News24 rebrands with trust positioning

Supplied. News24’s refreshed brand positioning introduces the people behind the stories

News24’s new brand positioning, Trusted News. First launched across SA with a full 360-degree campaign as well as a PR campaign that introduced the humans behind every News24 article, their journalists.

Stories you can trust

News24’s team of awarded journalists are behind hundreds of articles, reviews, stories, analyses and investigations that help shine a light on what’s happening across the country, and the world, as it happens.

“Under the banner, Stories You Can Trust, we created a campaign template that allows News24 to put out relevant and tactical stories as they happen,” explains HelloFCB+ CCO Mike Barnwell.

HelloFCB+ and Fuelcontent worked on the campaign.

“The idea shows, not only the huge amount of content that’s on offer but also the speed with which it gets disseminated into the world,” adds Barnwell.

The executions were rolled out across digital channels, Out of Home (OOH) and TV, and updated as needed to promote News24 as the place to get Stories You Can Trust, Articles You Can Trust, and Investigations You Can Trust and more.

“We felt that a traditional ad campaign, one that puts out one ad, running it on and off for a year, wouldn’t cut it in this fast-paced, ever-changing environment,” explains Dylan Rohleder, associate creative director at HelloFCB+.

“Together with Fuelcontent, our moving content production specialists, we were able to match the pace of breaking news by offering breaking ads – ads that used the latest headlines and stories from that week to grab attention with content that’s current and relevant.”

People behind the stories

“Although we prefer to be behind our cameras and keyboards, we realised that an integral part of trust is knowing someone.

“We are not just by-lines, but real people with stories, hopes, dreams and fears,” says News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson.

“Ultimately, we want to get much closer to our subscribers and become familiar, trusted personalities in their lives,” he adds.

A PR campaign, under the banner Behind every story, are journalists you can trust introduced the country to the faces behind the news, the journalists who investigate, analyse, question and expose.

Fuelcontent shot and produced video and still content featuring News24’s lead journalists from Johannesburg and Cape Town. These were rolled out, on busses, OOH billboards and digital channels across the country.

“Truth, trust, integrity and reputation are key for understanding the relationship between journalists and their readers,” says Danielle Sneiders, managing director HelloFCB+.

News media took a hit as the threat of “fake news” spread. But since 2020, trust in social media declined and trust in the news has grown as people became more critical of the source.