Global recognition for DC Thomson news brands
DC Thomson has been recognised in a major international award this week, for the work the company does in taking creative approaches, based on insight, to develop its news brands.
The International News Media Association (INMA) Global Media Awards took place in New York yesterday with The Press and Journal winning first place in the ‘Best Brand Awareness Campaign’ category for its ongoing project ‘Every Story Starts With You’.
It won against shortlisted campaigns from Bladet Nordlys (Norway), Göteborgs-Posten (Sweden), Kleine Zeitung (Austria), Maharashtra Times (India) and Nine (Australia).
The Courier picked up second place in ‘Best Idea to Encourage Reader Engagement’ for its Personalised Subscriber Email Updates.
Led by Carly Gilchrist and Graham McDougall, the P&J’s brand awareness campaign put real Aberdeen people, businesses and its journalists front and centre to mark its move to a digital-first news provider.
The campaign revealed a new proposition for the news brand, “Every Story Starts With You”, which underlines the title’s dedication to telling the stories of Aberdeen’s people and serving them with quality local news.
Campaign channels included out of home (bus stops and bus panels), paid social media (including video content), onsite messaging, radio, print ads and PR.
In making the award, judges said the P&J’s campaign, was an “Excellent example of an audience-first campaign, a simple message that yielded fantastic results and an impressive increase in brand recognition”.
The Courier’s email project was developed by Alison Wallace and Katrina Edginton, and aimed to use readers’ habits to shape personalised emails and drive engagement.
The daily subscriber email is completely personalised to individuals and signposts ten news articles which are tuned to the user’s reading habits.
The approach proved successful, with those receiving the personalised email showing a significantly higher engagement level than those who hadn’t. The personalised emails have now been fully integrated into subscriber emails and are used as a benefit for those signing up.
Tom Miller, DC Thomson’s chief transformation officer has been working with the news brands over the last year to grow their audiences. He said: “I’m delighted with these nods from INMA as I believe they speak to our commitment to serving our local communities, both through putting readers and their needs at the heart of all we do on top of our continued investment in data, insight and marketing capabilities. We get better every day at serving the stories people want, when and where they want them.”
Read more about the campaigns below: