Mark Penn: Bombshell New Survey Shows Why Advertisers Should Be Buying Space On News Publishers

4 months ago

Mark Penn, founder and CEO of Stagwell, Inc. joins "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss a new major Stagwell survey about news consumption and advertising, which revealed major flaws in conventional wisdom around advertising on news products, audience and consumption behavior, and more.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 Hi, everyone.

00:04 I'm Maggie McGrath, senior editor at Forbes.

00:06 And today, we are joined by Mark Penn.

00:08 He is the founder and CEO of Stagwell, a marketing

00:11 and communications expert.

00:13 And he is out today with new research

00:15 that he says affects the future of journalism.

00:18 Mark, thank you so much for joining us.

00:21 Thank you for having us.

00:23 You surveyed nearly 50,000 Americans

00:26 about their news consumption and feelings

00:27 about ads placed around certain articles.

00:30 Can you break down for us, what are the top line

00:33 findings of this new research that you

00:35 say are so important for the future of American news?

00:39 Sure, what we've observed is that when

00:41 it comes to advertising, a lot of the advertisers

00:45 were very concerned.

00:47 What if my ad appears next to an explosive news

00:50 story or controversies, as opposed to kind

00:53 of sports or entertainment?

00:54 So we set out to survey the public with 50,000 surveys

00:59 to see how they reacted to different sets of ads

01:03 in different situations.

01:04 And what we found is there really isn't much difference,

01:08 that all this talk about brand safety

01:10 seems to have been overblown.

01:13 And it's been systematically demonetizing the advertising

01:18 against news.

01:19 And that was creating a vicious cycle

01:22 of news getting less and less advertising,

01:25 sports and entertainment more and more advertising,

01:27 and journalism less and less able to afford

01:30 the kinds of reporters to create quality journalism.

01:35 So there was a Northwestern University report out

01:38 in November saying that the US loses, on average,

01:43 2.5 newspapers per week.

01:46 And that rate is only increasing.

01:48 Do you think the findings that you are releasing today

01:52 have within them data points or messages for publishers

01:55 that can counteract that trend?

01:58 I think this is very important for the future of news,

02:02 because it says advertisers, 25% of the public are news junkies.

02:07 11% of the public are not reachable through sports

02:11 and entertainment, but only news.

02:14 And these are great upscale information-consuming consumers

02:20 that you should be advertising to.

02:22 And by the way, rather than paying attention

02:24 to all this talk about brand safety,

02:26 pay attention to what's happening

02:27 to newspapers and journalism.

02:29 And you can really actually fulfill

02:32 the social good for your brand of helping further good news.

02:37 So were you surprised by these findings or any statistic

02:41 within what you're releasing today?

02:44 Well, I wasn't surprised so much,

02:45 because I'd always suspected that this had been overblown.

02:49 And in fact, when I ran a $2 billion budget at Microsoft,

02:52 I redistributed a lot of the budget over to news

02:56 and found that it was the best-performing sites,

02:59 because as they always say, people don't throw laptops

03:01 down the field.

03:03 They use them to consume information.

03:06 And so I suspected this, and so this study very much

03:09 confirmed it.

03:10 But it was interesting to look at key groups like moms

03:14 and high-value or high-income consumers

03:20 and to see very similar types of findings.

03:23 There are slight differences in how studies perform,

03:28 stories perform.

03:29 Storts did a little bit better.

03:31 Some Biden stories did a little bit worse with Republicans.

03:35 But these differences were overall minor.

03:39 I wanted to ask you about that, because I noticed,

03:41 especially among those higher-income consumers,

03:43 it wasn't exactly the same.

03:45 There are a few percentage points differences

03:47 in how an ad performed when it was next to Trump or Biden

03:51 versus sports or entertainment.

03:53 So what do you think the message is

03:54 for the independence of publishers?

03:56 Because I think what I worry about

03:58 is that a cash-strapped publisher will see this data,

04:02 will see that, yeah, the numbers are roughly the same,

04:04 but I might be able to make a little more money if I invest

04:07 in sports and entertainment at the expense

04:09 of political coverage or investigations.

04:13 - Well, that all depends upon the rates.

04:15 So if what you see here is that they perform roughly equal,

04:20 but there's so much more competition

04:22 to get on sporting events and entertainment events

04:26 and less competition to get on news,

04:28 and particularly news about politics,

04:31 then you'll find that most likely the rates

04:34 that you're gonna be able to achieve

04:36 are much lower relative to the performance,

04:38 and so you're missing out on getting

04:40 to this important group of consumers

04:43 and you're missing out on the good rates.

04:45 - So what do you think the message to American publishers

04:49 and newspapers, magazines, publications

04:52 should be based on this data?

04:54 - I think first this whole brand safety thing

04:58 has been overblown, and you see this massively expanding set

05:03 of keywords about things you shouldn't advertise in here.

05:06 That's gotta be shrunk down considerably

05:10 and kind of reevaluated because the social good for a brand

05:14 isn't helping further important news get into consumers.

05:18 And I think the second big message is advertisers,

05:22 look at news, what percentage of your budget

05:25 should really go to news?

05:27 Probably you're underestimating how much should go to news

05:31 and probably you're undervaluing that

05:34 and you're not achieving what you could with your media buy.

05:37 - So advertisers should be spending more,

05:40 concerns about brand safety are overblown.

05:42 How did the concerns about brand safety get overblown?

