Native advertising-the future of content or a deceptive practice?
People are already used to seeing ads. Not only are they used to them, but they are also fed up with them. When our target audience becomes fed up with our ads it’s time for advertisers to find a new way to reach our target audience.
Definition of native advertising
There are a lot of definitions that stand out regarding native advertising. The one that really stuck to me is the Native Advertising Institute that defines native in the following way: „Native advertising is paid advertising where the ad matches the form, feel and function of the content of the media on which it appears.“ In other words, it should be great content that has the look and feel of organic content but is, in fact, paid content. To simplify it even more native is paid content in disguise, published on websites, paid for by the advertiser. Reaching the audience of a third party website through native advertising means that you’ll have to create content that fits into the site’s content. If you fail to match the website’s content, your ad will just stick out like a sore thumb and the audience will fail to see your core message.
The success of native advertising relies on great content, not unlike content marketing, the only difference is that content marketing is published through owned channels, while native advertising tries to interest and attract audiences through third party websites.
All in all, advertisers should work on including a native advertising strategy within their content marketing strategy, because native is just another way to reach an audience through great content.
Native advertising content types
All this talk of great content for native ads means we’ll have to go through what kind of content should you create to tap into the power of native advertising?
There are generally 3 types of content that work well within the native advertising framework and have a high chance of reeling in an audience.
• Advertorials in newspapers and magazines
• Sponsored programming on tv and radio
• Promoted posts on social media
So what is an advertorial? Basically, it’s an ad written to look like an editorial published in newspapers and magazines. An advertorial is usually long-form and combines the journalistic style and form with the purpose of an advertisement. The advertorial looks like the rest of the magazine or newspaper except for a label, that informs the reader, this is paid content
Sponsored programming works differently. The content needs to match the relation between the program and the sponsor to better explain or shine a light on a subject or product.
On social media, paid posts or sponsored posts, enable the advertiser to target specific groups within their base of followers. The reach might not be as wide as with an ad, but it will take a deep dive into your selected target group.
