Case Study/

The Guardian
How a modern day newsroom
uses social data at its core

Brandwatch.com
At a glance/
About The Guardian

Guardian News & Media (GNM) publishes theguardian.com which,

with 130 million unique browsers a month*, is one of the largest 1821
English-speaking quality newspaper websites in the world. Since YEAR FOUNDED
launching its US and Australia digital editions in 2011 and 2013
respectively, traffic from outside of the UK now represents over two-
thirds of The Guardians total digital audience.

The Guardian is most recently renowned for its Pulitzer Prize and
161,152
THE GUARDIAN
Emmy-winning revelations based on the disclosures made by DAILY CIRCULATION
whistleblower Edward Snowden. In 2014, The Guardian was named
newspaper and website of the year at the Society of Editors UK Press
Awards and is the most trusted news source in the UK (Ofcom digital
media report, 2014). 183,595
THE OBSERVER
WEEKLY CIRCULATION
Industry Media

130 Million
Headquarters Kings Place,
90 York Way,
London N1 9GU
UNIQUE WEBSITE VISITORS
PER MONTH
Founded 1821

Circulation The Guardian circulation: 161,152 daily

The Observer circulation: 183,595

Recent awards Awarded the National Newspaper of the Year

in 1999, 2005, 2010 and 2013

*source The Guardian Press Page http://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office

The Guardian/ Case Study 02

Background

The general elections of 2015 would elect the 56th parliament of the United Kingdom. Culminating with
the announcement of the result on 6th May 2015 each of the 650 parliamentary constituencies elected
one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons.

The 2015 elections were the first general elections following the end of a fixed term parliament and were
predicted to be a too close to call result. Many believed the elections would result in a second hung
parliament, similar to the 2010 election.

As with many political events, media attention around the election campaigns and results would be rife.
The Guardian has been published for the last 195 years, and has serious credentials when it comes to
providing coverage of UK politics.

The Guardians aim for the duration of the election campaign was to be the foremost publisher of
content for younger audiences, and provide the content that engaged this demographic more than any
other newspaper.

The Guardian/ Case Study 03

Demographic Insights

Appealing to the youth vote is always an important aim for any political What The
party in the run-up to a general election. In the five years since the last
general election, smartphones and social media have heavily impacted
Guardian did ...
how politicians and their parties talk to a nation of technically savvy The Guardian increased its
millennials, many of whom are voting for the first time. volume of mobile users among
the 18-24 year old bracket
Targeting millennials and being able to create relevant content that by 18%
would resonate with the student demographic was a critical goal for
The Guardian.

Brandwatch Demographics provided the publisher with the ability to

isolate political conversation online to a smaller group of individuals:
students.

Making use of this allowed The Guardian to identify more about the
people, specifically millennials, behind the conversation. The data the
institution was most interested in included:

Account type (whether they are an organization or an individual)

Gender
Interests
Profession
Location

The Guardian/ Case Study 04

The insights pulled from the research allowed The Guardian to understand how conversations shifted
within different segments of its key audience. It also helped improve campaign targeting and media
planning, so the publisher could ensure the content it created around the election campaign was relevant
and reached the right people.

Using these kinds of insights helped The Guardian uncover which activities, topics and articles were helping
drive young readers to its content. By gearing its work around this data, and producing mobile-optimized
materials, the newspaper managed to increase its volume of mobile users amongst the 18-24 year old
bracket by 18%.

GROWTH OF MOBILE USERS

3,694
3,087 21% 23%
2,551
2,342 16% 15%
3,179 18% 19%
2,653

3,969 4,213 28% 26%

69%

2,364 2,799 16% 17%

VOLUME OF UNIQUE VISITORS SHARE (%) OF UNIQUE VISITORS
TO GUARDIAN MOBILE WEBSITE TO GUARDIAN MOBILE WEBSITE

18 - 24 25 - 34 35 - 44 45 - 54 55+

The Guardian/ Case Study 05

Unique, informed content

The general election was one of the most heavily-covered events What The
of 2015 by global media.
Guardian did ...
Media publications were fighting for readers attention and aimed to The Guardian included social
produce the most compelling analysis of how the election campaign data in its editorial and social
was panning out. articles to gain a real-time
competitive edge
The election campaign itself saw a number of live debates between
the parties, for only the second time ever in the UK. These live debates
were televised across terrestrial channels and saw the media in a
frenzy to become a key part of the conversation.

Brandwatch Analytics gave The Guardian the ability to monitor how

the public were reacting to the debates as they unfolded, and allowed it
to publish relevant, unique and timely stories to gain a real-time edge.
These were published across the news outlets social media platforms
as well as featuring in its liveblogging commentary articles.

GENDER SPLIT

38% 62%
18,975 authors 30,963 authors

The Guardian also used social data within its long form content.
Sophisticated analysis of data taken from social media has a certain
agnostic, unsolicited quality, something The Guardian were keen to
exploit as a unique editorial advantage over competitors.

