Attention study reveals polarizing news content has no negative impact on brand perception.

NEW YORK -- Today, Daily Mail released the findings of a study in partnership with Lumen Research that demonstrates that advertising units running adjacent to news content, including polarizing topics, deliver high engagement without harming brand perception. The study examined the impact of ads across the global news organization’s various platforms and found that readers were equally likely to purchase from brands featured alongside controversial content as from those associated with traditional topics deemed “safe.”

The findings challenge the prevailing practice among brands of employing brand safety measures to avoid advertising against news content. This presents an opportunity for brands to maintain a stable perception regardless of the surrounding media environment.

Key results include:

Half of users are likely to engage with polarizing news content right now.
One in three users are likely to respond positively to brands advertised alongside crime, political, or scandalous news.

Over 80% of users believe that advertising around polarizing content won't negatively impact brand perception.

The study confirmed that Daily Mail ad formats generate significantly better attention than industry benchmarks, with ad exposure and longer attention driving superior brand recall.

Daily Mail’s mobile formats beat the industry attention benchmarks by over 96% on average and desktop formats beat the industry attention benchmarks by over 32% on average.

Daily Mail's TikTok format generated the most attention overall and had a significant impact on brand interaction.

Daily Mail's video pushdown unit was significant in driving purchase intent, its content carousel unit significantly drove engagement times, and the mobile x-stream unit was the most optimally effective ad unit – driving the highest recall among respondents with the shortest attention generated.

“Millions of people come across a Daily Mail headline over the course of a day and our research proves that brand recall amongst our loyal readership isn’t affected by what may be on the homepage or on our TikTok feed,” Linda Villani, Chief Revenue Officer, said. “Our brand is one of the most popular on the planet, and these findings underscore the massive opportunity that brands have by partnering with us.”

The study surveyed 1,200 U.S. consumers to assess ad attention across Daily Mail's video, mobile, and desktop platforms and its top-ranked TikTok news account. Lumen utilized eye-tracking software to measure respondents' attention to brand messaging and analyze the performance of advertisements running adjacent to news content, particularly polarizing news.