Communications & New Media Nov 2015 Vol 29 No 11

Most native ads fail because they’re not native (or good)
Native advertising once promised to rescue online media with a
legit revenue stream. A quick look at today’s poster children for the
format, however, reveals most of the content is downright dreadful.
The defenders are quick to say it’s early
days, but it’s been a good four to five
years since the industry starting chiseling
away at this format.
To understand what’s gone wrong, it’s
worth circling back to the definition of native
advertising, this one from Dan Greenberg
at PandoDaily:
“In our view, native advertising
should be broadly defined as ad
strategies that allow brands to promote
and weave their custom content
into the endemic experience
of a website or app. These native ad
experiences differ from traditional
digital ad formats such as display
and pre-roll because they are choicebased
placements (i.e., non-interruptive)
that are well integrated into
the visual design and content feel of
a publisher’s site.”
The simple version: given a choice between
journalism and advertising, people
gravitate to journalism. So, if brands can
create advertising that looks like journalism,
it stands to reason that more people
will read the “advertising.”
Here’s the conundrum. If the “advertising”
looks too native and too close to the
editorial product, it stands to fool the reader.
So publications have established wording
and visual cues that tell the reader that
this is paid content, not editorial. No media
property wants to experience the public
flogging that The Atlantic took in early 2013
when its native ad on Scientology looked
too close to the real thing.
While the salesmanship that went into
foisting the term “native advertising” on
the industry is impressive, there’s nothing
natural about the vast majority of native advertising
that does interrupt and often jars
the senses.
By Lou Hoffman
What plagues native advertising
This example from the San Francisco
Chronicle offers a good microcosm of what
retards the growth of this form of advertising.
You can see in the above image how the
“native ad” shows up in my feed. I’m reading
the sports page on a Sunday, headline
on the 49ers, a feed of local sports stories
in the left-hand column and a feed of international
sports in the right-hand column.
Sticking with the right-hand column, a
native ad from Ford appears. Apparently, I
missed an IOC vote that cast parking a car
as an Olympic sport. Otherwise, how can
Ford rationalize this ad as part of the natural
sports feed?
And someone might want to let the Ford
copywriters in on a little secret. Using
words that one might find in a sports story
like “tight spots” and “uphill battle” doesn’t
transform copy on parking a car into one
that feels like a natural fit on the sports
page.
Clicking to the actual native ad delivers
this. Again, it’s not native or good.
In spite of trying to camouflage intent
with five videos starring “brainy engineer
Johanna Slanga and
funny guy Greg Hess,”
this is a product ad
about a Ford car. The
San Francisco Chronicle
would never assign this
story to a reporter, and
the content clashes with
the natural story flow.
Worse, the ad commits
the deadliest sin
of all.
It’s painfully dull.
Lou Hoffman
Effective NA is the exception not the rule
If you search enough places, you can
discover native advertising that works. A
Denny’s native ad in The Onion delivers on
the irreverence and parody of The Onion.
But the Denny’s native ad is a outlier.
Once you move away from publications
like The Onion and BuzzFeed, it’s damn
hard — and expensive — to develop native
advertising that lives up to the definition.
Rather than try to change the trajectory
of native advertising, the industry should
invent a new category. Anyone for “alien
advertising?”
Lou Hoffman is CEO of The Hoffman
Agency.
GETTING THE MOBILE MESSAGE
_Continued from previous page
Brands can deliver tailored offers and
announcements to targeted audience segments
via mobile messaging apps. Video
dominates in private messages so consider
a 6-15 second ad with a strong call-to-action.
Social media is a human-to-human
communication channel.
Mobile messaging applications are free
to download and use, with the exception
of purchasing stickers or WhatsApp
membership fee after one year of usage.
There’s great potential for this channel to
be a valuable revenue stream for brands.
Brands need to make their messaging direct,
personal, and actionable to entice direct
and mobile messaging users. Remember,
it is no longer B2B or B2C marketing;
you’re now living in the Millennial world
of B2Me — so make it personal.
Aljolynn Sperber is Director of Social Media
at Marketing Maven.
www.ODwyERPR.COM | NOVEMBER 2015 19