News Australia puts trust at heart of Beyond ’27 pitch

The strongest brands are going to be those that know what they stand for. That was the overarching message from the first of News Australia’s five Beyond ’27 events in Sydney yesterday, as the publisher put trust, reputation and advocacy at the centre of its pitch to advertisers.

“This is not passive sponsorship, this is a chance to shape the national conversation,” News Australia chief revenue officer Lou Barrett said.

News is banking on trust becoming an increasingly important battleground for brands as consumers grow more sceptical of companies, institutions and the information they encounter online.

Research presented by The Growth Distillery general manager Leigh Lavery showed eight in 10 Australians are tired of brands claiming to be trustworthy, while 73% say they are more cautious about trusting brands than they used to be.

Seven in 10 believe institutions including governments, corporations and religious organisations always put their own interests first, while 60% are concerned about online safety, privacy and scams.

Against that backdrop, Barrett argued that simply telling consumers a brand can be trusted is no longer enough. When advocacy is brought to life properly, she said, it earns trust, builds belief and ultimately delivers commercial value.

“In a market where trust is harder to win and scrutiny is higher, advocacy is no longer a nice brand layer. It's actually a growth strategy,” Barrett said.

“The brands that are going to win from here won't simply be the loudest, they'll be the clearest, the most credible and the most consistent.”

The pitch formed the centrepiece of the first event in News Australia’s five-part Beyond ’27 upfront series, which is taking a different approach to the traditional single upfront showcase by holding separate sessions around key areas of its business and commercial strategy.

As part of its advocacy push, News is putting significant editorial muscle behind the proposition, appointing four dedicated impact editors to lead campaigns across its national publishing network.

Sarah Blake will lead across state and regional mastheads including The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, The Courier Mail and The Advertiser, while Lillian Saleh will coordinate national coverage across News’ free mastheads and lifestyle titles including Body+Soul, Escape and Taste.com.au.

Liz Burke will spearhead advocacy coverage at news.com.au, with Danielle Long responsible for The Australian and Prestige brands alongside her role as editor of The Growth Agenda.

News also used the event to point to its Help Our Highway campaign with NRMA as evidence of what the model can deliver for both brands and communities.

The campaign emerged after editors across News' Queensland mastheads identified the Bruce Highway as a common concern among their readers, with subsequent reporting finding half of the highway failed minimum safety standards.

The Courier Mail and News' regional titles turned the issue into a sustained advocacy campaign alongside NRMA, lobbying for investment to improve the highway.

Courier Mail editor Chris Jones said the campaign ultimately helped secure a commitment from the federal government to spend $9 billion upgrading the Bruce Highway, alongside $1.8 billion from the Queensland government.

Jones said prime minister Anthony Albanese personally called him to tell him the funding had been approved and credited the Help Our Highway campaign with helping force the issue onto the government's agenda.

Michelle Klein, now Westpac chief growth, brand and marketing officer, worked with News on the campaign during her time at NRMA.

Klein said the partnership demonstrated that advocacy could deliver a measurable marketing benefit alongside the broader campaign objective.

“We were able to promote and cross promote our products within the storytelling and within the advertising around it,” Klein said.

“We saw immediate impact on transactions, and we saw what we were really focused on was consideration, how people feel about our products and services, and we saw all of those lift really quickly, and that's really led us to wanting to continue with this program and wanting to do more of this kind of work.”

Klein said that experience was now informing Westpac's involvement in News Australia's advocacy program, with the bank getting behind initiatives supporting Australian small businesses.

“We've been backing Australia for two centuries and small businesses are the economic back end of our country, they're what makes our communities thrive and they are the core of what this country really stands for,” Klein said.

“So why not get behind a campaign that supports Australian businesses to thrive?”

For News, that relationship between editorial influence and commercial partnership is becoming an increasingly important part of the sell.

Barrett said brand reputation had to be earned rather than bought, with advocacy capable of making other areas of a company's marketing work harder.

“True brand reputation has to be earned, not bought,” Barrett said.

“We are giving our partners access to trusted environments and high-impact platforms so they can build the kind of reputation that drives real commercial outcomes and makes every other part of their marketing work harder.”

News Australia’s Beyond ’27 series continues today with a focus on Health, Wellness & Beauty and continues over the coming weeks as the publisher lays out its commercial strategy for the year ahead.