The Branding Lesson for Your Business from this New York Times Failure

The other day, my teenage daughter asked me for a good news source. I told her to check out The New York Times. And so began the teaching moment through which we learned that no financial bar is too low even for a company that professes truth at its core. It is also a crucial lesson in branding.

Now, I’m not new to the publication. When I was in college it was required reading for a couple of my International Relations classes because it was one of the few places in the US one could find good reporting on international issues.

Ever since, (without getting too specific about timelines, I subscribed long before my teenage daughter was born), I’ve appreciated their reporting. I get that today some claim that it has a liberal bias but that is mostly because “being factual” has become “liberal.” Opinions are clearly stated as such, while the reporting is well researched and supported.

They do this even in 2024, where you can make up just about anything and somebody will buy it. Which, it turns out is a key way that the newspaper makes money.

The mission of the paper is “We seek the truth and help people understand the world.” This is what I had in mind when I referred my daughter to it.

What she came back with is this:

I’m not referring to the article, though I appreciate the irony. What she pointed out was the advertisement in the middle of the page. It encouraged us to learn why we should wrap foil around our doorknobs.

There was no good reason for wrapping foil around doorknobs. This was clickbait, the article itself having little to nothing to do with the content of the ad.

Another way to say clickbait is disinformation or maybe lying to people to trick them into taking action. It’s on the same page as a NY Times article on disinformation.

When my daughter brought this up to me I checked my own app and found the one she referred to and another:

This ad again had nothing to do with what it claimed.

And this is what NY Times customer service had to say.

Normally block the ads, but when I turned off the ad blocker I was bombarded by ads as if it were a cheap website desperate for every last penny, rather than one that brought in over $1 billion in subscription revenue in 2023.

They only earned $161 million in ads, and while they don’t break it out clickbait ads must be a small fraction of that.

My daughter asked how one could trust a “news source” that used lying as a source of revenue. In her eyes it looked like any other cheap website.

So I asked customer service. They told me that ads remained a critical part of their revenue. They went on to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of how ads work by telling me to avoid these ads by viewing the paper in an incognito browser (which would remove tracking and probably increase the amount of clickbait and anyway I use the app).

When I pointed this out, they escalated my question to someone else who expressed grave concern and did nothing.

So here’s what we are left with: one of the most successful information subscription services in the world regularly promotes deceptive ads, which goes against their mission of truth, to add a few dollars to their bottom line.

The problem: the way you do anything is the way you to everything.

If, as my teenage daughter pointed out, the newspaper makes money by spreading misinformation why should we believe the content itself?

There is no reason.

An organization either lives up to its mission and values or it doesn’t. You can’t kinda sorta do it over here and then do it more seriously over there. The fact that one part of an organization ignores the mission means that it is okay to ignore the mission.

I still think the reporting is good at The New York Times but it does suggest to me that when a conflict comes up, as it will, between factual reporting and money there are situations in which the publication will choose money.

This reduces my trust in the entire organization. It should reduce yours.

The NY Times stands for investors, not for truth and will do anything to keep investors happy even if it compromises the truth.

What this means to you

If you run a business take a look at your mission, your values, and what you stand for. Accept that the way you do anything is the way you do everything and ask yourself are you living up to the promises that you make?

If you do you will be able to create a sustainable brand that endures, if you don’t you will struggle. The NY Times may be able to get away with it now, for a while, because it is a legacy brand. But you can’t because you’re not. (I’m assuming you aren’t James Quincey).

This will eventually impact the Times too… inconsistency has a way of doing that.

The fallacy of investor first

Business school teaches that you should optimize your business to the benefit of investors, the higher the investor return the better a business contributes to the economy.

In fact, there’s too much at stake and there are too many ways to cheat the system. It is too easy today to make money for investors in ways hurt the economy in the long run.

A humancentric model still makes money but it focused the priorities on a broader definition of value and imposes limits that benefit the organization, the employees, society as a whole, and investors.

My daughter’s report turned out fine.

The reporting she referred to was solid and the Times is still a respected source. And I was impressed with her observations.

For now,I’ll continue to subscribe to The NY Times but this does make me think. Perhaps it is time to look for something new.

But this is less about the times and more about us. Do we follow the example of the Times and disrespect our customers or do we stand a for something and act accordingly.

Even the small actions matter because the way you do anything is the way you do everything.