This Week in Native Ads 8/18

This week yielded a few data points from an IPSOS + Polar study on the impact of native content, keep them handy for your next pitch deck. I riff on how we need to push creativity in native and we see more publishers doubling down on video.

Notable Stories this Week

Hyatt pulls back on its branded content partnership with The Atlantic, focused on inclusion, after events of last weekend they were on the fence but pushed go anyway.
Reddit is launching native video.
Mic pivots to video, lays off staff.
Connatix launched Highlights, to enhance videos and increase engagement. Here’s an example (in the footer).
More on Jason Calacanis Inside Network. A great source for newsletter advertising (which we know creates high-quality traffic).
Walmart is nurturing its ad business. Inspired by Amazon?
Nascar partners with theChive.
[From us] How Native Can Get More Creative, a riff from me on how native needs a creative renaissance and we need to start pushing the boundaries.

Deals/M&A

ClearVoice raises $4m for their content marketing platform.
Plista announces a partnership with Jivox, to enable creative optimization for programmatic native ads.
Vice cuts a deal with Airbnb.

Campaign of the Week

Standard Charter & BBC, Demystifying Big Data in Banking.
CollegeHumor, an Honest Back to College Shopping List for Prime Student.

Smartest commentary

“The freedom to choose what content to read, view or watch — based on the users’ own interest in the brand or product — is in line with the values of a new generation of internet users, providing marketers with an elegant solution.” – Peter Minnium, President IPSOS

Datapoints of note

[I missed this last week] Adroll is bringing 35,000 advertisers to Taboola’s exchange.
Digital Content Marketing revenues are projected to grow at a 22% compound annual rate from 2017 to 2021 reaching $24b in 2021.
Branded content has 69% unaided awareness and 51% persuasion, in a recent IPSOS + Polar report.
When engaging with content accompanied by companion display ads, users demonstrated 17% more purchase intent.
Infographics & galleries were 7% more successful than video in improving user interest.
Images have the strongest effect on brand interest and opinion.
Desktop [at the moment] is the better platform, with 17% higher purchase intent.
Great British Chefs expects to make £2 million ($2.6 million) in 2017, about three-quarters of it coming from branded-content deals. i.e. new Pubs, this is their model.