The Wall Street Journal emerges as the top media brand by advertising equity, X falls off the map for marketers and consumers
Retail Media Networks (RMNs) revealed as one of the top growing channels in 2024
New York, NY, 17 October 2024: Kantar, the world's leading marketing data and analytics company, found through its in its annual US Media Reactions Report that while consumers are overall more positive and open to ad experiences, over-targeting is driving consumers back into offline channels and more “natural” advertising experiences like retail media networks and news publications. This has led to a resurgence in trust and advertising equity in news publication especially amongst younger generations, with The Wall Street Journal ranking as the #1 media brand for advertising equity and #1 for category influencers in 14 out of 15 categories. This contrasts the continued fall of X, with 26% of marketers planning to reduce ad spend in 2025 – the biggest recorded pullback from any major global ad platform – largely due to marketer and consumer distrust of the platform.
"We go to great lengths to ensure our advertisers achieve a positive ROI by leveraging our rich 1P data to reach the right audience with the right content at the right time," said Josh Stinchcomb, Global Chief Revenue Officer for Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal. "As we strive to be the most performant and measurable partner in the publisher world, it's greatly satisfying to see proof that the effort is working."
Kantar’s US Media Reactions 2024 report is an annual study exploring the evolving media landscape, based on interviews with consumers and marketers.
“There has never been more opportunity and less room for error in the advertising industry,” says Nicole Jones, Chief Media Commercial Officer for Kantar North America. “Our data shows year over year, consumers raise the bar for marketers, but marketers have yet to nail effective creative and media executions.
This year’s findings point to five big trends defining consumer attitudes towards advertising experiences:
- Rebirth of trust in news. Newspapers were ranked #1 for both trust and relevancy/usefulness by US consumers, as well as landing the top channel for consumer advertising receptivity. For American men, newspapers were listed as #1 channel for ad equity and women ranked newspapers as #3. Gen Z listed newspapers as their third most important channel overall. Similarly, category influencers scored newspapers in top 5 channels across every industry except alcoholic beverages. US consumers are valuing the societal impact of media more than any other factor. Growing concerns about issues like climate change, social inequality, and ethical sourcing has led consumers to seek out brands that reflect their values. This sentiment is extending into channel preference as well, which may be why we’ve seen a resurgence in advertising receptivity for certain channels.
- Rise of Retail Media Networks (RMN). For two years in a row, marketers highlighted RMN as one of the channels they intend to increase spend. In 2024, consumers have begun exhibiting positive responses to RMN based channels, especially point-of-sale and e-commerce. Point-of-sale advertising holds more equity with consumers than any other channel. It’s also among the most trusted, coming in at #2 out of all channels evaluated. As for e-commerce, consumers rank this as the most innovative media channel in 2024.
- Context reigns supreme. Embracing the interplay of channel and creative is a critical driver of campaign success, and not understanding this relationship can result in marketers alienating and weakening channel equity. Music and humor continue to be the most impactful creative elements for US consumers, who show the highest receptivity to ads featuring these characteristics. Ads surrounded by entertaining content like music, movies, sports or comedy shows level up that appeal. These factors directly tie to the media channels that are most entertaining and attention-getting, including TV, streaming, and Cinema.
- Waning influencer impact. While influencer content maintains its exponential growth, consumers are beginning to express influencer content fatigue and a growing skepticism of authenticity. Influencer marketing is a valuable tool, but there is a noticeable gap between consumers' and marketers' perceptions of influencer ad effectiveness, with marketers listing influencer content 31.82% higher in advertising receptivity than consumers. Additional Kantar research finds that these types of marketing executions can be incredibly effective driving short- and long-term performance, but trust is the price of admission.
- Marketer misalignment. Consumers and marketers largely aren’t on the same page when it comes to channel preferences. While consumers are increasing their positive reception towards channels like POS, magazine, newspaper, magazine, and OOH, marketers are cutting budgets to favor OLV, streaming and SM, all which are less favorable to consumers. Marketers must work harder than ever to build trust and credibility with their consumers. As the spread of misinformation grows alongside privacy concerns, the public has grown weary of media, opting for more authentic and transparent content.
Jones continues “Our research shows that 80% of a campaign's impact on brand predisposition comes from only 20% of paid, owned and earned channels. So, it's good to focus on those which are most powerful for the brand. It's critically important to tailor content to the channel; campaigns that master this contribute 50% more to brand key performance indicators, both in terms of short-term sales and long-term brand equity.”
To learn more about the media trends dominating the market, click here.
About Kantar
Kantar is the world's leading marketing data and analytics business, providing indispensable insights to the world’s top companies. Combining meaningful attitudinal and behavioral data with deep expertise and advanced analytics, Kantar helps clients understand what has happened, why it has happened, and how to shape the strategies that drive their future success. For more information, please contact press@kantar.com.
About Kantar’s Media Reactions Annual Report
Kantar has been at the forefront of media experience and perception research for over 20 years. Media Reactions combines insights from both consumer and marketer studies to provide a comprehensive view of the current media landscape. This year’s survey engaged around 1,000 marketing professionals from advertisers, agencies, and media companies worldwide, alongside 18,000 consumers across 27 markets. Kantar US Media Reactions focuses on the 900 consumers based in the states and their perceptions and attitudes towards media channels and publisher brands. To learn more about channel preference differences around the globe, global media channel preferences, watch the webinar “Kantar Media Reactions 2024: Moving at the speed of culture” on demand here.