National newspaper rivals launch £3m campaign to fight ad slump

An unlikely alliance of national newspapers, from the Sun and Mirror to the Mail, Telegraph and Guardian, is to launch a multimillion-pound ad campaign promoting the power of news brands.

The UK’s six national newspaper groups have come together to run a £3m ad campaign across their 18 titles which will run for eight weeks from Wednesday.

The six ads in the campaign use a range of straplines including one that is a nod to the unusual alliance formed between newspaper groups more used to fierce competition: “Divided loyalties perhaps. Undivided attention for sure”.

The campaign, which follows a tough summer that has seen dramatic falls in ad spend on national newspaper titles, will run in print and digitally.

“Technology and the arrival of tech organisations has transformed the way all of us find information, which means the important role newspaper brands play can sometimes be overlooked,” said Rufus Olins, chief executive of national newspaper marketing body Newsworks. “We felt it was time to remind people about the job they do and extraordinary influence they have over people’s opinions and decision-making.’’

The ads will be run by News UK’s newspaper stable, Evgeny Lebedev’s Independent, i and London Evening Standard, the Guardian and Observer, the Mail group including Metro, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph and The Mirror portfolio including the Sunday People.

The ad campaign, created by agency Holmes Hobbs Marcantonio, also includes a 40-second film that aims to show that newspapers in print and digitally are attention grabbers for audiences who frequently “surf, roll and skip”.

The overall campaign runs with the line “Nothing works like news works”.

“National newspapers are now more widely read than they were in Fleet Street’s heyday,” said Alfredo Marcantonio, partner at HHM. “Not only this, but people are faithful regardless of format – they’d no more change their newspaper than their football team.”