‘We’ll Say It’ has won Silver in Creative at The Drum Awards for Marketing for solving a high-stakes brand problem: how does a 200-year-old New York tabloid launch in media-literate California without being dismissed as an East Coast interloper? Rather than soften its controversial edge, the Post leaned into bold conviction over performative neutrality, promising Californians fearless journalism that says what others only think. The California Post app hit #11 on iOS and reached its annual print subscription target in just three weeks. Here is the award-winning case study.
The New York Post has always been defined by its bold point of view.
But in a polarized media landscape, the Post stirs controversy. People call the paper a sensationalist, trashy tabloid (or worse).
As newspapers shutter across the country, the Post decided to launch a completely new sister publication all the way out in California.
Why California? From a news perspective, the nation’s most populous state is surprisingly underserved.
A huge constituency of Californians seeks news with voice and conviction — news that reflects them, their communities and the issues they care about. But California is also a proud, media-literate state, with diverse local markets and a bone-deep resistance to imported narratives. For the California Post to succeed, it had to feel distinct yet native to the state.
Blow the entrance, and the California Post would be dismissed as a soapbox for noisy East Coast interlopers, or worse, irrelevant.
A brand with a 200-year-old heritage doesn’t get many chances to introduce itself, and as a brand that many love to hate, the Post needed to earn some California love.
The launch objectives were ambitious.
Establish the California Post as a consequential new publication in California from day one.Build confidence among advertisers by demonstrating the relevance and seriousness of intent.Introduce a media brand that is immediately recognizable, polarizing in the right way, and impossible to confuse with anyone else.
Meanwhile, trust in the media is in long-term freefall.
Over the last decade, the segment of US adults who have a lot of trust or some trust in national news media has fallen from 76% to just 56%, according to Pew Research. Among 18-29 year olds, that number is 52%.
To get a view into what’s happening, we surveyed 1,800 people, listened on social and spoke to industry insiders and news consumers. We discovered that people say they want straightforward information — “just the facts.” But when we looked at their actual behavior, we saw something different.
Audiences engage with publications that express perspective and a strong opinion. This seemed like an obvious contradiction.
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But what if it isn’t?
What if having a clear, loud and consistent perspective is what builds credibility with modern audiences? And what if journalism isn’t losing trust by having opinions, but by pretending not to?
In 2026, audiences know how the media game is played. Protests of neutrality. Rituals of balance. Hedging vocabulary.
People don’t want to feel misled, managed or manipulated. A strong point of view has a lot of bark, but people are drawn to the bite. It signals transparency.
With a planned fresh start out West, the Post was at a crossroads. They had to decide whether to minimize the aspects of the brand that stir up contention or lean into them.
Our strategic approach, born of our insights, led the way: Bold conviction beats performative neutrality.
In creative, we brought that bold conviction to life through a fearless message. The Post has always been willing to voice what others only think. In California, where news is driven by a cautious consensus, that made us stand out.
That inspired our promise to Californians: ‘We’ll Say It’. A simple line with big ownership over our voice and what we aim to do for the Golden State.
We built anticipation with wild postings across the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco, promising to shake news up in California.
On launch day, we came in hot.
We took the Post experience — the takes, the hunks and the fun — and condensed it into creative for people who had never opened an issue or visited the website.
Copy proved that ‘We’ll Say It’ across the full range of the Post’s editorial coverage, serving bold takes on politics, teasing fearless coverage to come and showing love to our new home. We took the all-caps, in-your-face, pun-packed experience of a Post headline and squeezed it into billboards and banners across California.
Art captured the essence of the Post’s iconic covers — arresting visual metaphors, larger-than-life characters, attention-grabbing layouts and type that goes big — and tied it together with unmissable Post red.
Let’s start with the numbers.
The California Post app debuted in the iOS App Store at #11.The Post hit its app download target four days after launch.Our annual print subscription target took a little longer, just over three weeks.Our campaign ran up 488 million impressions in eight weeks, more than 12 for every Californian.
What about those ambitious objectives?
We established the California Post as a consequential new publication in California from day one. We earned coverage across The New York Times, Adweek, Vanity Fair, Fox & Friends and hundreds of other outlets, including competitors like the San Francisco Chronicle. These competitors had to cover us because we made news. And again and again, they heard from their own readers about why they’d be subscribing.
We built confidence among advertisers by demonstrating the relevance and seriousness of intent. We already have a major new Post Group partner — Yaamava’ Resort & Casino. More big names are taking note.
We introduced a media brand that is immediately recognizable, polarizing in the right way and impossible to confuse with anyone else. We got love, we got heat, but we got attention. We made ourselves relevant to Californians without ever diluting what makes the Post, the Post.
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