Native advertising is a form of paid advertising, where the advertisement follows the form and function of the media in which it is placed.
Advertisers must deliver highly valuable content that matches the audience experience of content in that same media space.
The opportunity within native advertising is not about finding new ways to interrupt users with traditional ads. It’s about delivering advertising as good as the content itself.
In this article I examine 3 examples of Native advertising done extremely well and how you can model these in your business marketing. I look specifically at how well each ad meets the criteria of: ??Form: How does the ad fit with the overall page design? ??Function: Does the ad function like other elements on the page in which it is placed? Does it deliver the same type of content experience?
1. Target on Pinterest
The US retailer Target, launched itself on the popular social network Pinterest in 2013. With thousands of Target products pinned on Pinterest, lots of user repins, favourites and comments how does this native advertising stack up?
Form:
Target has matched the overall “Pinterest” design with it’s products to a tee. Every product matches the beautiful photography and vibrancy that is expected on Pinterest.
Function:
The user experience on Target’s Pinterest page is certainly matched to that of the Pinterest experience. ??Their products are pinned to boards by categories such as food, entertaining, healthy living, women’s style, beauty, home décor and wedding (just to name a few). The corresponding links take you to the page on their online store where you can purchase the item directly.
Overall this is a very good example of Native Advertising done well. Target were able to integrate all of their products in a stylish way that pertains to Pinterest. They are successfully promoting their products on Pinterest, it is being well received by the Pinterest community as demonstrated in all of the user generated pints, comments and favorites.
2. King of the Nerds on Gawker.com
The sponsored article “How to transform into a Total Nerd Babe” appeared on the site Gawker.com. At first glance it looks like a simple article on how to be a sassy nerdette. If you look closely, the article is actually a sponsored article by the television show “King of the Nerds.”
Form:
When we look at other stories on Gawker.com, what we see is a random array of stories about anything and everything from the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics to 10 things you probably didn’t know about love and sex. ????? As peculiar as a blog post on “how to transform into a total nerd babe,” the ad fits as a “legitimate” story on the site. It looks and feels like a regular Gawker article, with compelling and relatable images. It doesn’t look like a blatant advertisement – it looks like a content piece.
Function:
Without a doubt, the story delivers the same content experience as other stories on the site as well. You would be forgiven if you didn’t notice the subtle “sponsored” reference at the top of the article.
King of the Nerds and Gawker did well to deliver this native advertising piece. It promotes the television show in the guise of a legitimate piece of content on the site, matching both form and function to classify as a good piece of native advertising. Sponsored articles done correctly are a good form of native advertising to model.
3. Oreo – Daily Twist Campaign
America’s favourite cookie: Oreo, launched a daily campaign called Daily Twist. Over 100 days, Oreo translated pop culture into sharable content with a new piece of content every single day.
They created the content especially for Facebook and Twitter and took native advertising to a very exciting level.
Form:
Whilst Oreo is kind of it’s own cult already, what they were able to do is take Oreo and make it “cool” for Facebook and Twitter. We saw the creative match that which people expected on Facebook – quirky and different. Design-wise we saw this work very cohesively.
Function:
In terms of function, Oreo made the content “talkable” and prompted a firestorm of discussion on Facebook. They saw a 280% increase in Facebook shares and connected with 150 million people on Facebook alone throughout the campaign.
A part from the fact that this campaign has won many advertising awards, what we see is a prime example of native advertising. Instead of simply pushing boring content on Facebook and twitter, they created a campaign with the intent of delivering relevant, timely and quirky content for the media they were on.
Whilst small businesses may not have the budgets to replicate campaigns to the same degree, what we can do is take these and model them into relevant versions for our own businesses.
What these companies did well, was they created the content for the media which they were promoting, instead of creating content simply to be disseminated online generically. They matched the form – in the design and the function in the quality of content to deliver high value for the users. Armed with this knowledge and a break down of what is required, we have access to the same social media networks and media to do native advertising for our own businesses.
I think it’s shady when an advertiser does something like that nerd girl article. It’s seems dishonest.
There are a lot of great ideas in here. I think bloggers tend to get swept up in the need to create content, and we forget that it’s not content for content’s sake.
I think native advertising is a smart way of generating content, that has business goals in mind. If you think about it, most blog post are native ads – if they’re driving the user to opt in, or take some action on their blog site anyway. 🙂 Content needs to convert if we are going to make money from our blogs. Thanks for the comment Dawn 🙂
I disagree with Robin – if they can generate interesting content that’s still sponsored, I think it’s great! It’s not easy to create a hook with a sponsored post. I prefer it to a boring sponsored post.
Thanks for the post. It looks like a lot of great information. I will make sure my sister reads it.
I have to say creating interesting content that draws the reader in while still being a sponsered post is an art. Bloggers do it probably better than the best ad agency out there. Looks like companies are really starting to take notice.
Lots of really valuable information in this post!! Thanks i will take a much deeper look this weekend!
I think I better update my pinterest.. 🙂 Seems like it’s the trend nowadays..
I really need to start thinking about Pinterest.I’m really slacking.
Pinterest looks like a great tool to be using. I will have to take a look at how i can get my Pinterest to work more for me.
I loved the Oreo campaign! They had so many good posts.
I used to think Pinterest was pointless, but I have started using it more and more over the past year. Love it now! 🙂
Pinterest is like facebook you can socialize others with it.
Wow! Great information here. So many interesting ideas and change of thinking can come from this post.
Pinterest is a great place to find great things with instructions. hehehe Love your tips here.
Good information. Big or small high quality content always wins in the end.
Interesting pages! Target on Pinterest makes a lot of sense!
Thanks for the post. It’s very informative. Thank you.
This was a fascinating study of how keep a brand aND it’s products interesting. Definitely could be applied to small business.
Very interesting post! Quality always wins over quantity that’s for sure!
This is quite an interesting article. Makes me think of new ways to promote my small business.
Target has phenomenal branding! They’ve completely transformed themselves over the past decade!
I think targeting a social media in order to increase traffic or business profit is a must. I want to explore more on my pinterest.