Is bad news really bad news for your brand?

While a number of brands and their agencies see bad news as a brand safety issue, according to Dr Duane Varan CEO of research firm MediaScience, this context does very little to damage brands. In fact, it’s much more likely the juxtaposition has a positive effect.

Over the past 18 months, the hunger for trustworthy and informative content has become insatiable and news readership, unsurprisingly, increased. The surge in audiences created a huge opportunity for brands.

Nissan Marketing Director Geraldine Davys says news provides an environment to communicate with customers at key decision making moments. One such moment is the announcement of the Federal Government’s budget in May each year. “We advertised heavily post the budget announcement because we knew that there were a lot of decisions that we’re going to be made that would be important to our customers,” said Davys.