Home Breadcrumb Blog BreadcrumbCategory: Commentary

Category: Commentary

Commentary; our thought leadership, newsletter notes and long form pieces.

This Week in Native Ads 11/15

One big thing The streaming wars have dominated stories this week – with the launch of Disney +. And what an incredible launch, 10m subs after 24 hours. The story I really paid attention to was the Cadbury Amazon Fire TV partnership. Cadbury curated a selection of BuzzFeed's Tasty recipe videos to show on Fire TV. It’s yet another blueprint for how brands are using content, as the traceable commodity between all media. My take… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
November 15, 2019
spotify-video
spotify-video

This Week in Native Ads 11/8

Pleased to announce the youngest young joined the family last week, thanks for the notes. We’re back to normal albeit with less sleep. ? This week is jam-packed, so save a few links, keep an eye on commentary from Darren Herman and datapoints of note. Oh and LinkedIn launched a newsletter tool? One big thing The piece that I dug the most this week is the Spotify tapping Viacom for content marketing on DigiDay. And for a number of… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
November 8, 2019

This Week in Native Ads 11/1

Colin here. I’m filling in for Ben as he prepares for child number two. One big thing There’s starting to be a flood of brand interest onto TikTok. It is, put simply, one of the most interesting and creative spaces on the Internet right now. Not surprisingly, the platform is experimenting and is in the nascent stages of building out its ad and sponsorship products. Right now, it’s basically just an opening screen that a… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
November 1, 2019
first banner ad
first banner ad

This Week in Native Ads 10/25

One big thing The banner ad. For with it became immediately obvious that that internet could be a way to reach people. How? We put a sign on it. This week we celebrated the 25th year of the banner ad. That domino that created our industry is still falling. We liked RPA’s take. So what’s the domino happening right now? I think it’s the teleco going deep with mobile OTT partners, Quibi, Netflix, Peacock. What do… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
October 25, 2019
verizon
verizon

This Week in Native Ads 10/18

One big thing This week I caught the Carat webinar focused on 2020 and Attention. With the election and Olympics coming up it’ll be a big year, a hard one to A couple of points which To cut through, you need to be relevant and to be relevant you need good content. One TIL was that for political advertisers, they have to be careful with targeting – because the right message to the wrong audience, can actually drive donations… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
October 18, 2019

This Week in Native Ads 10/11

We’ve been thinking about renaming the newsletter from This Week in Native Ads, native is now the norm and de-facto. Any thoughts or ideas? Format will stay the same, covering the pillars of native; programmatic, content, balance of art and science and the intersection of advertising and media. One big thing The only constant is change. And this week’s stories only highlight that, we see mobile time is growing 27% YOY, DTC brands pulling from social to invest in… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
October 11, 2019

This Week in Native Ads 10/4

Back in the hot seat, it’s been a full on couple of weeks but read on. For those who follow Nudge, we have soft-launched a ‘for all content marketers’ solution. You can check it out here. It’s pretty neat. And that seems a fitting thing to announce on the 250th edition. Native is now the norm, content is now the norm. Thank you all for reading! The comments, intros, submissions are what really makes it. ???… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
October 4, 2019

This Week in Native Ads 9/20

One big thing Plucky companies are taking on the big guys, with Nativo launching their self serve branded content tool and Polar with Washington Post launching Zeus Prime, enabling buying direct social display from publishers. Both efforts show the commitment but also collaboration to bring new solutions to market. Hats off to all. But the big guys aren’t slowing down either, with Amazon launching sponsored display as… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
September 20, 2019

This Week in Native Ads 9/13

One big thing This week we saw fresh investment in Group Nine and Atlas Obscura, both showing promise that strategic partners see in the space. The common thread between the two companies is a good mix of uncorrelated revenue. Atlas Obscura has branded content, the Airbnb investment will rapidly grow ‘affiliate-like’ revenue and book deals. Group Nine has tv/content deals with The Dodo, Facebook revenue with NowThis and then affiliate with Thrillist. As well as its first book deal with… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
September 13, 2019

This Week in Native Ads 9/6

One big thing Given the post Labor Day rush and short week this week is a bit lighter. Would love readers feedback, on serving the newsletter as a story. Here’s the link, thanks to Nws.ai. We also shared our progress in a special edition if you’d like to take a peek. Notable stories this week Sara Fischer calls it the Brexit Bump, FT profits $8.15m revenue up… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
September 6, 2019