What you need to know:

• GroupM Australia wants greater investment in news websites and responsible journalism.
• It is part of GroupM’s Responsible Investment Framework, which also covers areas like brand safety, D&I, data ethics and sustainability.
• More than 200 news sites, including the major players, have been vetted as part of the Back to News program.
• The news sites vetted by Ads for News can be accessed directly through a local market inclusion list, private marketplaces (PMPs) or a package of inventory against a biddable price.
• It aims to educate agency planners and clients about the benefits of news advertising, while making transactions easier.
• News Corp’s Lou Barrett reckons advertisers are “starting to listen”, and the initiative is an "welcome endorsement of its “premium publisher” credentials, but fears some marketers are "rusted on to the drug of Facebook, YouTube".
• News media has had a rough ride of late with year-on-year declines, largely fuelled by drops in sales on programmatic open exchanges.
• Industry body ThinkNewsBrands welcomes the initiative and says news media is being underinvested by marketers.

Sustainability to civics

After launching a media carbon-offset initiative 12 months ago under project Alpha, backed by the likes of Volvo and NAB, GroupM has moved to stake its ESG credentials beyond sustainability to civics and society, this week announcing a program ultimately designed to increase ad spend for “responsible journalism” and newsmedia publishers.

WPP’s media unit launched the initiative, including a private marketplace, with Nine, News Corp and Guardian executives and editors. 

The initiative aligns with GroupM’s ESG-leaning Responsible Investment Framework covering five core media investment criteria: sustainability, data ethics, diversity and inclusion, brand safety and responsible journalism.

The “Back to News” initiative comes as news publishers saw a 16.4 per cent decline in ad revenues in the March quarter – when adjusted to exclude last year’s Federal election spending surge, the decline is 6.5 per cent on the same period in 2022, according to SMI.   

News Corp’s Managing Director, National Advertising, Lou Barrett said GroupM’s move showed the market “was starting to listen” but challenged broader claims from advertisers and media agencies that they wanted “brand safe” environments when the flow of advertising money demonstrated  they were still “rusted onto the drug that is Facebook and YouTube…environments that are not so brand safe. We’ve got big audiences, qualified audiences. And we’re not marking our own homework,” Barrett said. 

Nine’s Managing Director, Publishing, James Chessell, said the GroupM initiative delivered “safe and effective” environments for advertisers while supporting “strong public interest journalism in Australia.”

Brand safety bias and blacklists

ThinkNewsBrands executive GM Vanessa Lyons called GroupM’s initiative “a beacon” for industry - most categories and brands, she said, should upweight their budgets fourfold in “Total News”, irrespective of their ESG agendas, citing ROI econometric modelling. Lyons said the Total News sector was attracting 1.4 per cent of overall ad spending but should be 6 per cent - brand safety bias and blacklists of news keywords were among the contributors to newsmedia’s current challenges. 

“Right now marketers are overweighting media channels in lieu of news and they need to shift their mix…” Lyons said…”They’re investing below optimal levels in news, but rather than increase their overall ad budgets, they would be best placed to re-weight their existing media mix and reallocate more to news advertising.”

One ongoing area of contention in newsmedia is the idea of “adjacency” risk and suppression lists in news environments, where advertisers block their online ads appearing next to news stories that contain themes or keywords deemed unsafe for a brand to be in. The result is ad dollars are diverted to alternative channels that publishers argue have higher brand safety risks versus newsmedia but don’t face the same advertiser and agency bias or ad boycotts. Publishers argue as privacy clampdowns restrict tracking and behavioural targeting of online users, demand for contextual targeting capabilities based on content environments will increasingly become a competitive advantage. 

Contextual targeting 

“Strict and expansive keyword block lists, while once regarded as safeguards, can inadvertently stifle the true potential of context,” ThinkNewsBrands Lyons told Mi3. “Within news environments, where relevance and engagement thrive, audiences are immersed in a rich tapestry of contextual understanding. By liberating ourselves from the constraints of keyword blocking, we can unlock the full potential of intelligent targeting strategies...fostering deeper engagement and genuine resonance."

IAG’s Acting CMO, Zara Curtis, has been a vocal proponent for newsmedia and ThinkNewsBrands on this front: “When we require action, or when we require credibility, you will really see us lean into news,” she said in a CMO perspectives interview. 

“I think the trusted source piece is kind of basic hygiene. So we know that news can offer that. As clients we have to be brave and know that the news may not always go in our favour, but we're really confident as a brand, that knows that what we do and how we act is right, so we go forward with a trusted message in this trusted environment.”

