At our most recent Top Table event for advertisers, we were delighted to welcome Lisa Smosarski, from The Stylist Group, and Beth Gordon from The Independent to discuss how premium publishers campaign for good. In this short write-up, Jhan Hancock-Rushton Ozone’s Client Director, reflects on key takeaways from the event.
We always knew 2024 was going to be a year of campaigning – and despite the fact we’re almost halfway through, it feels like it’s only just beginning. This year, across the world, more voters than ever will head to the national electoral polls in at least 64 countries, representing almost half of the world’s population. While there is no doubt that these polls will have major impact on our global society for years to come, we wanted to bring a different perspective to campaigning across the Premium Web at last week’s Top Table event
As part of our annual planning at Ozone HQ, the notion of campaigning for good quickly became something we wanted to bring to life. And that’s why we asked Lisa Smosarksi, Editorial Director and Board Director at The Stylist Group, and Beth Gordon – Marketing and Communications Director at The Independent – to join us to discuss how premium publishers use their own platforms for creating positive societal change. With both brands having such a rich and impactful heritage of doing good, we knew we’d be in for a treat. In the discussion – moderated by Craig Tuck, Ozone’s CRO – Lisa and Beth both emphasised the importance of being purpose-driven, measuring success through clear targets, and maintaining authenticity and trust with their readers.
The day before our event – In what can only be described as impeccable timing – Rishi Sunak announced a UK General Election, while I remained incapacitated at home with a stubborn plaster cast and enforced bed rest. Luckily, my colleagues managed to capture three key takeaways from both Lisa and Beth that we wanted to share with you here.
Lisa’s top takeaways:
A clear purpose and goal delivers impactful content: It’s really important that any campaign aligns with your brand's core mission. For instance, Stylist’s response to Sarah Everard’s murder involved taking a breath and holding back a bit, investing in deep research and collaboration with experts to address violence against women, before taking the outputs to the Home Office. By focusing on what the real outcome needed to be – and not jumping on the immediate bandwagon – Stylist’s campaign will have a longer-term impact for women’s safety.
Expertise will give you credibility: Work with credible partners – who will know way more than you – to enhance the impact of your campaign. Stylist collaborated with around 40-50 experts to develop the guidelines that were presented to Priti Patel at the Home Office and subsequently led to – albeit a bit under the radar – a major public awareness campaign by the government. This expert credibility also allows Stylist to knowledgeably advocate on behalf of their highly engaged and impassioned readers.
Greater consistency builds greater trust: It’s really important to consistently align your actions with your brand’s values to build a long-term trusting relationship with readers. And that consistency should flow through to the advertisers or partners you do – or don’t – work with. A great example was Stylist's ‘Fair Game’ campaign that aimed to help deliver in three key areas for women’s sports; self funding, more coverage of women’s sports, and stopping girls falling out of sport in the first place. Thanks to a shared mission with Adidas, Stylist was able to work with the global brand to amplify their message.
Beth’s top takeaways:
Make your targets both measurable and transparent: Setting explicit goals are crucial for success. For example, The Independent’s Christmas campaign with Leeds-based charity Zarach aimed to provide 500 beds and essential items for children – a target they not only met, but doubled. However, Beth believes it was the transparency around what the appeal’s £180 ‘price point’ would actually buy that helped get the brand’s readers truly engaged with the campaign as they knew their donations would actively be doing good in just a few days. As Beth said, “Urgency is a great tool”.
Ensure your engagement is authentic: For a campaigning brand like The Independent, there is huge legacy value in their ‘Make Change Happen’ positioning. As the only news brand in the UK with a dedicated race correspondent, The Independent can confidently activate on Black History Month for example, and use the occasion to tell stories that matter. It’s really important that a brand’s involvement in any storytelling is genuine as today’s consumers very quickly see through any kind of fluff.
Be responsive and take tangible actions: Due to The Independent being an ‘always on’ media brand, they have a constant sense of how any campaign is growing, Whether that’s in the form of donations, the number of signatures on a petition, comments from politicians, it’s really important to keep this in the eye of the reader. Due to an overwhelming passionate belief in what The Independent is doing, if any campaign needs an extra boost, the team will create more content or videos to make sure targets are met.
There are many different ways brands can learn from, or be inspired by, the campaigning approaches of titles across the Premium Web. At Ozone, we wholeheartedly believe that the care and compassion premium publisher websites have for their own reader communities and beyond, sets them apart from any other environments on the internet. And in many ways, this is why Ozone exists, to help you reach these highly engaged audiences across publisher websites, and to ensure your investment continues to fund quality, life-changing journalism
A massive thank you again to Lisa and Beth for sharing a snapshot of what their incredible brands have achieved. See you at the next Top Table!
