PowerPoint Presentation

What Native ProgrammaticMeans Today

JARED SKOLNICKHEAD OF PUBLISHER MARKETING, Triplelift

Native Defined

sponsoredLocationThe ad is placedwithin content

sponsored

DesignThe ad is formattedlike content

sponsored

ValueThe ad is relevant content

Paid Search

Promoted Listings

Promoted Tweet

Sponsored Content

Facebook Sponsored Post

Pinterest Sponsored Pin

In Feed

Recommendation Widget

Tumblr Sponsored Posts

We struggle with the definition of NativeAd should be located in the feed where content is locatedAd should be formatted like the contentAnd just like content ads value, so too should the ad experienceFundamental challenge is that the word NATIVE means too muchCLICK!There are dozens and dozens of NATIVE ad formats:Google and Bing search results, every custom ad format on every social platform:Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, etcContent recommendation tiles at the bottom of the content things you may likeLast but not least sponsored content driven by the publishers themselves: video, articles, inforgraphics, etc

Native Advertising as a movement

Native Advertisingas an ad type

We think of native advertising as an ad typeAnd this is key to the problem!Instead, we need to shift the conversation and think of NATIVE as a MOVEMENTWhile researching for this presentation, I uncovered something at the heart of this movement, something that got lost over the years.

MODERN MAGAZINE

PRINT

radio

Early black & white TV

modern Color TV

digital

today

1960

1951

1941

1922

1704

Going back over 300 years to the first print ad and this is that first print ad the precedent was set for advertising to look and feel like the content. Sounds like NATIVE, right? The advertiser used the same fonts, typography, design and even the same printing press - as the editorial content.

And as the medium progresses, we enter into early radio where brands were given the opportunity to share their message through the same disc jockey or radio personality that the audience already knew and trusted.

Next came early B&W television and brands were given product placements and 10, 15 and 30 second spots that leveraged the full TV canvas.

And a decade later when color TV began to take over, brands werent charged more for the color, it was simply part of the medium they purchased.

Similarly, editorial can be on one page with brands given the opportunity to purchase the entire accompanying page where their message will, again, use all of the elements afforded to the editorial content in order to blend in effectively.

Yet when digital took over, we broke this precedent! We took away the creative canvas and opportunities that had been established for 300 years. And did what? We literally put the advertisers in a box!

Paul Rossi from The Economist touched on the concept of brands paying for Attention Time yesterday. Whether or not this idea of attention as a currency takes off, theres no doubt that brands want consumer attention above all else. Breaking the paradigm developed over 300 years of advertising has taken us away from that focus rather than bringing us closer to it.

This is an incredibly exciting time to take digital advertising back in the direction of previous ad formats because content in the digital world is changing. These changes are capturing a new audience of consumers that may not engage with publishers like the NY Times on a regular basis. And these changes are creating new and exciting NATIVE placement opportunities for brands.

Aside from the new ways in which we communicate with one another and the native opportunities afforded to those platforms, lets focus for a moment on more, shall we say, traditional publishers. In this realm, the NY Times may have been the catalyst for this change when they reimagined digital content like no other.

Im guessing that most of this audience saw Snow Fall, the first storytelling experience from NY Times to truly reimagine both the content and the advertising. I must have read this story a half dozen times. Admittedly, I was upset that I couldnt save it to plain text in Pocket and read it offline on the subway, but once I immersed myself in the story and fully engaged with the interactive content and ads, all was forgiven.

Can anyone believe that this was publisher four years ago? Yet, now, so many others have published stories like these.

modern CONTENTprogrammatic ecosystem

modern CONTENT + programmatic ecosystem

The state of digital advertising today is akin to the Tale of Two Cities.

In one city representing modern content, we have these incredibly immerse storytelling capabilities. In the other city, representing the programmatic city, things are highly advanced technologically, but everything is limited to brands in a box.

We predict that it is the marriage of these two cities that will advance our industry into the future. Allowing brands to tell great stories, and do so programmatically, is key to the health of the ecosystem. At the same time, this marriage allows all of you, the publishers, to effectively and efficiently capture these brand dollars while being true to your editorial goals and respectful of consumers and trust.