He's Hired

America voted, and there is a new party in town. And they are all wearing red. On Wednesday, the Republicans won the Presidency, as well as the Senate, and the house. Clean sweep.

Well, whether or not you are a fan of Trump, this was good news for Alec Baldwin who will have a job for the next 4 years.

What did Hillary have to say?

A concession speech. Watch it here. Read it here. Not only was it a moving speech, but she reminding everyone that, "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead".

What about everyone else?

Well, everyone had something to say. From Obama, Trudeau and other world leaders, Seth Myers, and Leslie Knope, everyone is sharing their thoughts on the results. Hint: they are not all happy, and some are even wondering what to tell their children.

Need Some Good News?

Sick of hearing about the election? Check out these 12 images that will restore your faith in 2016. Or you can read last week's newsletter.

He's Here To Stay

For the past 18 months, news cycles have been fueled by Trump and Clinton drama. And there was no shortage of that. A few weeks ago, Digiday was even talking about how media would suffer from a post-election Trump hangover (we know that isn't happening). So, I am sure you want to know:

How did thestar.com do on election day?

Here are some key insights on how thestar.com performed on election day:

• Yesterday was the highest traffic day on thestar.com since the browser re-design, surpassing 3 million page views.
• 9 out of the 10 top articles were election related (here was the top article)
• Most of the traffic to these articles were from mobile devices
• Star Touch reached a record high of unique devices at 34K

As we mentioned last week, remind your clients that people rely on trusted brands like ours to find out about breaking news. So, even though election day is over, we know Trump isn't going anywhere, so if they do a homepage takeover, they will probably be seen by a lot of eyeballs.

Looking for when a HPTO is available? Check out the calendar.

The "Trump Lie-Tracker"

Doesn't sound like this will be going anywhere. Did you hear about Daniel Dale? No? He is the Washington Correspondant for the Toronto Star, and this year Politico named him one of 16 breakout media stars of 2016. As Politico stated in their write-up about the winners, "presidential elections are star-makers". Dale had experience dealing with a scandalous candidate (ahem, Rob Ford), and his Trump lie-tracker, which he has been updating daily since September, made him standout as a reporter in Washington.

You know who else won bigly this week?

The Star @ the COPAs (Canadian Online Publisher Awards) this week.

What did they win?

5 prizes. They won Gold for Best News Website, Best Multi-Platform Solution, and Best Video Content. The Star also took home Silver for Best Digital Content and Best Digital Solution.

Just how good did we do?

This visual of the medal standing speaks for itself.

Well, it's Official

On Tuesday, Harry released an official statement confirming his relationship with American, Meghan Markle (aka Rachel from Suits). Looks like Markle found herself a different country to escape to since the Canada Immigration site crashed on election night. You go girl.

When breaking news happens, like Trump becoming President or Prince Harry finally settling down (in the same week...crazy) people turn to our sites to understand what happened and why. Did you ever wonder whether or not ads that run aside our content are actually more effective because we are a reputable publisher? comScore did.

What do you mean?

Well, with the growth of programmatic, everyone is wondering whether or not digital ad impressions are becoming commoditized. Does the environment of the ad impressions matter? Or all ad impressions the same? So, comScore looked into it.

What did comScore find?

They found a couple things. All good things for premium publishers. Here are some of the highlights.

Display ads on DCN premium publisher sites have an average of 67% higher brand lift.

• comScore took a look at brand lift results for 15 large brand display ad campaigns across a number of categories
• This difference in brand lift demonstrates a higher performance of the display ad when it is served on a DCN premium publisher site vs. a non-DCN publisher site. Good to know.

Premium publishers are more than 3X more effective in driving mid-funnel brand lift metrics.

• Mid-funnel includes favourability, consideration and intent to recommend. Since many of the brands they looked at were large brands that consumers had awareness of (top funnel), they found that publishers do an effective job at moving the needle mid-funnel.

No surprise, viewability has a lot to do with effectiveness.

• comScore found that premium publisher sites have lower levels of invalid traffic, and higher viewability.
• This is key to effectiveness. Ads that aren't viewable have no impact on their audience. Therefore, a site that has more viewable inventory is going to drive higher ad effectiveness.

Halo what?

The Halo Effect - the extent to which higher ad effectiveness is driven by the context in which that brand is seen.

Sounds fancy right? Well start bragging about it. comScore found that premium publishers drive 51% higher effectiveness due to the "Halo Effect" specifically.

This shouldn't be surprising. As mentioned, premium publishers performed better on key parts of the study: viewability (they had higher, and lower invalid traffic), and overall brand effectiveness (aka brand lift)

So, when clients ask, "why you?", you can tell them, "because of the Halo Effect". Mic Drop. Oh, and here is the rest of comScore's State of the Digital Nation

What You Need to Watch

The John Lewis Christmas Advertisement. You deserve a feel good.

ps. Content suggestions/feedback/questions go here.