At the beginning of the partnership in late 2019 (in a pre-Covid19 world), research showed that many US business leaders didn’t fully understand how 5G could benefit their operations – with many remaining with outdated and slow networks. However, in a changing world of vastly increased remote working and growing reliance on cloud services, network limitations often hinder businesses’ potential, restricting their ability to compete and best serve their customers. In the US, over 50% of businesses struggle with the speed of connectivity, while over 60% are frustrated with network performance.

The effects of not adopting the latest technology can be catastrophic for businesses. With little real understanding of the power of 5G and the ways it can uplevel business, business and tech decision makers are left in the dust.

To help them understand the opportunity and encourage technology adoption, we needed to literally show them what 5G can do.

With a large audience of Business & Tech Decision Makers, and an award-winning, tech-driven newsroom, The Washington Post was an ideal choice for a multi-year collaboration. We sought to outfit The Post’s reporters with AT&T-connected technology, effectively making the publication a living use case for 5G business applications powered by AT&T. The Post would become our creative and media partner as well as an example client to demonstrate how 5G can transform businesses.

We would use revolutionary AT&T-powered technology to develop breakthrough, never-been-done-before immersive creative pieces for the publisher – such as the ‘Mass Transportation’ piece – using AR, VR and more to transplant the reader at the scene of the story.

This would be a multi-year partnership that would continuously evolve to find new use cases that power The Post’s journalism and highlight innovative uses of 5G, both in The Post’s newsroom and in key AT&T Business customer industries.

Our target audience was business - (BDMs) and tech decision makers (TDMs) at midsize to enterprise level companies – well aligned with The Post’s readership.

We aligned AT&T 5G with experimental editorial pieces – using 5G tech to support stories the newsroom wanted to cover. Simultaneously, we used custom content to tell the behind-the-scenes story of how each newsroom piece came together and the 5G takeaways for businesses. Lastly, we created content around 5G implementation throughout different industries.

We also employed a retargeting strategy, ensuring the audience that engaged with the first piece (editorial) were targeted for the behind-the-scenes piece (custom content experience).

The goal was to immerse readers in the news in ways they hadn’t experienced before, reporting using AT&T technology, then breaking down how it was done and why it matters from a journalistic and business POV. We wanted to help people understand and experience the true power

We helped report the news differently and continuously created 5G use cases– in exciting new mediums.

Using AT&T-connected sensors, the Post newsroom measured decibel levels around a rural cryptocurrency mine—generating near real-time data that reporters used to inform their story. Custom content then shared the behind the scenes IoT story and shared key takeaways for the manufacturing, healthcare, and transportation industries.

For an investigation into shifting commuting patterns during COVID lockdowns, we used AT&T 5G and LTE to create an interactive experience – specifically spatial imagery, allowing readers to “step inside” mass transit vehicles.

Formats ranged from video, spatial storytelling and data visualization, to narrated, customized articles, such as a custom-built AR experience to replicate a real-life application of AR in manufacturing.

The editorial stories using AT&T technology are exclusive to AT&T – no other advertiser received this access or level of integration with The Post’s newsroom and its coverage.

Our partnership delivered 3+ years of ground-breaking investigations – taking explorative and communicative capabilities next-level, shining a light on issues in new and engaging ways, while highlighting the speed, connectivity and possibilities of using AT&T 5G. The longevity of the collaboration allowed AT&T to align to current events, finding new use cases and ways to connect with the audience that are relevant to their daily lives, with The Post continuing to use AT&T 5G to push boundaries in reporting today.

The partnership resulted in lifts in all key KPIs for AT&T Business with increased understanding and awareness amongst business leaders as to why 5G matters to them.

The report into crypto-mining noise pollution, “A neighborhood’s cryptocurrency mine” even mobilized town residents to lobby their county Board of Commissioners (BoC) to petition to pass legislation that would ban crypto mining in the US–a motion approved by the county in December 2022.