With people being bombarded by news from every angle and from a wide variety of sources, it’s no wonder there has been a decline in trust in news from both businesses and consumers. In fact, according to Reuters’ 2021 Digital News Report, only 44% of people globally say they trust news most of the time.

As such, factual, unbiased information has never been more important as businesses and media owners look to accurately report and make business decisions that impact every facet of consumers lives.

In this tumultuous landscape, Reuters was looking for growth through both new segments and adjacent markets. The brand needed to be extended and refreshed to drive broader resonance and position Reuters as the go to destination for accurate and up-to-date information. This was critical for Reuters to drive synergies in their marketing efforts and build a long-term competitive advantage across the diverse audiences it serves.

Reuters, The Source.

Reuters was positioned as the ultimate source of trusted news and information. The campaign was designed to showcase Reuters core offering of real-time, accurate news without agenda - just the story in its purest form.

The creative media strategy was to deliver maximum brand impact with both film and OOH. And to use performance marketing channels to drive response, which in this case was to register on Reuters.com.

The film is made up of 72 news stories, sourced from Reuters own photojournalism and voiced by 11 Reuters journalists around the world, including Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Wa Lone. The idea was expanded further, using journalism’s most powerful tool, quotation marks, to frame the subject of Reuters photojournalism. Not only are quotation marks a powerful branding device, but also a visual shorthand for ‘The Source’, letting the story to speak for itself.

Declining trust in news, a blurring media set and commoditization of news content, we had to find a new way to articulate the increasing relevance of Reuters core offer. Our strategy was based on contextually relevant placements, ensuring Reuters is active in the most relevant environments

Limited budget necessitated a highly effective media plan, looking at strategy and media partners that could deliver brand reach but also allowing us to target and measure the relevant business KPI of registrations.

We tested if people who had been exposed to the brand video were more likely to click on a retargeting ad and register on Reuters.com vs users who weren’t exposed to the video.

We pushed Yahoo pre-roll video to business decision makers in the US and achieved an 85% VTR surpassing the markets benchmark by +54%.

Brand video optimized towards completion only but ultimately drove 18% of the campaign conversions.

Reuters, The Source launched in September 2021, as Reuters marked their 170th year in business.

Brand building: OOH work ran in UK and New York, in locations with heavy footfall from targeted business audiences, such as Canary Wharf and Times Square.

Targeting businesses and Reuters existing customers through owned channels: including social media and Reuters.com.

Paid media support for the film: Over three months to maximize reach, engagement and drive further awareness of the Reuters brand.

AI driven conquest targeting: Achieved the most cost-efficient CPA’s. Exposed users retargeted via conquesting had the overall best CPA, 50% better than our benchmark.

Pixel implementation enabled Yahoo’s native conquesting tactic by utilizingpredictive segments via AI learnings achieved 70% of the total conversions in the campaign.

64% of the total conversions derived from exposed users substantiating the idea that users primed with a brand video have a higher conversion rate.

With minimum spend we built and activated a cohesive yet powerful brand across all segments. The Source campaign led to 100,000+ professionals regularly engaging with Reuters.com.

Brand spend positively impacted marketing effectiveness. Our controlled test, saw huge impact in response rates (20% increase in conversion and a 20% decrease in cost per acquisition) for those exposed to the brand campaign versus those who have not seen the brand campaign. Static executions also saw 1.5 million impressions across Reuters social channels, with social engagement +15% on Twitter and +41% on Facebook against industry benchmarks.

The campaign competed not only within the category, but also outside, creating brand marketing that delivers fame. Delivering PR coverage of 38m+ unique views. Including key business titles Yahoo!, Business Insider, Bloomberg and Marketwatch, amongst others. Film gained over 2 million organic views, an 85% uplift in view through rates, +54% above benchmarks, and +12% ad recall.