Marketing is Native

The word Native is a word the World has adopted from our American friends but this time it is being applied specifically to Digital Marketing and Media circles.

Native Media has many names in the broader advertising disciplines from Advertorials in Print and Press, Product placements in Television and Cinema and Content Marketing predominately delivered through Digital Video channels.

While it may seem that this is a ‘new’ discipline, Native can be compared to the Soap Operas of the 1930’s on radio and 1950’s on television. This daily daytime entertainment were funded by soap manufacturers who wanted to target the housewives that watched them.

Native is formally defined on Wikipedia as 'A form of online advertising that matches the form and function of the platform on which it appears.'

The word 'native' refers to the content’s coherence with other media on the platform.

According to the North American IAB (The Interactive Advertising Bureau) there are 6 types of different Digital Native categories:

1. In Feed Ad Units - Example: Yahoo Gemini which powers Yahoo's Native Ads.
2. Search Ads - Examples: Google’s contextual Adwords.
3. Recommendation Widgets - Content is delivered through a widget. It is generally recognisable by words like "You might also like" or "You might like", “Elsewhere from around the web" or "From around the web", "You may have missed", or "Recommended for you.”
Examples: Outbrain and Taboola.
4. Promoted Listings - The websites that carry these ad units, are typically not content based, rather they are usually e-commerce sites. Promoted listings are presented to look identical to the products or services offered on a given site.
Example: Gumtree and Amazon's sponsored ads and products.
5. In-Ad (IAB Standard) - An ad in a standard IAB ad size that is outside the feed. "It contains contextually relevant content within the ad, links to an offsite page, has been sold with a guaranteed placement.”
Example: XML feed powered Rich Media like Sizmek.
6. Custom - This category is left for the externalities of ads that do not fit in with the other categories.

The best way Marketers can embrace Native is to answer 3 key questions:

1. Effectiveness - What is the expected success of the campaign and how is it being measured accordingly?. Do we want to build a brands positive association, engagement with a particular consumer or drive a direct response on the campaign?
Apples need to be compared with apples. Most importantly is how can this campaign also run across other channels or formats on the media partners platforms.
2. Scalability - How much scale do we want with our campaign? Whom can provide it and what is the total investment (including time) that is needed to achieve our success?
3. Relevance - How do we achieve relevance ? This can be done via targeting the right message to the right audience at the right time. Relevance needs to include running on brand safe media platforms, so the content is not displayed on less favourable media brands or alongside dodgy content.

My suggestions is your brands go back to basics and try trusted Native sources, both old and new. They will be pioneering with learnings that will help build your business success online as well as offline and give you a head start over your competitors.

Will Green @WillJNGreen