Today, The Washington Post debuts its first-ever national brand campaign.
It sets the stage with The Washington Post’s logo, which becomes a keyhole through which unfolds the story of The Afghanistan Papers, investigative journalist Craig Whitlock’s extensive reporting on a collection of 2,000 secret documents on what officials believed went awry with the U.S.
In recent years, it has made a “massive” investment throughout its newsrooms in a variety of areas, including technology, personal finance and explanatory reporting, to ensure that it serves readers across the board as a core news source.
Future spots in the campaign will continue to use the keyhole conceit to showcase the breadth of coverage across its various platforms. “Ultimately, we can show we are a multimedia news organization, not just the printed word, which is something that our Executive Editor, Sally Buzbee, talks about all the time,” said Kelly.
The new brand push arrives as other news organizations are making big investments in branding, such as The New York Times’ “Truth”-centered campaigns with Droga5 as well as CNN’s “Facts First” with Fig.
Kelly said that the media investment in the campaign is considerable.
Though “Impact” marks the Post’s first brand push, the news organization has advertised before, most notably during the Super Bowl in 2019.