Users who are emotionally involved by news, appreciate advertising more. According to a survey conducted by the London School of Economics concerning 600 readers of the Times and the Sun, those who had read an involving article ( both positively or negatively exciting ) are 45% more likely to then watch a video commercial, compared to those who had been exposed to “cold” contents. Similarly, readers coming off pleasant contents, are 32% more likely to watch the whole video than those coming off unpleasant contents (News UK looks to convince brands to advertise around hard news).

Targeting readers’ mood and adding it to their preferences consequently means being able to direct their attention to a given set of digital Adv products.  Such approach appeals in particular to agencies and brands which, after the implementation of the European General Data Protection Regulation, are resorting even more often to editors for the collection of data. It is no surprise that it was the media group NewsCorp , which boasts an audience of over 140 million people only in the US, to come up with the idea of integrating mood and preferences. To this aim, the media giant has set up News IQ, ad advertising platform which can integrate in one solution only all first part collective data, media premium properties and data science instruments (News Corp Launches News IQ).

Now, one year after its launch, accompanied by the “emotional loyalty and advertising commitment” slogan, News IQ has landed in Great Britain. The purpose of such move is to help brands plan and optimize their campaigns, diverting their attention from click metrics to a measurement system based on consumers’ awareness and attention indicators. Such as the kind of stories readers are more interested in, their purchasing habits or the time spent interacting with ads. All matched with surveys incorporated into news published on the Times and the Sun asking questions about how they feel about the contents they read with the aim to obtain original data allowing marketers to target users on the basis of their opinions and feelings (News UK now lets advertisers target readers based on their emotions and opinions).

Through this system a company operating, for instance, in the tourist business, can target their ads to users loving outdoor activities and exclusivity or to those using videos massively and responding positively to adventurous stories.

News IQ is actually taking targeting to a new level: it is no longer relevant to know what users are or do but rather what they think and feel. After the privacy issue, we will now have to understand how much intimacy people are willing to share with brands in exchange for such advantages.

What do you think about the new frontier of targeting? Tweet @agostinellialdo.

If you want to find out more about the digital world, you may read my latest book entitled: “People Are Media” 

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