The most-viewed video for the BBC in April? It was not about the death of Pope Francis. It didn’t relate to the Trump administration. It wasn’t about Gaza or Ukraine. It wasn’t the federal election in Canada or any big breaking news. 

Instead, it was this three-minute video: Watch rare Gobi bear's reaction to finding water. It’s a beautifully shot and narrated video, but why did it rise to the top amid a month packed with so much news?

Perhaps that’s precisely the point: As news overwhelms, people are looking for something different. And user needs help us find the right context mix. 

That video fell under the BBC’s user need of “give me escape,” Ben Goldberger, general manager and executive editorial director at BBC Studios, told INMA World Congress study tour attendees recently. 

“We want to give visitors an enriching diversion,” he said during our visit to BBC Studios in New York. “Audiences yearn for this content with curiosity and intrigue instead of all the negative news. We see a tremendous opportunity in giving people a little bit of wonder.”

It was a great lesson and was also a precursor to our Newsroom Transformation Seminar, later during the week of World Congress, dedicated to user needs. I was joined by an impressive contingent of user needs evangelists to tell their stories: Dmitry Shishkin, CEO, Ringier Media International, Switzerland; Nicole Stockdale, executive editor, The News & Observer and Herald-Sun, United States; Patrick Rademacher, chief strategy and innovation officer, Ringier Media, Switzerland; and Lars Anderson, head of innovation, DPG Media, Netherlands.

Here’s what they had to say:

What will change in your audience’s lives if you were to disappear tomorrow? Why do you exist in the market? What are your audience’s user needs?

Shishkin challenged the audience: “Your ‘why’ and your audiences’ ‘why’ should be the same.

“Creating content while appreciating audience needs makes you more effective, more connected and more successful on digital platforms,” he said.

The examples that followed his presentation proved the point. 

At McClatchy, the U.S.-based media company where Stockdale works, a six-week user needs sprint in 17 newsrooms led to a 12% pageview lift over the average.

She provided a strong example of how user needs changed the content approach at the Sacramento Bee in California.

During the sprint, the newsroom aimed to apply the user needs model to its transportation coverage to grow subscriber engagement. The goal was to produce at least four stories a week as a team — and each story pitch needed to have a clearly defined audience and user need before it was approved.

“By intentionally seeking out all user needs, we found stories we never would have covered otherwise, like this one on roadside attractions,” she said, pointing to a picture of hay bales dressed as minions. It was a top story and continues to generate interest, she said.

At Beobachter, a legal magazine in Switzerland, user needs helped the newsroom discover what topics led to more subscription conversions — and they weren’t the topics the newsroom was writing the most about, Rademacher said.

For instance, many stories fell under the category of “help me,” but conversions did not pace article volume, whereas stories under the categories of “touch and entertain me,” “investigate,” and “speak up about it” had fewer stories but more conversions per article.

“Analytics helped us identify new topics,” Rademacher said, noting that tailoring the user needs framework to your publication is key.

And at DPG Media, user needs have been factored into AI-powered tools and editorial dashboards, closely connecting daily work to the audiences’ needs. The user needs model provides for a common language for the news organisation — it’s data in words, Anderson said.

I also loved this chart Anderson showed because it’s an important reminder of how critical it is that our content be relevant to our audiences:

If you were registered for World Congress, you can access all of the user needs presentations here. 

If you’d like to subscribe to my bi-weekly newsletter, INMA members can do so here.

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