The fast-paced nature of the digital media cycle (and subsequent marginalization of simple fact checking and copy editing) has raised legitimate questions about outlets placing expediency and traffic surges above taking the time to get things right—yesterday’s wave of premature reports about the death of singer Tom Petty was only the latest example.
This phenomenon, coupled with rising paranoia among consumers and marketers around fake news and brand-safe environments, respectively, provides a unique opportunity for trusted and established media brands such as national magazines.
At least, that’s the central message of the latest marketing campaign undertaken by the MPA—the Association of Magazine Media.
Beginning this month, 123 of the country’s most prominent magazines will lend print and digital advertising space to the campaign, titled “Magazine Media. Better. Believe It,” which aims to demonstrate magazine brands’ unmatched ability to inspire and connect with readers, and, of course, create optimal environments for advertisers wary of the digital media ecosystem’s dubious-at-best ROI.
The campaign, which runs through March 2018 and also spans the portfolios of Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, Meredith Corp., Time Inc., and a litany of other major magazine publishers (see the full list below), will reach an estimated 75 percent of all adults in the U.S., according to the MPA, in an attempt to educate them on how “magazine media content is professionally researched, written, curated, and produced across platforms.”
“In a media world where three out of four Americans say they have fallen for fake headlines, it is imperative to remind audiences of the tremendous resources that the magazine media industry puts behind its content platforms,” wrote MPA president Linda Thomas Brooks in a LinkedIn post announcing the campaign. “Magazine media content faces intense scrutiny, and in large part that is the secret sauce of these brands.”
Underpinning the campaign are findings from Simmons Research, whose 2016 Multi-Media Engagement Study indicated, among other things, that consumers find magazine content more “trustworthy,” “inspirational,” and “life-enhancing” than what they see on TV or online.
But consumers are hardly the only target audience for the campaign, which also includes a presence at the Association of National Advertisers’ Masters of Marketing Conference, a three-day gathering of CMO’s and marketing execs from major national brands kicking off this week in Orlando, Florida.
“After experiencing often unsafe and ineffective digital inventory as well as questionable results, marketers are turning to magazine brands to cut through the clutter,” wrote Hearst Magazines president Michael Clinton, who oversees 21 of the magazines in which the campaign will run, in a statement.
more at: http://www.minonline.com/amid-fake-news-magazines-can-offer-credibility-safer-ad-environments-argues-new-mpa-campaign/