – advertising in news delivers impact.

To deliver maximum value from your marketing budget, the smart and proven choice is total news publishing.