Stepping outside of the London echo chamber at Shift 2017

From short-term activation vs long-term brand building to filter bubbles and fake news, PHD's Demi Abiola reviews a morning spent at Newsworks' Shift conference.

Wednesday 1 March saw the fifth annual Shift event take place at the British Museum, a now firmly recognised forum where media industry luminaries gather to discuss the most pertinent topics affecting our industry. The combination of a new Newsworks CEO in Vanessa Clifford and new venue gave a fresh stimulus to the proceedings. Indeed, in Vanessa's opening remarks she stated that "this year's conference is going to be more outward looking... assessing the role that we play in the wider media eco-system".

The serendipitous timing of Shift was apt, given current discussions about the role of a trusted and accountable media. With such world turmoil – from Brexit to Trump's presidency and the ensuing furore over fake news – newspapers will increasingly play a pivotal role when faced with the current state of politics. These topics were explored at length during the morning, but perhaps most importantly we were challenged as delegates to "step outside of our echo chambers, delve behind the new words and unpick the fads".

Shift 5.0 was certainly different from previous years in that there was a real emphasis on the wider role that newsbrands play within society, i.e. both capturing and being an integral part of Britain's cultural zeitgeist and the implications it has for modern society and democracy. 

London Business School's Professor Patrick Barwise asked that we step back from the day-to-day and look at the bigger issues facing media, business and society, describing the battle between 'real news' and 'fake news' as a "truth war".

Professional journalism is under increasing scrutiny and although newsbrands have modernised and diversified successfully into the digital arena, publisher business models are under growing pressure. This is especially so due to Google and Facebook having huge market power and dominant revenue streams within digital advertising, but little appetite to invest in the very same journalism that helps bring users to their platform.

The intrinsic benefits of digital advertising include the ability to clearly measure results and real time optimisation, both contributing to the increased propensity to employ short-term marketing tactics. With marketers under increasing pressure to show immediate ROI, digital advertising becomes incredibly appealing due to its highly measurable nature - which by definition are those that produce demonstrable short-term results.

As a result, there has been a shift away from brand building and long-term sales growth, towards sales activation and short-term sales uplift, especially in the light of the uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

As Patrick pointed out, it is important that everyone takes responsibility for the drift to short-term digital, which means finding common cause in things like fraud, viewability and independent measurement. It is incredulous that Google and Facebook can mark their own homework!

Later in the morning, Saatchi & Saatchi's head of planning Sam Wise talked about the importance of harnessing the power of a medium as opposed to trying to "break it". The unique nature of newsbrands are that they are a sole attention medium forcing you to truly engage with their content and be impacted by it, as opposed to alternative media which can arguably wash over you far more easily. 

Using some great, multi-award winning examples of how this can work in press - including a campaign that I was involved in which was the first translucent cover wrap of The Sun for the Oreo eclipse - Sam showed how societal relevance can allow advertisers to take advantage of the news.

He summarised that "creativity can help us unleash a bigger role for newsbrands, but only if we never forget the special context of news media".

Another high point was the Guardian's double act, John Harris and John Domokos. The creators of the 'Anywhere but Westminster' video series drew on their experience of stepping out of the London filter bubble and touring the country to illustrate why "polling on its own tells you nothing".

As John Harris put it: "We should be worried about the effect of social media's echo chamber. In the past, newspapers and the media amounted to a forum in which everything got thrashed out... some of your prejudices would be challenged and you'd find stuff out that was way outside your comfort zone but how much is that being weakened by algorithmically driven news feeds?"

Shift 5.0 has once again reinforced the idea that newsbrands bring trust and credibility in a world that is increasingly beset with fake news, trolls and echo chambers. But is this enough? The monoliths that are Facebook and Google continue to dominate the media landscape and as such continue to put pressure on newsbrands. Meanwhile, short-termism and a shift away from brand building and long-term growth continues to pervade the marketing psyche (The IPA's paper The Long and Short of It highlights this).

In this context, we must continue to ensure that we are extolling the virtues of newsbrands as a powerful, innovative and versatile medium. Measurable, proven media shouldn't be underestimated in our current media landscape and short-term activation needs to be balanced with longer-term brand building. As Patrick Barwise says, not only will that mean doing what's best for our clients, but it will also result in us supporting facts and verified journalism over the spread of false facts and fake news.