If you watch as much sports on TV as I do, you may have encountered what I call the \”money burner\” ads … like female sanitary napkins being promoted on Monday Night Football. Although there may be a scatter of female viewers, it clearly misses its target and I can smell the stack of burning $2os that the advertiser just blew.
On TV, the audience may not care as much since they aren\’t really engaged in the content of the commercials. But when advertisers make this mistake on their native advertising campaigns, it can have a profound impact.
Native advertising (paid advertising in the context of the site or app they are placed in), is poised for growth with estimates pointing toward $4.5B in US spend for 2017. Canadian advertisers are also getting invested in the format on major social media sites, and with more and more news publishers developing capabilities to deliver at scale, the spend in Canada should grow significantly as well.
As we continue to work with agencies and publishers on native ad strategies, one lesson remains clear. Savvy marketers are keeping it real and reaping the rewards.
This article out of Boston College’s Carroll School of Management provides some eye-popping performance examples from leading brands and publishers while demonstrating the importance to keep ads true to form in the environments in which they are delivered.
Enjoy.