MAA Ad of the Week: Financial Times from New Commercial Arts

Time was when journalists would be drilled to focus on who, what, where, when and how in news stories, preferably all in the first (short) paragraph.

That seems to to have been on the collective mind of the Financial Times’ marketing team and agency New Commercial Arts in NCA’s first subscription-building campaign for the venerable pink business paper, now extolling its coverage of world affairs too.

So the campaign is called ‘For The Why’ emphasising that the FT tells you not just who, what and where, which most news sources mostly do, but why.

“Our journalism has always been rooted in answering the hardest questions,” says Fiona Spooner MD Consumer Revenue at the FT. Financial Times. “For The Why reflects what we consistently hear from readers: that while headlines are everywhere, trusted explanations and context are not. This campaign shows how FT journalism goes beyond the headlines to provide understanding that others can’t and why that depth of insight is worth paying for.”

FT subscriptions are pricey but you get a lot for your money, not least measured coverage of politics which, in the UK anyway, is as rare as hen’s teeth these days, even in the likes of The Times and Sunday Times. It’s as though nearly all the papers have veered rightwards as they observe the unfolding car crash of the current Labour government.

This gets the point over quickly and economically – which, given it’s journalism it’s selling, is as it should be.

MAA creative scale: 8.