In a time when the truth is being twisted, bent and sometimes forgotten, our work has shown how The New York Times brings the truth to readers across the world. This led to the development of the “The Truth Is Worth It,” a campaign that looks to bring to light the danger, bravery, perseverance and determination involved in being a New York Times journalist and how their efforts ultimately help people better understand the world.

Our “The Truth Is Worth It” ads are the latest in The New York Times’ “The Truth Is Hard” brand campaign series, which aims to show that original, independent journalism requires resources, time and commitment and that subscribing to The New York Times is crucial to that effort.

There are New York Times journalists out there doing everything it takes to get the story and bring back the truth to help readers understand the world—the subscription and the truth are worth it.

These films make up a campaign that looks to shed light on the rigor behind the journalism and why it's all worth it. It’s a piece of work about pursuing the truth wherever it may lead and bringing that truth back in word form for the world to read. The campaign uses a single creative approach to show that the truth is worth it across different, nonfiction films covering a breadth of issues. Each film takes on a different subject and emotional thread: rigor, resolve, perseverance and courage. The films come together to create a campaign that shows the great lengths to which NYT journalists will go to get to the truth.

This campaign ran/runs across multiple media channels, in broadcast, digital and social, targeted to our audience of the “curious readers:” consumers who seek out the news and are interested in the world around them. The first live date was October 29, 2018, but we continue to run these films around key media opportunities in multiple channels to inject ourselves into the cultural conversation. For example, we ran “Perseverance” during the State of the Union Speech on CNN and ABC, as well as during Trump’s statement on the border wall situation and his declaration of a state of emergency.

In a time when journalism is expected to be free, The New York Times relies on a pay model. Millions visit NYTimes.com every month, but only a fraction are subscribers. We wanted to build the behavior of paying for journalism by showing our target audience—the “curious reader”—that journalism needs their support. The aim of the campaign was to shift key brand perceptions identified as impacting someone’s likelihood to subscribe, ultimately getting more people to consider paying for The New York Times.

Most importantly, we set out to shift perceptions of key business-driving attributes, and we outperformed KPIs, delivering significant lifts against the statements that The New York Times “pursues the truth relentlessly,” “has a positive impact on the world” and, most critically, “is worth paying for.” In addition, we exceeded our traffic-driving goals, delivering nearly a million views of the content on our landing page, a single-campaign record for The New York Times.

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The New York Times - Truth Is Worth It

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