NBC News wants to remind aficionados of headlines of just who it’s trying to serve.
The NBCUniversal-backed news division is launching a new promotional campaign that underscores its public-service mission and emphasizes its interest in calm, face-based reportage. The campaign, whihc includes TV commercials aired during football games and billboards in Times Square and other metro areas, starts in earnest Monday.
“Over the past few months, we’ve been listening closely to Americans, and what we’ve heard is clear. People are not disinterested in news. Rather, they are hungry for civil discourse and trustworthy reporting that can empower them to make up their own minds. Exactly what NBC News stands for,” said Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCU News Group, in a memo.
NBC News relied on more than 60 interviews with Americans from across the nation, and found a strong desire for unbiased reporting rooted in fact. DNA & Stone, an ad agency, worked with NBC News to create the effort.
NBC News is just the latest in a series of mainstream news organizations who have used advertising to remind consumers of their mission at a time when President Donald Trump and White House officials are more prone to call out traditional news outlets and impugn their efforts even when their reporting is accurate. Over the years, CNN and The New York Times have both emphasized their mission at hand in ad campaigns that play up their core journalistic mission.
NBC News has been working for months on this promotional effort, and not due to its current and ongoing separation from MSNBC and CNBC. Both those cable networks will be spun off into a new, separate publicly traded company called Versant. The break up will free NBC News, which emphasizes its traditional roots, from MSNBC, which unabashedly tilts progressive. E
In addition to the TV commercials and billboards, NBC News will also places ads in streaming venues such as Disney+, Netflix, Samsung and Yahoo, andt take out print and digital ads in outlets including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Apple News adn Vanity Fair. Ads placed on radio and in social media are also expected.