News Digital Networks Australia (News DNA) today released findings from The Emotional Impact of Branded Content, a study exploring the influence of native content.

Commissioned by News DNA and conducted by independent research agency Kantar using Kantar’s Global creative development Link framework, their proprietary brand lift model and a validated neuroscience technique, the study examines the emotional impact of branded content experiences.

Fusing traditional research methods with the latest technologies available to measure emotional engagement, the study incorporated facial coding, eye tracking, intuitive association and an assessment of brand lift impact. 

News DNA’s general manager of commercial integration, Ainslee O’Brien said: “Native advertising is reaching maturity and adoption rates have never been higher.

“While many marketers recognise the benefits of native, they have had inherent questions around the value of their content marketing efforts beyond the page or video views.

“Through our full-service premium native marketplace News Native Network we have been asked this question many times, in fact, it’s a category wide challenge.

“How do we as publishers prove the value of what native content can deliver, and can native shift the dial on marketing outcomes?”

O’Brien added: “We partnered with Kantar and turned to neuroscience to better understand the emotional impact that content experiences deliver.

“Through this study, we identified that the true value of native content is in the intangible brand benefits it delivers to advertisers.

“The power of native lies in its ability to emotionally persuade.” 

The Emotional Impact of Branded Content Study examined both articles and video content experiences as part of a 7-Eleven and Simply Cups campaign authored by news.com.au, a campaign that recently collected an award at the 2019 INMA Global Media Awards for Best Execution of Native Advertising.

The purpose of the campaign created by News Native Network was to champion and raise national awareness of 7-Eleven’s commitment to preventing landfill in their partnership with Simply Cups.

By taking cup sustainability impact seriously 7-Eleven also hoped to increase brand love and trust.

The results of the study identified that the native content fundamentally changed how consumers not only thought, but also felt towards the brand by tapping into their emotions and making the messages personally relevant.

This campaign demonstrated News Native Network’s ability to change brand perceptions, build preference and push consumers through the marketing funnel towards intent.

Campaign performance was assessed by comparing respondents who were exposed to the campaign against a matched group of respondents who had not seen the campaign.

The study showed the following results:

• Against the key marketing message of 7-Eleven being a ‘pioneer in coffee cup recycling’, it saw an uplift of 24 percentage points to 57 per cent versus 33 per cent who had not seen the campaign
• Brand favourability increased 14 points to 59 per cent for respondents who were exposed to the campaign, and purchase intent increased by 12 points to 57 per cent.

The benefits from association with the host publisher, news.com.au, were also demonstrated in this study with 7-Eleven being seen as ‘relevant’ and ‘trustworthy’ score 33 per cent and 32 per cent respectively higher for respondents who were exposed to the campaign in the intuitive association task.

Kantar executive director media & digital, Mark Henning said: “The 7-Eleven Simply Cups campaign run on News Native Network clearly showed there is a strong opportunity for brands within relevant content.

“The key to success for 7-Eleven was to have a clear role for the brand that was integral to the story conveyed across the articles.

“The campaigns emotional objective and messaging required a unique measurement approach that captured the longer term attitudinal impact of the campaign for 7-Eleven.”

News DNA is presenting The Emotional Impact of Branded Content Study to market from June.