Attracting eyeballs through native
Six things you didn’t know about Native Advertising:
#1. Native advertising generates up to an 82 per cent increase in brand lift.
#2. Native ads that include rich media boost conversion rates by up to 60 per cent.
#3. Purchase intent is 53 per cent higher with native ads.
#4. 70 per cent of individuals want to learn about products through content rather than through traditional advertising.
#5. According to Shrenik Gandhi, people view native ads 63 per cent more than banner ads.
#6. 32 per cent of consumers said they would share a native ad with friends and family vs 19 per cent for banner ads.
See what I did there? Yes, that is what I am here to talk about. Native Advertising!
Native Advertising is a form of online advertising that matches the form, the visual design, and function, just like natural content, of the platform on which it appears. Simply put, native advertising is paid content. A catalyst between sponsored content and editorial. Speaking in an advertising context, it is when editors share their storytelling tools with advertisers. The quality and the potential nature of native advertising means it is building the bridge between brand publishing their content online and banner advertising on websites.
Native advertising is much more than just another object on the digital front. It represents a significant change in the evolution of digital advertising. Many publishers, marketers and agencies are moving aggressively to adapt their core strategies to experiment with this new form of tactical advertising.
Let’s look back at the year gone, and a few examples of brands that took to native advertising on multiple platforms
- BuzzFeed: Brands find it easy to integrate with the simple content that the website generates for the users. A recent report stated that almost all the articles on BuzzFeed are sponsored/paid. In the two examples on BuzzFeed below, both MINI and Pepsi NEXT display their sponsored ads embedding the ‘advertisement’ through user-readable content.
- News websites: The nature of such websites makes the users go through the articles as “articles”. Probably why, a lot of users are not able to figure the intention of the article. Having said that, it is also one of the smartest ways of placing a sponsored ad without making a lot of it-is-just-another-advertisement noise about it. The New York Times has been fairly open about accepting and implementing native advertising, giving brands like Dell and Netflix advertorial space.
- Mobile News Feed: The media has gradually moved from desktop to mobile over the last few years. A lot of content is seeded on mobile devices in the form of ‘news feed’. Integrating the content on news feedthrough sponsored advertisement is a part of mobile native advertising.
- Indian websites: On the lines of BuzzFeed and Huffington Post, Indian websites like Thatscoop.com are also fast adopting the concept of Native Advertising. A lot of articles are sourced by different brands that gives them sponsored space on the article page.
Integration, integration and integration is the key to successful native advertising. Apart from the ones mentioned above, there are other different platforms that can be used for Native Advertising.
• Promoted Tweets on Twitter
• Sponsored Stories on Facebook
• Video Ads on YouTube
All this is great, but what is the need for native advertising?
Future of Native in India
In the future, all advertising on social media will be native in-stream ads,” said Jan Rezab, CEO of Socialbakers, a social media analytics company that works with Fortune 100 brands. “The right rail and banners will disappear altogether.”
Brands are likely to spend much more on native advertising in 2015. Social Media platforms like Snapchat, Vine and Instagram will soon take to the Native Advertising trend as well. With the emergence of the concept along with user related content sourcing websites, it is imperative to adapt to the growing trend. India as a market has huge potential and audience base to enable the development of Native Advertising on various digital platforms.
Indians, don’t like to be sold to, directly atleast. Indians love stories & love to be sold products embedded in one.
To end I would like to present the most important stat of 2014, from Solve Media.
You’re more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad.
Funny should I add, “Or you would probably be reading an article on how to survive a plane crash by, say an insurance company”
Got you!
The write up is part of the DMA Annual Report ‘What’s Trending 2015‘.
To book your own hard copy of the Annual, write to marketing@digitalmarket.asia
