The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2018–2019
'The Truth Is Worth It': NYT films its own reporting — double Cannes Grand Prix 2019
Droga5 dramatized how NYT reporters got their stories — making the journalism itself the ad, winning two Cannes Grands Prix.
The New York Times · Droga5
What it had to solve
In 2018, with anti-press rhetoric rising and misinformation spreading, The New York Times needed people to pay for journalism. Droga5's 'The Truth Is Hard' had argued that original reporting costs time and money; the new work had to make that invisible labor visible.
How it works
In late 2018, as journalists were being attacked and misinformation spread, The New York Times and Droga5 launched 'The Truth Is Worth It', the next chapter of the paper's 'The Truth Is Hard' brand platform. The aim was simple: make people understand that original, independent journalism takes resources, time and commitment — and that subscribing is how that work gets funded.
Instead of promising what the paper would deliver, the films showed how it worked. 'Rigor' and 'Perseverance' retraced two real investigations — Caitlin Dickerson's reporting that migrant children were being separated from their parents at the U.S. border, and the 18-month Trump tax probe in which reporters assembled more than 100,000 documents from public records. Kinetic headlines and first-person accounts put viewers inside the newsgathering process.
The series grew to five films — Rigor, Perseverance, Resolve, Courage and Fearlessness — directed by Furlined's Daniel Lindsay and TJ Martin. At Cannes 2019 it won both the Film Grand Prix and the Film Craft Grand Prix, and its 5.12 billion impressions and $16.8 million in earned media showed that a newspaper could market the craft of journalism itself.
Why it lands
- The product's most valuable asset — rigorous reporting — was invisible, so the campaign made the process itself the spectacle.
- Real investigations gave the films unassailable authenticity; no invented drama could match the stakes of actual reporting.
- Kinetic typography turned complex journalistic method into an experience viewers could follow, not an explanation they had to read.
- Positioning the subscription as a defense of truth gave people a purpose-driven reason to pay, not just a price.
- A-list directors and sound design signaled that The Times treated its marketing with the same seriousness as its journalism.
What it did
The campaign generated 5.12 billion impressions and $16.8 million in earned media, and won both the Film and Film Craft Grands Prix at Cannes 2019, plus One Show Gold Pencils.
What you can take
When a product's real value is invisible work — reporting, R&D, craft — show the process instead of the result; the difficulty itself becomes the argument.
Since then
The five films became the flagship of The Times' brand platform and were among the most awarded work of 2019. Droga5 continued the series with further films through 2019 and 2020, extending the kinetic-type technique into later New York Times brand work. The double Cannes Grand Prix helped establish brand journalism as a category: news organizations began treating reporting itself as marketing material, and the campaign is now cited in agency case studies as proof that a news brand can sell on craft and mission rather than discounts.
Sources
- 'The Truth Is Worth It' in Droga5's Latest NY Times Campaign
- Cannes Lions 2019: 'The Truth Is Worth It' New York Times Campaign by Droga5 NY Claims Second Grand Prix Win For Film Lions
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