T Brand Studio

Background

T Brand Studio is an advertising firm owned by The New York Times and operating within the New York Times’ New York offices.¹ T Brand Studio specializes in native advertising within the New York Times, in which an advertisement mimics the newspaper’s news articles and graphics.² Much of its work appears across New York Times platforms as “Paid Posts” and on social media.

On T Brand Studio’s advertisements, a disclaimer pops up when a New York Times reader scrolls over a small question mark next to the “Paid Post” banner at the top of the advertisement. “This content was paid for by Shell and created by T Brand Studio, the brand marketing arm of The New York Times. The news and editorial staffs of The New York Times had no role in this post’s creation,” reads the disclaimer over a 2021 advertisement from Shell.³

A 2021 study published in the Internal Journal of Communication which analyzed branded content, another term for native advertising, in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post found that the newspaper’s coverage of companies paying for native advertising was “mildly suppressed.”⁴ Other studies have found that readers have a hard time discerning between “native advertisements” and actual news articles.⁵

In 2021, T Brand Studio’s creative team had more than 70 staff members.⁶

“Unexpected Energy” campaign for ExxonMobil

In 2022, the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee obtained a Telly Awards submission for ExxonMobil’s “Unexpected Energy” campaign, which emphasized ExxonMobil’s renewable energy investments across all platforms of the New York Times.⁷ T Brand Studio and Universal McCann, another public relations firm, created this campaign in 2018⁸ and applied for a Telly Award for their work, which they later won.⁹

The awards submission from Universal McCann and T Brand Studio for the Unexpected Energy campaign began with “The general population has developed preconceived notions about ExxonMobil without truly understanding the breadth and depth of the company’s commitments to climate solutions.”

In order to fix the public’s misunderstanding of Exxon’s climate commitments, Universal McCann turned to T Brand Studio “to reach our target audience where content would be in a ‘Timesian’ voice.” This involved an ExxonMobil takeover of the science section of the New York Times print edition, ads in the New York Times’ popular “The Daily” podcast, one-minute videos, and longform, journalistic-style advertisements.¹⁰

While the ExxonMobil campaign includes a disclaimer that the editorial and news staff did not contribute to the ads, the award submission noted that the campaign was able to benefit from the New York Times’ credibility: “Working with the NYT to create compelling and engaging content that mirrored the award-winning journalism of the world-renowned publication ensured authenticity, credibility and relevance, and was ultimately more impactful to the audience.”

T Brand Studio relied heavily on the idea that ExxonMobil was investing in renewable energy. Despite ExxonMobil’s claims it was increasing investment in this area, the company did not disclose any money spent on clean energy between 2009 to 2020.¹¹ The awards submission noted that T Brand Studio worked specifically on the narrative that ExxonMobil was researching how to make clean energy from algae:

“T Brand’s first-ever stop-motion production featured a futuristic world with 3D-printed objects and laser-cut acrylic backgrounds showcasing how algae and farm waste could one day fuel a sustainable energy future. The high-tech creative approach enacted across the multiplatform program mirrored the innovation of ExxonMobil’s advanced biofuels agenda and ensured that content would stand out in a crowded communications space.”

In February 2023, Bloomberg reported that ExxonMobil had abandoned its algae research.¹²

The campaign successfully improved ExxonMobil’s corporate image; after the advertising deluge, audience brand favorability increased 10 percent.¹³

Stance on Climate Change

“At The Times, we recognize the effects of climate change, and we are taking action to reduce our own impact,” writes the New York Times Company on its website.¹⁴ The New York Times Company committed to net-zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2030.¹⁵

The New York Times has not committed to stopping fossil fuel advertising.¹⁶ Clean Creatives, an initiative of Fossil Free Media, put T Brand Studio on its 2022 F-List for its work for ExxonMobil.¹⁷

Select Clients

Key People

Raquel Bubar

Bubar is the managing director at T Brand Studio International. According to her LinkedIn profile, she previously worked on the Shell account at Edelman.¹⁸

Sydney Levin-Antonelli

Levin-Antonelli is the executive video producer and creative director at T Brand Studio.¹⁹

Sebastian Tomich

Tomich has worked for the New York Times Company since 2013²⁰, including helping build out T Brand Studio.²¹ As of May 2023 worked as chief commercial officer for the Times’ Athletic.²²

Vida Cornelious

As of May 2023, Cornelious is the vice president of Creative for NYT Advertising & T Brand Studio.²³

Nathan Reese

Reese has been with T Brand Studio since March 2015 in various roles. Since March 2023, he has been the director of the creative team at T Brand Studio, according to his LinkedIn.²⁴

Adam Aston

Aston helped launch T Brand Studio.²⁵ According to his LinkedIn, he helped grow T Brand Studio to $100 million in revenue over three years.²⁶ He left T Brand Studio in 2020 and joined the Rocky Mountain Institute in 2022.²⁷ Aston is credited on a 2014 T Brand Studio advertisement for Chevron, “How Our Energy Needs Are Changing.”²⁸

In the early days of T Brand Studio, Aston addressed the controversy around “native advertising” or “branded content” confusing the New York Times’ readers, who may believe T Brand Studio’s work is actually New York Times news articles. “Media watchers are rightly concerned that this content could potentially confuse readers. That’s why The New York Times has labored to demark T Brand Studio’s work from newsroom content,” Aston told POLITICO in 2014.²⁹

Actions

2022

In September, the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee published a report, “The Role of Public Relations Firms in Preventing Action on Climate Change,” which described the role of T Brand Studio in advancing ExxonMobil’s greenwashing campaign.³⁰ The Natural Resources Committee obtained an awards submission sent by T Brand Studio and the public relations firm Universal McCann to The Telly Awards, an advertising awards organization, describing their work on the ExxonMobil campaign.

