1. Buzzfeed & Obama:
Native Advertising Need-To-Knows
Sarah Eva Monroe
Senior Creative Director, mStoner
Senior Advertising Strategist, OFA ’12
Monday, April 15, 13

2. ☛ Advertising on the Internet
Advertising supplies online
publishers with revenue so they
can pay their staff.
Milestones:
1994: AT&T created the first banner ad
(44% CTR)
2013: Banner advertising is a $13 billion
business (0.2% CTR)
Monday, April 15, 13

3. ☛ What’s wrong with banner ads?
We Ignore Them
Did this section of the page draw your eye? That’s
because we’ve become very skilled at disregarding
advertising and honing in on “real” content.
Monday, April 15, 13

4. ☛ What do viewers look at?
Four ways to attract
web viewers’ eyes
Plain text
Faces
Cleavage and other
"private" body parts
Making the ad look like
non-advertising content
SOURCE: NIELSEN NORMAN GROUP HTTP://WWW.NNGROUP.COM/ARTICLES/BANNER-BLINDNESS-OLD-AND-NEW-FINDINGS/
Monday, April 15, 13

5. ☛ Native advertising,defined
Advertising content that lives in the editorial well, not the
advertising well of a site
“ON YOUTUBE A
Hallmarks: NATIVE AD FORMAT IS
A PROMOTED VIDEO,
Consistent with the editorial voice of the publication AND ON TWITTER THE
Entertaining, with a soft sell call to action, if any NATIVE CONTENT UNIT
Presented as in a format meant to mimic content IS A PROMOTED
TWEET.”
Not interruptive. Users choose to interact.
SHARETHROUGH
Translation: Ads you’d like to read/see/hear CO-FOUNDER AND CEO
DAN GREENBERG
Monday, April 15, 13

6. What’s wrong with the advertising
☛ well?
Interruptions break the narrative
Interruptions cause lingering tension and upset well-being
POINT “When their thoughts were interrupted ... it took [participants] 15
to 20 minutes to get back into the mental swing-of-things.”
COUNTERPOINT “Commercials make TV programs more enjoyable to
watch. Even bad commercials,”
HTTP://WWW.PSYCHOLOGYTODAY.COM/BLOG/PEOPLE-PLACES-AND-THINGS/201301/EVERY-LITTLE-INTERRUPTION-COUNTS
HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2009/03/03/HEALTH/03MIND.HTML?_R=0
Monday, April 15, 13

7. AD SPACE ON THE NEW YORK TIMES
COMPLETELY SEPARATE
Monday, April 15, 13

8. AD SPACE ON BUZZFEED
INTEGRATED
Monday, April 15, 13

9. ☛ Which one is native advertising?
Monday, April 15, 13

10. ☛ Does native advertising work?
Yep.
What works:
Ads that fulfill the
promise of being
content that you’d
actually like to watch
and share.
SOURCE: NIELSEN CASE STUDY: “COMPARING RESONANCE FOR NATIVE AND PRE-ROLL VIDEO ADS WITH REAL-TIME METRICS”, MARCH 13, 2013
Monday, April 15, 13

11. ☛ Does native advertising work?
Yep.
Monday, April 15, 13

12. ☛ Native advertising is everywhere
Buzzfeed Featured Partner Posts
Facebook Sponsored Stories
Twitter Promoted Tweets
Promoted Videos on YouTube
Branded playlists on Spotify
Sponsored check-ins on Foursquare
and...Google AdWords.
Monday, April 15, 13

13. ☛ Attitudes toward native advertising
Consumers
Entertained, Oblivious, Confused, Betrayed
Publishers
Compensated, Resigned, Conflicted
Advertisers
Successful, Creative, On-trend, Forward-thinking.
Journalists...?
Entertained, Oblivious, Confused, Betrayed, Sad.
Monday, April 15, 13

14. Where does advertising stop and
☛ editorial begin?
Monday, April 15, 13

15. What does this mean for content
☛ creators?
1.Native is not new: Advertorials and
infomercials are the earliest forms of online
native advertising.
2.Fewer disruptive ads creates a more positive
experience for the user
3.If users aren’t “disrupted” by an ad, that
means they may not recognize that it’s not
editorial coverage.
4.It’s everywhere and it works.
Monday, April 15, 13

16. What do YOU think this means
☛ for content creators?
?
Monday, April 15, 13

17. THANK YOU!
Buzzfeed & Obama:
Native Advertising Need-To-Knows
Sarah Eva Monroe
Senior Creative Director, mStoner
Senior Advertising Strategist, OFA ’12
Monday, April 15, 13