LONDON: Newsbrands are delivering long-term effects for advertisers which are important to brand success such as profit and penetration, according to marketing effectiveness expert Peter Field.

Field analysed winners from the past three IPA Effectiveness Awards – 108 UK case studies in total – and found that campaigns using newsbrands were 43% more likely to deliver very large market share growth, 36% more likely to deliver profit and 85% more likely to drive customer acquisition.

Additionally, activity in newsbrands was more than twice as likely to both deliver a reduction in price sensitivity and an increase in customer loyalty.

"We know that brands want to be associated with relevant and appropriate content – recent revelations about digital ad placements have underlined how important this is," Field said, referring to recent decisions by advertisers, agencies and the UK government to suspend advertising on YouTube.

"Being in the right context, with the right content not only drives positivity towards brands, but also delivers quantifiable business effects for advertisers such as boosting profit and delivering new customers."

Speaking for advertisers, Phil Smith, director general of ISBA, observed that "It might be argued that digital media trading has become too focused on audience alone with not enough attention paid to the quality of the environment and this is likely to change in light of recent events."

Field's research, he added, "serves as a timely reminder that proven media has an important role to play in brand safety, as well as delivering long-term business benefits for brands".

While brand safety has grabbed the headlines, traditional media platforms are fighting back against the digital giants on a number of fronts, including viewability and trust.

A recent global analysis, conducted by SaaS analytics and measurement company Moat for the World Media Group (WMG), a strategic alliance of ten of the world's leading premium media brands, recently claimed that digital ad campaigns across WMG inventory outperformed Moat industry benchmarks on viewability and consumer attention during the third quarter of last year.

And when MarketingSherpa asked 2,400 US consumers which advertising channels they trusted when making a purchase decision, print (82%) and TV (80%) were well ahead of the top-ranking digital channel of search engine ads (61%).

Data sourced from Newsworks, World Media Group, Marketing Sherpa; additional content by Warc staff