Ever heard of native advertising?

Ever heard of native advertising?

Native advertising is another one of those terms that has become a buzzword in the advertising industry, and specifically in the digital advertising industry. And like many other buzzwords, its not really new.  See what Wikipedia has to say:

“Native advertising is a form of online advertising that matches the form and function of the platform on which it appears. For example, an article written by an advertiser to promote their product, but using the same form as an article written by the editorial staff. The word “native” refers to the content’s coherence with other media on the platform.”

Sounds an awful lot like “advertorial”, the last generation buzzword for content that informs readers with a slanted view.

So why the fuss?

If you follow stories on e-marketing you’ll soon realize how much effort is being put into this by big marketers, so maybe its something we should all be thinking of. In a recent story in emarketer they report that spending in 2015 will grow by 35.4% to $10.7 billion and nearly double that by 2018.

 

So drilling down, they point to information from a survey in Dec 2104 that indicates the following criteria are rated as very important or somewhat important to the vast majority of advertisers.

  1. Native ad is contextually relevant to the surrounding editorial content.
  2. Native ad is placed within page/program editorial content.
  3. Native format ad looks like surrounding editorial content.
  4. Upon interaction, native ad behaves like surrounding editorial content.

In other words, it could be easily confused with actual non-biased editorial.  In the same emarketer story, they say”

Emarketer chart showing preferred native ad disclosure terms.“There’s been debate over how native advertisers can avoid misleading consumers, who may get confused over whether something is sponsored or editorial content, and two-thirds of ANA respondents agreed that native advertising needed clear disclosure, while just 13% disagreed. –
See more at: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Whats-Must-Have-Component-of-Native-Advertising/1012059#sthash.6mFhZORb.dpuf

What’s you opinion? Have you used native advertising? Has it worked? Do you have concerns? By creating a user login, you can make comments on this subject on our blog. We’d love to hear from you.

CONTACT US HERE