Brands can safely advertise on quality news platforms regardless of the kind of content ads are placed next to, according to Stagwell’s 2025 Future of News APAC News Advertising Study.
Importantly, the Singapore forum went ahead on October 8 despite recent turbulence for the company. Festival of Stagwell, the London-based event scheduled on September 10 had been postponed “due to safety concerns" following Stagwell’s defence of its work with the Israeli government emerged.
Against this backdrop, the Singapore forum took on heightened significance: Stagwell used the platform to reinforce trust in news advertising while navigating reputational scrutiny tied to political content and client work.
The study found near-identical metrics for consumers across diverse news topics in the region. Ads placed adjacent to ‘brand safe’ content, such as business, entertainment, and sports, averaged 70.9%, just marginally higher than ‘not brand safe’ topics, including global and local politics and crime (68.8%).
While the average metric scores differ only slightly across different content types, consumers rated brand reputation highest for ads placed adjacent to business content (71.6%) and lowest for global politics news (68.6%).
The study surveyed over 9,800 consumers across Singapore, Japan, Vietnam, and Hong Kong, and tested four localised ads placed next to six types of news content. Consumers respond based on eight brand reputational metrics: purchase intent, favourability, care for customers, trustworthiness, value offering, if the company is an employer of choice, association with the right values, and quality products or services.
A fifth of consumers (21%) indicated they are ‘news junkies’, reporting that they check the news over seven times daily and read an average of nine news articles every day. The typical profile of a news junkie includes having a tertiary degree (78%), being employed full-time (70%), living in urban areas (71%), and being millennial or Gen X (72%).
News junkies rated ads positively (80.2%) across all six types of news content. Across different generations, Gen Z (74.9%) and millennials (75.4%) also reported similar sentiments. Parents (81.2%) and tertiary-educated consumers (73.9%) indicated favourable ratings as well, suggesting little to no brand safety issues across various demographics.
In APAC, consumers in Vietnam showed the least concern for brand safety for ads placed on news platforms, rating an average of 88.5%. Meanwhile, those surveyed in Japan rated only 49.1% on these metrics, suggesting they have the least trust in ads placed adjacent to news content.
Consumers in Hong Kong (65.2%) and Singapore (77.4%) scored within a tenth of each other, indicating a moderate level of concern when it comes to brand reputation for ads placed on news platforms. Overall, the ratings show that ads adjacent to top-of-mind news content tend to perform well with consumers across different markets.
"The findings of our APAC study reinforce a consistent narrative: trusted journalism connects brands with engaged audiences and fuels stronger business outcomes,” said Mark Penn, chairman and CEO of Stagwell.
"The role of news in shaping consumer trust and brand safety is as critical in this region as it is globally, and this event gave leaders across industries the chance to engage with fresh insights tailored to our markets," added Randy Duax, managing director of Stagwell APAC.
Other findings:
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Vietnam stands out with the highest overall brand reputational score, rating favourability at 92% and 91% for quality products, across all news topics.
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Japan reports the lowest brand scores, with purchase intent at 24% and trustworthiness at 57%, showing little variation between global and local politics (46%-55%) and sports (61%-64%).
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Singapore’s brand reputational metrics are strong and consistent with sports (78%) and business (77.4%) nearly identical to crime (77.4%) and politics (76.5%-78.4%).
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In Hong Kong, business and entertainment yield slightly higher scores (67.2% and 65.4% respectively) than global and local politics (64.2%-64.7%) and crime (63.8%).
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Vietnam’s trustworthiness metric peaks at 93% for news adjacency, especially in crime (95%), business (94%), and sports (94%).
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Purchase intent in Singapore is 63% overall, with the highest scores for crime (68%) and sports (63%), only a few percentage points above global politics (62%).
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In Japan, favourability ranges from 40% for crime news adjacency to a high of 61% for sports—a muted difference, with no category exceeding 61%.
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Hong Kong’s most positive metric is “want to work at,” which peaks at 62% for business stories but falls to just 56% for entertainment and 58% for crime.
