Newsbrands continue to grow in effectiveness and act as an amplifier to other media in multimedia campaigns, according to a study of IPA Databank cases.

Effectiveness expert Peter Field's latest analysis for the UK's Newsworks highlights newsbrands' ability to drive significant business effects such as an increase in profit, sales, market share, customer acquisition, price sensitivity and brand loyalty.

Campaigns using print and digital together are almost three times as effective as those using just one platform, and the impact of using both on business effects are also shown to increase over time.

The findings show that campaigns using multi-platform newsbrands are 50 per cent more likely to drive customer acquisition, and over three times more likely to deliver an increase in customer loyalty. These results lead to sustained growth, with campaigns that include both print and digital newsbrands 37 per cent more likely to deliver market share growth and 58 per cent more likely to drive profit.

Consistent with previous findings, Field shows that newsbrands are also a highly effective multiplier for other media. Newsbrands make TV 66 per cent more effective, social media more than twice as effective and online video 81 per cent more effective at delivering 'very large' business effects.

Newsworks insight director Denise Turner says that against a background of short-termism and a worrying decline in advertising effectiveness, Field found that print was becoming more effective at driving business results, despite smaller budgets and a high incidence of short-term campaigns. Looking at the data for the six years prior to 2018, Field calculated that adding print creates a 41.5 per cent uplift in business effectiveness, which suggested that the rush to digital is compromising campaign performance.

Unlike other online media, digital newsbrands play an increasing role in long-term campaigns and this is reaping business benefits. Field's analysis shows that digital newsbrands are considerably more effective at delivering 'very large' business effects in conjunction with other media, such as TV and social, than other online display. For example, adding online display to TV increases business effectiveness by 41 per cent but adding digital newsbrands doubles the impact to an 82 per cent uplift.

"In a disruptive media environment, this latest analysis shows that newsbrands continue to play a significant role in today's media mix to ensure long-term brand success," says Field. "The results cement the continued importance of focusing on long-term brand building and meaningful results, rather than purely short-term activations."

Turner sais she was delighted that the first published analysis of the 2018 cases looked at the role and performance of newsbrands within campaigns. "Newsbrands have a powerful multiplatform advantage and now that we can isolate the specific impact of digital newsbrands, we can see that they bring significant long-term brand building advantage, distinguishing them from other online display.

"Once again, we have strong proof that print newspapers are working harder than ever and are a great weapon in the battle against short-termism."

Newsworks' latest IPA Databank work builds on previous data analysis dating back to 2012. The results are based on 146 UK cases from the IPA Effectiveness Awards. Success in terms of business effects is measured by a combination of sales, market share, price sensitivity, loyalty, customer acquisition and profit.

For more information, see IPA Databank Study 2019.