Advertising across print and digital news platforms outperform Facebook and YouTube across a number of metrics, according to the latest findings from The Benchmark and Payback Series.
The study, commissioned by industry group ThinkNewsBrands and overseen by MediaScience CEO Dr Duane Varan, looked at advertising in news compared to Facebook and YouTube and set out to understand the impact news platforms have along the path to purchase by measuring key metrics across short and long term memory, as well as brand lift.
The study included more than 5,350 participants and ran across 42 print runs and 252 websites which together created 6,037 unique brand exposures.
According to the findings, ads in printed newspapers outperform Facebook ads of all types by up to four times. When looking at printed ads, including quarter, half and full-page ads, compared with display, six, or 15-second Facebook ads, news offers a superior level of unprompted recall.
“Benchmark is the first study of its kind properly comparing news versus social media in terms of ad impact,” Varan says.
“The results fill an important void in understanding the larger media landscape.”
The study also found that combined print and digital news formats are twice as effective as combined Facebook display and video formats for unprompted recall. Ads in news deliver 1.7 times the unprompted recall of six-second YouTube ads and are on par with 15-second YouTube ads, whether on desktop or mobile.
The Payback Series research, conducted in conjunction with GroupM Australia and global marketing effectiveness consultancy Gain Theory, also found news offers a greater return on media investment than social media.
“This research is a wake-up call for marketers: investing heavily in social media advertising isn’t the answer you’ve been led to believe,” says ThinkNewsBrands general manager Vanessa Lyons.
“Wouldn’t you rather reach your audience in an active, receptive state than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scroll? Delivering the strongest reach, greater memorability and immediate ROI, there’s simply no alternative for news.”
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