2021

In September 2021, the campaign Ads Not Fit to Print launched to pressure The New York Times to drop its fossil fuel advertising.³¹ The New York Times’ communications director, Nicole Taylor, responded to the campaign with an email comment: “Those advertising dollars are essential to our ability to provide journalists with the resources to do important, time-consuming work, including the climate reporting that is read by millions of users per week.”

On April 22, 2021, New York City filed a lawsuit accusing Exxon, BP, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute of systematically misleading consumers in New York City about the role fossil fuels play in climate change. Several ads created by T Brand Studio are included in the legal complaint as examples of deceptive greenwashing by the defendants.³² Ads included in the complaint were “The Future of Energy? It May Come From Where You Least Expect” and “From Farm Waste to Fuel,” both of which were part of T Brand Studio’s 2018 Unexpected Energy campaign. “Moving Forward: A Path to Net- Zero Emissions by 2070,” an ad created by T Brand Studio for Shell, was also included in the complaint.

In March 2021, a New York Times article revealed that the New York Times Company had prohibited fossil fuel clients from sponsoring its climate summit, its climate newsletter, and the popular podcast “The Daily.”³³

2019

T Brand Studio won a Gold Telly Award for its work for ExxonMobil, “The Future of Energy? It May Come From Where You Least Expect.”³⁴ Universal McCann worked with T Brand Studio on this campaign, which ran for 12 weeks from September to December 2018. The inner workings of this $5 million campaign were made public when the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee requested the award submission from the Telly Awards organization.³⁵

In the fall of 2019, T Brand Studio launched “Chevron Energy Progress,” a campaign for Chevron that partnered with Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa.³⁶ In an October 2019 Brand Lab Series podcast, Chevron Corporate Brand Advertising executive Andrea Donatucci explained why Chevron chose T Brand Studio after approaching other advertising firms.³⁷ Chevron chose T Brand Studio in part because T Brand Studio proposed a partnership with Alexa, the Amazon virtual assistant technology. T Brand Studio’s “Chevron Energy Challenge” ads prompted New York Times readers to ask Alexa to play the Chevron Energy Challenge in order to answer a quiz about natural gas production.³⁸

2018

In September, T Brand Studio launched the “Unexpected Energy” campaign for ExxonMobil, which focused on the oil corporation’s investments in renewable energy.³⁹ A study published in 2022 found that ExxonMobil did not disclose any money spent on clean energy development from 2009 to 2020.⁴⁰

The campaign successfully improved ExxonMobil’s corporate image; after the advertising deluge, audience brand favorability increased 10 percent.⁴¹

In September, T Brand Studio launched a campaign highlighting General Electric’s renewable energy business.⁴² As part of this campaign, General Electric was the sole sponsor of the New York Times’ “Voyages” issue, which featured almost no text over vivid images, along with an audio guide.

2017

In September, T Brand Studio created an advertisement for University of California, Davis, called “How Protecting Water Helps Industry and Nature.”⁴³ The ad promotes a cattle ranch’s sustainability efforts and partnership with UC Davis’ Center for Watershed Sciences. At the bottom of the paid post is a suggestion for readers to click on a New York Times news article featuring an interview with the director of UC’ Davis’s Center for Watershed Sciences.⁴⁴

2016

In November, T Brand Studio’s London office won a CSS Award for its campaign for Statoil (now Equinor), “A Different Look at Energy.”⁴⁵ The digital campaign was also nominated for an Awww Award. The paid post opened with “Across the U.S. and Europe, groundbreaking oil and gas initiatives rooted in collaboration and sustainability uncover new ways to drive innovation and efficiency while reducing environmental impact.” In a video advertisement created by T Brand Studio, a female scientist asks “how do we keep the planet healthy enough to sustain us?” and her research for Statoil is compared to a ballet.⁴⁶

A T Brand Studio ad for Chevron described natural gas as a “cleaner-burning fossil fuel.”⁴⁷

2015

T Brand Studio launched a campaign for Shell called “Powering Human Progress,” which promoted the oil corporation’s investment in clean energy technologies.⁴⁸

The New York Times launched virtual reality storytelling as part of its November 7-8 Weekend print edition, which included cardboard virtual reality glasses.⁴⁹ T Brand Studio created a campaign for General Electric called “How Nature Is Shaping Our Industrial Future” that also used virtual reality. This campaign ran alongside the VR news articles and discussed General Electric’s understanding of nature to build better technology, with a focus on wind energy.⁵⁰

2014

T Brand Studio created the “Energized Cities” campaign for Shell, which included videos and interactive graphics on the New York Times website and ads in the New York Times print edition.⁵¹ This campaign was the first time T Brand Studio had created advertisements for a client that went in the print edition of The New York Times. In one ad, Shell executive Jeremy Bentham described the cooperation between corporations and governments to create sustainable cities.⁵²

T Brand Studio was founded as New York Times’ branded content unit, with the goal of increasing revenue for the New York Times Company through digital advertisements.⁵³ When T Brand Studio was introduced, revenue from print advertising was declining.

The New York Times