GroupM’s Buchannan said the Back to News initiative would not alter the media group’s brand safety approach; advertisers and agency planners will continue to avoid placing ads against content they do not feel is appropriate. In the past this has included coverage of wars, accidents and natural disasters, such as the oft-repeated example of an airline not running ads next to plane crash coverage. GroupM would still use keyword ‘inclusion and exclusion lists’, Buchanan said, with the Back to News initiative adding “another layer” to the brand safety process.

Scale play for responsible journalism

“Accessing this program through a PMP [private marketplace] enables us to build scale through a collective, the vetting is done for us through a reputable third party [Ads for News] and we've made it relevant for Australia through regional community and local news,” Buchanan said. “This gives us the ability to manage some of those decisions that have been made about content, placement to scale. But this isn't intended to replace things, it's intended to complement.”

More broadly, Buchanan told Mi3 the Back to News initiative is an example of GroupM’s broader ESG commitment, in this case the social – or “S” in ESG - that is often overlooked. In GroupM parlance, it's called the Responsible Investment Framework [RIF]. “If you are investing in local journalism, responsible journalism, you are investing in the right stories being told and a balanced view of the ecosystem,” Buchanan said. “We have a whole range of programs that we’re putting a lot of time, energy and money into building capability, infrastructure and technology to enable our planners to deliver on each of the RIF pillars.”

How Back to News works

There are two main components to the Back to News initiative. One is to provide the tools and technology to make it easier for advertisers to transact with news publishers; the other is more inwardly focused and, arguably, of greater value to publishers.

The news sites vetted by Ads for News can be accessed directly through a private marketplace (PMP), local market inclusion list or a package of inventory against a biddable price.

“We want to provide an education platform for our own people to think about the context and environments that we're placing ads in, which is obviously part of their job and what they already do,” Buchanan said. “We feel there is value in adding a spotlight to the importance that responsible journalism plays on shaping society, culture and building brands.”  

“We also wanted to remove any potential hurdles in that conversation and simplify how we transact, turning education into action. The aggregation and vetting is already done for the teams meaning that they can overlay their own brand safety guidelines and then transact for clients."

GroupM has been working with non-profit Internews “Ads for News” initiative to vet more than 200 metro, regional and local news sites covering all the major newsmedia groups and independents – there are plans to add more titles as the program evolves. 

GroupM chief investment officer Melissa Hey said an aim of the program is to “increase investment in news” and that a lot of larger clients were  “very supportive”. This would not, however, come at the expense of other media channels.

Starting to listen

News Corp’s Managing Director of National Sales Lou Barrett said GroupM’s initiative recognised that “premium publishers should have a premium position in where they spend their money."

“We're brand safe, we deliver big audiences. There's a big opportunity around that and we are a great alternative to social networks,” she said. “We've been saying this for quite some time, but it feels like advertisers are now starting to listen.”

Barrett said News Corp’s biggest source of advertising contraction this year has been from open exchanges, which accounts for about 25 per cent of News Corp’s newsmedia revenues; the rest is made up of direct sales and premium programmatic guaranteed arrangements.

Barrett hoped Back to News could make a “tangible difference” and is “cautiously optimistic” trading conditions will improve in the second half of the year. 

“With a lot of these things, it could be a slow burn,” she said. "A lot of [marketers] have not understood that they've got massive premium audiences outside of those social media platforms."

Another challenge facing CMOs, added Barrett, is the cost of living crisis. 

"I think a lot of advertisers and CMOs have pressure put on them by the boards to go after the performance part of it, because they can actually prove it," she said, adding that News Corp now offers a suite of full funnel activity. "You've got to have a harmonious, symbiotic relationship between brand and performance, because those that spend money on brand marketing in tough times will reap the benefits coming out the other side. And no one knows that better than (Harvey Norman CEO) Katie Page, she doubles down on brand in tough times." 

Educating the younger set

Barrett called out GroupM’s push to educate its own teams – many of them younger and without a perspective on the impact and influence of newsmedia and the importance and benefits of supporting high quality local journalism.

“What I love about what GroupM has been doing is giving young ones in the agencies that may not be as familiar with what we do, that have grown up in a social media world…it’s giving them an understanding of…what professionally generated content is.”

When asked if the Back to News program would ultimately see more ad dollars go to the 200 newsmedia sites in the current pool, GroupM’s investment boss Melissa Hey said: “That is the aim. You've seen where [news advertising] has been and the decline there. But we are providing our teams the tools and the information so that we can encourage [more investment] and getting the right balance for our clients. And yes, we are aiming to increase that investment in news.”