2011 SAMMY Award Finalist, Best Twitter Branding Campaign The New York Times
Executives Involved in The Campaign: Cynthia Collins, Brooke Stevens, Kristin Mason
Campaign Brief: March, 2011 marked a significant transition for The New York Times as we introduced digital subscriptions. The change came in two stages. On March 17, we rolled out digital subscriptions to our readers in Canada, which enabled us to fine-tune the user interface and customer experience before our global launch. On March 28, we began to offer digital subscriptions in the United States and the rest of the world.
OBJECTIVE: Lead the conversation across social media about the digital subscriptions. Provide facts and change perception from a “paywall” to an open and porous model.
STRATEGY: Prior to March 17, negative sentiment prevailed across social media conversations about our upcoming digital subscription plan. Coverage often included the phrase “paywall.” A wall was the exact opposite of what we were introducing. Our model is purposely porous to allow for a generous amount of digital content free for all readers (up to 20 articles, section fronts, etc.) but asks users to pay for unlimited access to the site. The monthly limit is high enough that most readers won't encounter it. We remain committed to being part of the open Web. We encourage links from Facebook, Twitter, search engines, blogs, etc. Links from those channels count towards monthly limit of 20 free articles, but users will still be able to view articles even after accessing 20 free articles.
It was critical to move the dialogue away from “paywall” and towards an understanding that we were introducing a flexible system that offered unlimited access via subscription while simultaneously providing a generous amount of content free to all users. Our message risked being drowned out by critics stuck on the “paywall.” “NYT Paywall” could have become an organic Twitter trending topic. The top tweets could have linked to our competitors’ articles about the announcement or inaccurate information.
Our solution? Launch a Twitter Promoted Trend campaign and a rapid response Twitter account at @nytdigitalsubs; synchronized with the announcement’s launch on NYTimes.com. We ran the hashtag #NYTimesNews, reinforcing both our brand proposition and the intended dual meaning = news about the New York Times. We ran 5 different Promoted Trend tweets linking to the FAQ, the letter from the Publisher and The Times’s own Business article by on the announcement as well as being true to platform through RTs of managing editor Jim Roberts.
Sample Creative:
@nytimes: Do you have questions on NYTimes.com's new digital subscriptions? This FAQ might help http://nyti.ms/hVQW8Y #NYTimesNews
@nytimes: RT @nytjim: Critical point for Twitter followers: Access from social media will not be blocked in NYT plan. http://nyti.ms/en41uy #NYTimesNews.
We supplemented this with a Promoted Tweet campaign. If users searched Twitter for related keywords (including “Paywall”) they would see @nytimes tweets on the digital subscription plan at top of search results.
We launched http://www.twitter.com/nytdigitalsubs a rapid-response outreach effort with round-the-clock monitoring on March 17 and days following. We responded directly to users, correcting inaccuracies and sharing key messages.
RESULTS: We drove positive sentiment across social media conversations. Neutral Sentiment prevailed (90% range) followed by positive (5-8% range) and negative (2% range.) (source: Radian6)
Twitter Promoted Trend and Tweets:
76.1 million impressions with a 19% engagement rate: RTs, clicked on links, etc (Far exceeding Twitter’s Media Industry Benchmark: 5-8%)
2x increase in average new followers for @nytimes
4.5K mentions by users of #NYTimesNews
73K Promoted Tweet Impressions with a 39% average promoted tweet engagement rate (20x Twitter’s Average Media Industry Benchmark)
Sample Mentions from users:
@jnthnhrrsn: #NYTimesNews subscription model seems to be a good blend of free for lite, pay for heavy users. Curious to see if it works.
@awsamuel: If my grandmother were alive, she would be happy to see me pay for the @nytimes
Monitoring & Response from @nytdigitalsubs: earned retweets and praise from media/tech influentials including Jeff Jarvis, PaidContent’s Staci Kramer, Politico’s Mike Allen, Esquire, etc.
We introduced an entirely new system of Customer Care and User Research for The New York Times Company. We are directly driving new subscription starts as well as identifying user experience problems that we address and prioritize for NYT’s Product and Tech teams.
Since March, we have signed up 224,000 paying subscribers to NYTimes.com, in addition to 57,000 others who pay to receive The Times on e-readers like the Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle. We are also maintaining our monthly unique visitors rate in line the 11-month average for the site leading up to the launch of subscriptions.
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