05:46 How did we get to where we are right now?

05:48 - Well, I think that obviously the internet itself

05:52 does produce a lot of controversial content.

05:54 There are a lot of bad things out there,

05:57 but this brand safety seemed to involve

06:00 almost into a censorship type regime

06:03 where it would really call for the demonetization

06:09 of certain stories and influence.

06:11 And maybe it was a good thing when you're talking

06:13 about some completely hysterical post

06:16 that you don't wanna monetize.

06:17 But what you really found is it spread

06:19 to mainstream journalism and stories about Biden and Trump

06:23 or Israel and Hamas.

06:25 I mean, those are the kinds of stories we need journalists

06:28 to be able to have the funds to really get

06:30 to the bottom of.

06:32 They have to be able to cover wars

06:33 and campaigns really effectively.

06:36 And so I think that this thing got off track.

06:40 - So you want the nation's top advertisers to see this data

06:44 and perhaps reallocate their spend?

06:46 - Yes, I think if they run their computer models,

06:50 evaluate all the rates,

06:52 they'll probably find that they've been over spending

06:56 on entertainment and sports,

06:58 under spending on news and information

07:01 and rebalance their media buys

07:03 and get everybody appropriately funded.

07:08 - As a journalist who believes in freedom of the press

07:10 and coverage of all issues,

07:11 I feel biased in saying I agree with this,

07:14 but I do think it's an important message.

07:16 But Mark, while I have you,

07:18 you are a polling expert, a political strategist,

07:20 and you wrote an op-ed this weekend about swing voters

07:24 and some recent polling about the 2024 presidential election

07:27 that I'd be remiss not to ask about.

07:29 You said in this op-ed that swing is king.

07:32 And you also said, quote,

07:34 "That swing voters in battleground states

07:36 "who are upset about immigration, inflation,

07:39 "climate policy, and foreign affairs

07:41 "are likely to put Mr. Trump back in office

07:44 "if they are not blunted."

07:46 So what is your message to President Biden

07:49 after writing this and after analyzing the polls

07:52 and these swing voters?

07:53 - Well, I think there were two messages in the op-ed.

07:58 One is understand the math of swing voting.

08:01 If an election is five-five and one person switches,

08:04 it's six-four.

08:05 It takes two people to turn out

08:08 to just equalize that and three to win.

08:11 So that too much emphasis has been put on

08:15 turnout of base voters

08:17 and not enough emphasis on the power of swing voters,

08:21 which means that the campaigns,

08:23 particularly the Biden campaign,

08:25 hadn't really been pitching itself

08:28 towards the swing voters who are concerned very much

08:30 about bread and butter issues of inflation,

08:33 energy, immigration.

08:36 And I think the second message was specifically

08:38 to Biden and the campaign, pay attention to this math.

08:43 This is really the key.

08:44 And then these New York Times Siena polls came out.

08:47 And if you read them carefully,

08:48 they say exactly the same thing that I said.

08:51 In these polls where Trump is winning,

08:53 it says, "Don't worry about some progressives

08:55 "not turning out.

08:57 "Trump's only getting 2% of those.

08:59 "Worry about those moderate centrist voters

09:01 "who are defecting in large numbers

09:04 "'cause they're unhappy with the direction of the country."

09:07 - There's been some reporting suggesting

09:09 that the Biden campaign is not paying enough attention

09:12 to these polls or is dismissing these polls.

09:14 How, in your opinion,

09:16 trustworthy is this polling that just came out?

09:19 - I think the data is overwhelming

09:23 and it makes a lot of sense.

09:24 It suggests that centrist voters are unhappy

09:28 with basic bread and butter issues around the country.

09:31 And it suggests that he's been orienting his campaign

09:36 too far to the left and been too responsive

09:40 to elements of the progressive left versus the centrist.

09:45 And the centrist are really gonna decide this.

09:47 Swing is king.

09:49 That is the important lesson.

09:50 When you look at the Clinton campaign of '96,

09:53 which I ran, or Obama's campaigns,

09:55 or even the campaigns of George Bush,

09:59 compassionate conservatism,

10:01 the real winning campaigns

10:03 have really been directed at the center.

10:05 And that's how you win with a landslide

10:08 as opposed to, I think, what you see now.

10:10 It's a very tough polling for the Biden administration.

10:13 So I have these two math lessons,

10:16 one about swing voters and one about advertising.

10:19 So bring 'em together.

10:20 And a lot of political campaigns

10:22 should be advertising on the news.

10:25 - If more advertisers advertise against political coverage,

10:30 we might get more informed news consumers.

10:33 Is that what you're saying?

10:34 - Exactly.

10:36 - Any other lessons for our Forbes audience today

10:38 from you, Mark?

10:40 - No, I think they're clear.

10:43 News has been undervalued and underappreciated.

10:46 News consumers should feel good

10:49 about the information they consume.

10:53 And advertisers should feel good about reaching them.

10:56 And political campaigns have to reach out, I think,

10:59 even more so to those critical swing voters

11:01 who are going to be among

11:03 those incredibly powerful news consumers.

11:06 - Mark Penn, thank you so much for joining us.

11:10 - Thank you.

11:11 (silence)

11:13 (silence)

11:15 (silence)

11:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Mark Penn: Bombshell New Survey Shows Why Advertisers Should Be Buying Space On News Publishers

Category

Transcript

Recommended