Not so long ago, a new concept appeared in marketing - native advertising. Many businessmen and even some advertisers still do not understand what it is and how this tool can be effectively used in the course of conducting business activities. According to independent experts, it is native advertising that is perceived by users better than other types of advertising on the Internet.
What is native advertising
Native or natural advertising (English: Native advertising) is a concept used in marketing to denote content that is presented to the audience unobtrusively or in a disguised form. The main feature of such advertising is that the message is always adapted to the platform on which it is placed. This is what guarantees successful perception, and also minimizes the "rejection" of information by readers/listeners/viewers.
Native advertising is the next level of evolution of conventional advertising. This type of promotion was invented in order to attract and convince people who are tired of standard advertising on television, radio, in the press or on the Internet.
Native advertising includes only informative, innovative and interesting content. This information should be, as if by chance, diluted with mentions of the brand. Only in this case can advertising be called native. If you go too far with your own praise, you risk creating not native, but ordinary advertising, which consumers are already so fed up with.
Main types and forms of native advertising
Every day, Internet marketing is rapidly developing, creating new types of advertising, including native, but there are several basic and most frequently used types and forms of native advertising:
- sponsored article. Such a publication can be attributed to native advertising if it contains only veiled references to a particular brand. When creating such a publication, you need to remember the main rule: a person should not understand that the post is advertising, he should perceive it as ordinary educational material. This option is ideal for those companies that are ready to invest in long-term promotion. It is important to understand that such content does not provide an instant increase in audience and, accordingly, an increase in sales, but mainly forms a positive opinion, which then has a positive effect on the popularity of the brand;
- native advertising in content marketing. In this case, the mention of the brand is placed in the blocks "similar", "similar materials", "you may also be interested in this", "read also" and so on.
Advantages and disadvantages of native advertising
Native advertising has a huge number of advantages. This is why this type of commercial content is very popular all over the world.
The most significant advantages of native advertising are:
- increased level of perception and trust in the brand or product mentioned in the publication. It is worth noting that native advertising significantly affects the image component of the brand;
- no falling into the "gray" zone or the zone of "banner blindness". Due to the fact that a post with native advertising contains a huge amount of useful and relevant content, this provides the information with the maximum level of perception. In other words: a person finds an article of interest to him/herself, which means that he/she fully absorbs the information provided without blocking its individual elements (as is the case with banner advertising);
- no possibility of blocking. Due to the fact that such content is essentially informative, there are no programs that can hide these posts. For example, banner advertising can be easily blocked by installing a free browser extension;
- high-quality and rich content of the publication. An important advantage of native advertising is that it can include various materials - text, photos, videos, links;
- ease of distribution. Due to the fact that native advertising, as a rule, is ordinary articles, it allows you to simply and quickly distribute the material through social networks and blogs;
- maximum coverage (indicators close to 100%) and cross-platform. In the last 3-5 years, the audience has been actively switching from using desktop versions of websites and social networks to mobile ones. That is why the advantage of native advertising is that it is equally well perceived on all devices (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop computer).
Native advertising has only a few drawbacks - such content is very difficult to produce. Only high-level specialists can prepare high-quality, interesting, and most importantly - working content. The second drawback follows from the first: the work of a good performer costs much more than the average. In addition, placing native advertising is usually more expensive than regular banner advertising. That is why when creating native advertising, you need to pay attention to the budget allocated for this expense item.
Why is it needed and who is it suitable for
For the first time, native advertising was used to promote various blogs. Now this practice is also widely used in the Internet space. Today, the cost of one click is relatively low, which is why many entrepreneurs use native advertising to attract an audience to their resources.
A vivid example of the use of this promotion tool is an article on the entertainment portal BuzzFeed, which was published with the title: "How would you die in Game of Thrones?". The creators of the material in an unusual comic form told about the series, and also invited their readers to become a part of the sensational saga.
Native advertising is also used directly to increase brand loyalty. According to independent studies, the right native advertising is paid 50-60% more attention than standard banner advertising. Accordingly, the information, including advertising, embedded in the publication is perceived better.
Examples of quality native advertising
A successful and very touching example of native advertising is a video published by the Friskies brand in 2014. In the video, called “Dear kitten,” an adult cat tells a little kitten the rules of living with people and describes human “quirks.” At the end of the video, the hostess feeds the animals Friskies food.
Another striking example of the use of native advertising is the article "Scientists Posit Theoretical "Productive Weekend", which was published in 2014 on the American online resource The Onion. The publication considered the issue of productivity on weekends, as well as the effect of coffee on the human condition. The publication was sponsored by the largest coffee chain "Starbucks" and their new product Doubleshot Espresso.