The Guardian/ Case Study 06

 There is plenty of data, however, to give a clear indication at this stage in the
campaign of what is working and what is not. And at first glance, there is
plenty for Labour to be cheered about. An analysis by the Guardian and the
social media monitoring company Brandwatch of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram
and a number of the other sources found that the party was by far the most
mentioned party on social media, with more than 1.5m mentions compared to
902,000 for the next closest, Ukip, and 855,000 for the Conservative party.
WHO IS WINNING THE ELECTION BATTLE ON SOCIAL MEDIA? THE GUARDIAN

Looking at the period from early March 2015 to the election results in May, The Guardian saw online
mentions of their publication rise by 645.36% (see chart). The socially-informed campaign generated a
notable rise in social engagement for The Guardians political articles.

GENERAL ELECTION 2015 & THE GUARDIAN

MENTIONS OVER TIME

100k
82,206
MENTIONS
80k

60k

40k

20k

0
MARCH 2015 APRIL 2015 MAY 2015

The Guardian/ Case Study 07

Dominating share of voice

The student population of the United Kingdom was a key demographic for The Guardian for the duration of the
election campaign, but the publisher was not the only media publication chasing the attention of this group.

Dominating share of voice how much The Guardian brand was talked about compared to its primary
competitors was an important element of the news outlets campaign performance tracking.

Not long into the campaign, The Guardian managed to nail the formula and pulled ahead of the pack. In fact,
in just one week, links from The Guardian were shared 30,708 times in conversations relating to the election
- a number even greater than the 28,129 and 15,820 shares that the BBC and The Independent managed to
generate in the same period.

GUARDIAN
BBC
INDEPENDENT
DAILY TELEGRAPH
DAILY MIRROR
DAILY MAIL
HUFFINGTON POST
DAILY EXPRESS
FINANCIAL TIMES
TIMES
VICE
THE SUN
BUZZFEED

0 4k 8k 12k 16k 20k 24k 28k 32k

UNIQUE AUTHORS

Understanding share of voice is an important component in both market research and competitor
benchmarking. It is a top line metric, but a crucial one for an industry dominated by eyeballs, awareness
and attention.

The Guardian/ Case Study 08

By using Brandwatch Analytics, The Guardian were able to understand which topics and interests were
being discussed by its target demographic the most, presenting opportunities for its journalists to create
content that was more likely to resonate with this audience.

This understanding of its audience allowed The Guardian to dominate share of voice (with the student
demographic) over other publications for the duration of the election campaign. Figure 2 demonstrates
how when looking at conversation about the individual parties, The Guardian completely overshadowed
its competitors, with their links being shared 31,808 times in just one week, 76% more than their main
competitor the BBC.

GUARDIAN
BBC
INDEPENDENT
DAILY TELEGRAPH
DAILY MIRROR
DAILY MAIL
HUFFINGTON POST
DAILY EXPRESS
FINANCIAL TIMES
TIMES
VICE
THE SUN
BUZZFEED

0 4k 8k 12k 16k 20k 24k 28k 32k

MENTIONS VOLUME

What I like about Brandwatch is the ability to to split the online conversations
by general topics and [political] parties. This allowed us to understand how well
our content was performing against our competitors on certain subject areas
during the elections
TESSA NYMAN, CONSUMER INSIGHTS MANAGER, GUARDIAN NEWS & MEDIA

The Guardian/ Case Study 09

Conclusion

The Guardians bid to be the foremost publisher of political content for younger demographics during the
2015 election proved to be an overwhelming success.

Using Brandwatch Analytics throughout the campaign, The Guardian demonstrated how modern, forward-
thinking media institutions can gain a competitive edge in a marketplace where advantages are slim and
competition is fierce.

The Guardian/ Case Study 10

About
Brandwatch
Brandwatch is the worlds leading social
intelligence company. Brandwatch Analytics
and Vizia products fuel smarter decision making
around the world.
The Brandwatch Analytics platform gathers
millions of online conversations every day and
provides users with the tools to analyze them,
empowering the worlds most admired brands
and agencies to make insightful, data-driven
business decisions. Vizia distributes visually-
engaging insights to the physical places where
the action happens.
The Brandwatch platform, ranked highest in
customer satisfaction by G2Crowd in the Winter
2016 social media monitoring report, is used by
over 1,200 brands and agencies, including Cisco,
Whirlpool, British Airways, Sony Music, and Dell.
Brandwatch continues on its impressive
business trajectory, with more than 50 percent
of revenues now from North America.
brandwatch.com
Brandwatch. Now You Know.
The Guardian/ Case Study 11
The Guardian
Guardian News & Media (GNM) publishes
theguardian.com which, with 130 million unique
browsers a month, is one of the largest English-
speaking quality newspaper websites in the
world. Since launching its US and Australia digital
editions in 2011 and 2013 respectively, traffic from
outside of the UK now represents over two-thirds
of The Guardians total digital audience.
The Guardian is most recently renowned for
its Pulitzer Prize and Emmy-winning revelations
based on the disclosures made by whistleblower
Edward Snowden. In 2014, The Guardian was
named newspaper and website of the year at the
Society of Editors UK Press Awards and is the
most trusted news source in the UK (Ofcom
digital media report, 2014).
theguardian.com
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