The New Zealand Herald wanted to emphasise to audiences why they needed the newspaper in their lives. To deliver that message, The Herald deployed a campaign called Headspace, which was designed to position it as the media company readers needed to engage with when they were looking for trusted, responsible, and informative quality journalism. 

The company wanted to boost engagement, readership, and subscription rates by making it clear to users the value they received by being a part of The Herald family. To convey that message, they used headlines and visuals that were carefully curated to create impact and interest.

To further underscore the messages of quality and trustworthiness, The Herald served up photo montages that showcased the company’s breadth of content. The pictures were frequently updated to reflect timeliness of breaking stories or importance of big stories.

The NZ Herald also needed to spotlight its ability for breaking big stories, especially since its competitor was challenging the company’s reputation in that area. As a response, the content team created a new tagline — Know Now — and used that as a central theme throughout the year. Under that flag, it underscored its ability to deliver the latest news as it happened.

Thinking locally  

NZ Herald also wanted to be known for putting an unmatched local connection to important national and worldwide stories. In all its communications, The Herald began using phrases like “New Zealand’s Herald” and “Seeing the World Through Kiwi Eyes.” This directly reflected The Herald’s expanded world news section in its digital subscription package. 

Perhaps parallel to being known for its breaking news, The Herald also wanted to be known for creating content that had context, was meaningful, and helped audiences understand complex topics. This content was marketed as a key benefit for subscribers who were willing to pay for premium content. 

Throughout the campaign, The Herald also remained focused on another key objective: to attract a younger and more diverse audience. This informed its media placement and model choices as it looked to appeal to this demographic and meet them where they live.

This took the campaign in new directions, which included billboards, Web and social visuals, and — for existing readers — print ads. The content was diverse and reflective of the demographics on each platform, and the content was updated frequently as news events changed.

Hitting the mark

Headspace saw some pretty impressive results. The NZ Herald increased its readership by 26% year to year, now reaching 585,000 daily readers and a weekly audience of two million. Just two months into the Headspace campaign, The Herald’s Web site became New Zealand’s most popular news site — and has held that title since.

The company also saw a 33% increase in digital and print subscribers from June to November, and the Web site recorded a 14% increase in people turning to them for breaking news.  

The intention to attract a younger audience worked well, too: Among users ages 18-29, readership increased by 51%, and engagement went up eight minutes over the previous year. Today, NZ Herald readers now spend an average of 43 minutes on the site.

The campaign as a whole was so successful that The NZ Herald made it an ongoing inititiative that continued evolving into 2021. It has been a highly profitable strategic initiative and, perhaps even more importantly, provides ample evidence of the need and demand for clear, unbiased journalism in New Zealand.

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