These films came out shortly after Trump sat with the publisher of The New York Times and later called the press “the enemy of the people.” The DNA and style of The Times is an integral part of each piece, with a unique typographic treatment that acts as a continuously rewritten headline. They put the viewer in the position of the journalist as they experience every emotion that goes into reporting a Times story. The films place The Times at the center of conversation with their inimitable style and their commitment to bringing the truth back for people to read.

In a time when journalism is expected to be free, The New York Times relies on a pay model. Millions visit NYT.com every month, but only a fraction are subscribers. We wanted to build the behavior of paying for journalism, by showing our target audience, the “curious reader”, that journalism needs support. The aim of the campaign was to shift key brand perceptions previously identified as impacting someone’s likelihood to subscribe.

These films make up a campaign that looks to shed light on the rigor behind the journalism and why it's all worth it. It’s a piece of work about pursuing the truth wherever it may lead and bringing that truth back in word form for the world to read. The campaign uses a single creative approach to show that the truth is worth it across different, nonfiction films covering a breadth of issues. Each film takes on a different subject and emotional thread: rigor, resolve, perseverance and courage. The films come together to create a campaign that shows the great lengths to which NYT journalists will go to get to the truth.

“The Truth Is Worth It,” highlights the rigor and lengths that to which NYT journalists go to report the truth and why it’s worth supporting; it’s “worth it” to us as an organization and “worth it” to you as a reader.

This is running across multiple media channels, in broadcast, digital and social, targeted to our audience of the “curious readers:” consumers who seek out the news and are interested in the world around them. The first live date was October 29, 2018, but we continue to run these films around key media opportunities in multiple channels to inject ourselves into the cultural conversation. For example, we ran “Immigration” during the State of the Union Speech on CNN and ABC, as well as during Trump’s statement on the border wall situation and his declaration of a state of emergency. And we continue to deploy “Taxes” in digital in answer to any conversation spikes around “fake news” or defamatory comments on the press from Trump.

We set out to shift perception against key business-driving attributes and we out-performed KPIs, delivering significant lifts against the statements that NYT “pursues the truth relentlessly”, “has a positive impact on the world” and, critically, “is worth paying for.” In addition, we exceeded our traffic-driving goals, delivering nearly a million views of content on our landing page, a single-campaign record for the NYT.