The ‘something special’ about Nine Entertainment’s Sydney Morning Herald and The Age gained perspective when INMA chief executive Earl Wilkinson spoke about the importance of ‘brand as differentiator amid a flood of news and the noise of GenAI’ at the association’s World Congress in May.
“He reminded us that news publishers frequently fall into the trap of rational marketing, brands often ‘devoid of enough personality and enough emotional resonance, and we rely too much on our own history and implied values,’ publishing audience development director Aimie Rigas recalls.
“At that point, I knew we were onto something unique with the work that was underway at the Herald and the Age,” she writes in an INMA Satisfying Audiences Blog.
“We’d held workshops with editorial leaders, interviewed a range of journalists to unpick why they continue to be inspired by our mastheads, and heard a lot from our audience about why they chose us – whether they’re paying for our journalism yet or not.
“The ‘Here's to reason’ campaign is the result of that deep collaboration. It taps into the mindset of millions of Australians who reject extremism and misinformation, and instead crave balance, context, and perspective.”
Rigas says that for more than 194 years, the strength of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age has been clear: deeply local journalism woven into the fabric of their cities and reporting that holds power to account without fear or favour. “Those are powerful differentiators, but at their core they’re rational reasons to choose us.
“But while being local is vital to what we do, it doesn’t automatically translate into how people feel or why they should care. We eventually teased out that the thing that makes our appeal unique is our consumers are reasonable people – people who want good news, good food, good sport, and great journalism.”
‘Here’s to reason’ taps into that dual truth. It acknowledges the rational strength of being trusted, local mastheads while also speaking to the emotional mindset of our community. People who don’t identify with extremes, but with balance. People who want space to think, to question, and to make up their own minds.
“From the beginning, editors and journalists were active partners, helping to shape the message and extending it into their own channels.
“We didn’t know where we’d end up, but we knew buy-in from the newsroom was integral,” she says. “We knew that any message we put out into the world would only land if it aligned with the product, the journalism.
“We helped coordinate interviews between journalists and our creative agency, Publicis Worldwide. We dug through audience data, research, and brand insights. We surfaced everything we knew and interrogated it.
“When the editors felt it was important to have real Age and Herald readers in their respective campaigns, we made it happen.
“When they told us education and transport were key editorial pillars, we worked those beats into the script.”
The creative approach is striking and human: black-and-white portraits of Sydneysiders and Melburnians cast directly from the streets. They represent a spectrum of views, united by a shared belief in balanced journalism. Each participant was asked to fill out a questionnaire to surface their views (and to see if they were readers of the Herald and The Age).
“Our journalists, the heart of our mastheads, brought their voices to the campaign via deep interviews with our creative team and again in our front-page wrap.
“Jordan Baker, chief reporter at the Herald, said, ‘The world is complex and people are nuanced. At the Herald, we don’t try to serve up the answers. We’ll hunt down the facts, air the perspectives, and examine the motives so readers have the information they need to make up their own mind.’
Political editor Peter Hartcher framed it against the rising tide of misinformation: ‘We can’t and won’t flood the zone. We can be a life raft of reason.’
And columnist Jacqueline Maley reminded us of tone: ‘News consumers don’t want to be lectured or manipulated. They want their news conveyed in good faith, with prose and panache but no drama.’
“That editorial endorsement is a mark that the campaign is more than advertising; it’s a shared statement of purpose,” says Rigas.
“It extends across television, digital, audio, cinema, out-of-home, and social channels, and promises to reach 90 per cent of news readers in Sydney and Melbourne. But perhaps its most important impact is internal: uniting our people around a message that feels true to what they do – enough so that they’re willing to put ‘Here’s to reason’ stickers on their laptops.
“We’ve already had strong feedback from our audience stating the campaign has resonated, including from Bradley Wynne of Croydon. In a letter to the editor, Wynne said that, apart from serving as the community’s journal of record, our mastheads serve as ‘crucial filters against the blizzard of news and information choices’ consumers face at every turn. It is comforting to observe the Herald taking a moment to reaffirm its position in such a storm,’ he said. ‘That is, we trust the paper and the organisation it represents to be reasonable – in its news selection, its tone, its balance, its formidable investigative journalism, its commentary and analysis, and even, on occasion, its sense of humour.’
“We had another great letter from Celeste Hankins in Ashfield, who gave us a reminder of the importance of the Herald’s future: ‘One of the simplest pleasures of repatriating, after five years in the US, has been reading the Sydney Morning Herald each morning over breakfast with our children,’ Hankins said. ‘As we digest snippets of news with our children, we teach them to check, check, and check again – facts, sources, motivations. To evaluate our own opinions and how they may change with new information. Thank you for providing the opportunities to facilitate these discussions and equip our children with the ability to reason.’
Rigas says that, on launch week, editors dedicated their weekly newsletters to the campaign message, Patrick Elligett (The Age) noting ‘none of these ideas are revolutionary, so it is somewhat alarming that this reason-centred approach has become a point of differentiation in the Australian media in 2025.
“In a time of AI disruption, declining trust, and polarised debate, publishers everywhere are wrestling with how to differentiate. For us, ‘Here’s to reason’ does so by championing the reasonable majority.
“It’s more than a campaign; it’s a representation of what drives us. A rallying cry for balance, nuance, and reason. And it’s one both our readers and our journalists have claimed as their own.”