- AdAge, Thursday, February 4, 2016 9:58 AM
Writing in
Ad Age, Brian Sheehan, an associate professor of advertising at Syracuse University writes that the way to combat ad blocking is simply to create better advertising. We've heard
that before. But, he says, one of the ways to do that is to improve native advertising. "Most native advertising today is thinly veiled advertorial, or worse, advertising dressed up like content. Yet,
when native advertising is done right, it adds value to the publisher, the brand and the consumer. A great example of that was the work Netflix and The Wall Street Journal did for the launch of
Netflix' show "Narcos." Sheehan argues that the results was a strong
Wall Street Journal-worthy article called "Cocainenomics: The Story Behind the Medellin Cartel". Sheehan goes on to say:
"In certain circles, native advertising is inveighed with as much hostility as ad blockers are in publishing circles. And it is hard to argue with. Most native advertising leaves a lot to be desired.
But when it is done with as much flair, relevance and journalistic integrity as the WSJ/Netflix effort, it is a beautiful thing to see, which readers want to read and which ad blockers have no
interest in blocking."
Read the whole story at AdAge »
AdAge,
Sweepstakestoday.com has been running Native Advertising now for 13 years. We have published over 55,000 sweepstakes and contest promotions during this time. From day one, we build in quality control standards about giving the members the information they needed to make a decision to enter a sweepstakes. Our standards are based on accuracy and honesty. We further tell hour members not to enter a sweep for the prize but to enter for the interest of the prize and the sponsor and brand. Yet, the ad business generally believes the opposite. We surveyed our members and over 80 percent would more likely buy from a sponsor who publishes a sweepstakes. Why? Because the member takes the time to read the material on the sponsor’s products and website.
My point is for Native Advertising to really work on a large scale, the trust issue has to begin at the ad agency level and to put away their misconceptions of the specially publishers/websites and to take an honest look at our results. Our presentations of Native Advertising works and gets results.
First, we have to acknowledge that native advertising comes in different forms -- sponsored (custom) content or what Brain writes about, in-feed native ads, and content widgets.
While sponsored content is ammune to ad blocking for now (since it is not served through an ad serving technology), that doesn't automatically mean it's high quality content. With more brands wanting to own their content, in-feed formats start to get a lot of traction as a vehicle for distribution of branded content. While the content that is distributed through in-feed ads can be super valuable, the format is not ammune to ad blocking since it relies on real-time bidding and programmatic technologies.
What I foresee in the future is ad blockers white listing native advertising platforms that distribute value adding content regardless of the form of native that they chose to do that through.