Ben Young
Ben Young
June 30, 2017

Gustaf & I hung out at Cannes last week, so will start this week off with some some topline thoughts from our discussions at Cannes (around native). Index Exchange were kind enough to ask my thoughts on native too.

A few people noted, I missed two weeks of This Week in Native! So this is a catch up edition. Look for the bullets from the Time Inc study…

Cannes Takeaways

  • Native content is emerging more and more amongst internal comms/PR teams inside brands.
  • [Part of a wider trend of native/media being used across multiple functions – not just marketing].
  • Native content is serious business for publishers – all of their pitches were content centric.
  • Programmatic native is getting a bad wrap around quality issues. But acknowledgement that controls are getting better. Click wastage is a bigger problem than adblocking.
  • Brand safety is top of mind, great for native content which is a brand safe media vehicle.
  • Many brands are still stuck on getting started, more blueprints are needed. (Please do send me what you have, would love to consolidate).
  • Transparency is the undercurrent.
  • Publishers in Europe are banding together more, to collaborate, share ‘content’ inventory and resources to drive scale.
  • Politics & advertising feel like they’re on a crash course, for some sort of regulation and/or change in rules.
  • People based marketing, targeting people not bots, and in turn making sure the content is actually seen. Opportune for native.
  • Brands still aspire to the data-driven, people based, personalized promise. They’ve just had their hands full this year.
  • Voice is now a big thing. What’s the native play here?
  • AliBaba pushing their marketing cloud.
  • Top Book recs, How Brands Grow mentioned multiple times, reading now.
  • “Creativity is the story, innovation is how we drive it, technology is the enabler” – David Sable, CEO Y&R

And read this, major themes from Cannes.

Notable Stories this Week

Deals/M&A

Campaign of the Week

Smartest commentary

Datapoints of note

  • Time Inc study reveals 2/3 consumers trust branded content more than traditional advertising.
  • [Time Inc continued] Gen Z-> 93% saying they want to see brands do something new, unique, or creative to get their attention.
  • 88% indicating that custom content feels like a good way for new brands it hasn’t heard of to reach them.
  • 84% agreeing that custom content is a way for brands to engage them, and 72% wanting video and infographics to better explore a story or data.
  • 90% of those polled like the idea of custom content as a way for brands to engage them.
  • 89% believe custom content is a great way for brands to break through the clutter
  • 93% like brands sharing interesting things they may not have otherwise seen.
  • 92% believe brands have expertise on topics and add value to content.
  • ^^ yes. Not to mention it’s a brand safe environment.
  • 95% of YouTube ads watched with the audio on.
  • 93% of Instagram ads not labelled by influencers.

Events

We’re hiring!

We are looking for an account executive/superstar to join the ranks, get in touch if this is for you.

Ta,

Ben


“Join