The New York Times recently began using BrandMatch, an advanced AI technology system, to enhance its advertising capabilities. This technology is designed to improve ad performance by coordinating campaign messages with relevant articles and target audiences. Key to its operation is its ability to understand campaign briefs and identify suitable audience groups for effective ad displays on pertinent articles. How it categorizes its audience, however, remains a closely guarded secret.
BrandMatch underwent evaluation between April and June, with six distinct brands, including Paramount+ and Ferragamo, spanning the technology, finance, and luxury sectors. These initial tests resulted in average metrics significantly higher than the newspaper’s average, leading to elevated engagement and interest. The results highlighted BrandMatch’s full potential as a powerful tool for refining the precision and effectiveness of ad targeting.
With its strategic implementation, BrandMatch has led to an average brand lift increase of 8.4% and increased customer consideration and preferences by 3.1%.
Employing BrandMatch: Advanced advertising at NYT
These diligent strategies exhibited BrandMatch’s integral role in amplifying customer engagement, translating into considerable gains in brand visibility and recall. Accordingly, traditional advertising strategies played second fiddle to the impressive metrics achieved through BrandMatch’s data-driven insights and automated actions.
The Times, led by former Quartz staffer Zach Seward, has focused on integrating AI technology into their newsroom’s ad-targeting capabilities using BrandMatch. This system provides superior categorization, superseding traditional category-based targeting techniques and standard first-party audience targeting methods. This change marks The Times’s continued commitment to improving and innovating its highly-targeted advertising content delivery.
BrandMatch’s accuracy was exhibited during promotions for the final “Evil season” in partnership with Paramount+. Successfully targeting a diverse audience of existing and potential supernatural genre fans, Mohit Lohia, the Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Advertising at The Times, commended BrandMatch’s ability to identify articles resonating with each target audience.
Last, Lohia acknowledged an observable enhancement in digital advertising following the implementation of BrandMatch. Its intelligent targeting capabilities have widened the scope of campaigns and improved audience engagement, proving to be an influential addition to The Times’ digital marketing toolkit.
