Daily Mirror Throws Down the Gauntlet with New Reactive Campaign

This Sunday, Trinity Mirror launches a 7-figure user-inspired consumer campaign during ITV’s XFactor satirising the US TV show Jimmy Kimmel Live by playing on his ‘mean tweet’ clips to reinforce the Daily Mirror’s position as the UK’s ‘intelligent tabloid’.

The newsbrand’s editorial team kicks off the 4-month campaign featuring them reading out ‘mean tweets’ from the public who are challenging the Mirror’s assertion as the tabloid that #madeuthink.

Editor-in-chief Lloyd Embley then ‘throws down the gauntlet’ to members of the public who doubt that it is possible to be intelligent and a tabloid. The following weeks will feature the public trying their hand at answering questions from that week’s Mirror to see whether they are as ‘intelligent’ as the tabloid they criticise. This means the newsbrand and its creative agency will need to turn around the ads reactively during the week.

There will also be opportunities for viewers to participate online, culminating in a chance to take on the Mirror’s editorial team live in the last week of the campaign.

The kick off activity will run during XFactor on 27 September and 4 October as well as in the ad break of Coronation Street on 9 October and 16 October. The campaign will also be featured across Digital, Social, Print and Radio.

The media buying was handled by Vizeum and the creative was and will be produced by Quiet Storm.

Zoe Harris, Group Marketing Director at Trinity Mirror Group, said: “We are incredibly proud of our product and our readers. We’ve had enough of people questioning our intelligence. Yes we feature celebrity news, sport and entertainment, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t covering more serious and important issues too. We have a background of making complex news accessible, holding those in power to account, and influencing attitudes and behaviours for the better.”

“The campaign is 100% transparent, reactive and provocative putting our editorial team at the heart of the activity. It is incredibly nerve wracking not having the creative in the bag and the media booked but I feel it is essential to have an authentic and responsive dialogue given our roles as a national real-time newsbrand.”

Trevor Robinson OBE, ECD at Quiet Storm, said: “Our brief was not to create an ad. As an advertising agency that’s quite an unusual brief. Trinity Mirror was open to a provocative and authentic approach which led to the ‘mean tweets’ idea setting up the challenge for the public. We love working with brave clients and Trinity Mirror is definitely one of them.”