News media needs less stuffy branding to attract younger audiences

The Reuters Institute’s latest annual digital news report does not make the easiest of reading for the media, either in Ireland or around the world. Here, the percentage of 18-24-year-olds reporting strong levels of interest in the news has collapsed from 53 per cent seven years ago to just 28 per cent, while across age groups the level of news avoidance remains elevated. For anyone in the business of news, this is not ideal.

Indeed, it points to trouble ahead, especially given the study – based on a survey of more than 2,000 people – already shows a pattern of decline in regular usage of media brands across the Irish market, both offline and online.

Speaking at a briefing held by media regulator Coimisiún na Meán, Kevin Doyle, the group head of news at Irish Independent publisher Mediahuis Ireland, struck an upbeat tone when talking about the “big and growing” young audience for podcasts. The Indo Daily is an example of how organisations can change their approach, he said – not because it is a podcast, but because of its name.

“The Irish Independent has been known colloquially as the Indo in houses up and down the country for generations, [but the Indo] has never once been used in any branding, any promotion, anything visual from the company itself.”

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The official embrace of the “Indo” brand when launching the podcast in 2021 is something that “probably wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago”, because it would have been seen as “too casual”, according to Doyle.

Maybe now is the time for this fresher, more modern branding elsewhere, too. Irish newspapers, and RTÉ too, tend to make a virtue of their heritage. It is a way of conveying authority, a means of playing the trust card. This column, named after a 17th-century economist, is only one example. The use of archaic masthead fonts and other traditional symbols remains prevalent across the market even as media outlets reinvent themselves as unstuffy digital brands.

Perhaps before hastily following younger people on to TikTok or whatever platform they’re spending time on, news companies need to look afresh at whether doubling down on the legacy of the past in their brand identities is having the desired effect – or whether it is off-putting to the very audiences they are trying to reach.