This Week in Native Ads 10/21

With Ben out of the office this week I’ll be jumping in to provide ‘This Week in Native Ads’… be nice 🙂 One of the biggest changes I’m seeing within the native content space (and not just this week), is the rise of native video across a wide range of publishers. For this week’s ‘campaigns’ we’ve focused on this format. It’s essential that when you’re looking to create video content with a publisher (or as a publisher), to remember a few things:

More than any other content format the connection between publisher, brand and audience shouldn’t be forced.
Content that combines videos and articles have higher attention on average (from the Nudge benchmarks), than video content on its own.
Make sure you set the scene with text before expecting people to watch the content. This can affect your native bounce rate.

Notable Stories this Week

Congratulations to the Agency/Studio nominees in this year’s Native Advertising Awards! This includes: T Brand Studio, BurdaForward, POLITICO Focus, Atlantic Re:think and more. Check out the full list and why they’re being celebrated for the best creative work in the industry here.
Google acquires FameBit to help YouTubers cozy up to brands. With their hope that the “marketplace will allow creators of all sizes to directly connect with brands..and agencies to find matches for their creators and brand partners.” This is a timely and well thought out approach considering the FTC has been closely watching.
For programmatic advertising to really gain traction, brands need to be more comfortable with buying native products through programmatic. Here’s a great article looking at the hurdles publishers are facing: standarising quality, creative segmentation and standardising measurement.
With ad blockers being seen as a threat for digital publishers and advertisers (in 2015, ad blockers reportedly cost publishers $22 billion dollars), it’s time for publishers to look to branded content. Read more.

Campaign of the Week

Munchies Germany, a VICE property, created a solid piece of native content this month for Tabasco. It included a video and article that talked about Avery Island in Louisana (the home of Tabasco). Funny, on brand and a great connection between audience and product. Including an article with the video content (tip!) is also a great way of helping to increase your overall attention.
This series of content on Refinery29 for Cancerland looks at stories from women affected by breast cancer. It’s an uplifting piece that’s beautifully done with the perfect approach for the content to stay relevant for the audience and get the brand’s story across. Again this piece of content used videos and articles and included a step-by-step makeup tutorial.
Hypebeast and Microsoft Surface paired up for this video and article which looks at British artist Ornamental Conifer and how he used the Surface to create a piece for Hypebeast. On topic for the Hypbeast audience, shows the artist credibility and how using the product assists with his art.

Smartest Commentary

“Native advertising gives companies the opportunity to intellectually establish a bond with their customers through content. Their ads are more than a picture and a discount. They are aimed at the heart of the consumer’s values and lifestyle. By forging that connection, companies create loyal customers who return time and again.” Vitaly Pecherskiy – COO of StackAdapt
“The introduction of AA program highlights the bigger problem within digital marketing today– Publishers are focused on short-term user and revenue objectives” Lindsay Boyajian – CMO Augment

Datapoints of Note

42% of 18 to 34-year-olds in the UK use their phone as their primary source of news. And mobile accounts for 36% of Digital Spend.
StackAdapt research reveals that 51% of 18- to 44-year-olds are more likely to trust branded content than traditional advertising.

Events