Native Advertising: Read Between the Lines

Wednesday, 27 January 2016 03:00

Native Advertising: Read Between the Lines

Native advertising is growing in confidence as marketers look to make successful, discreet, and direct impacts on their target consumers.

Native advertising is beginning to gather momentum; a marketing presence that is increasing in volume but more importantly, improving its impact. To advertise natively requires true self-brand awareness but more significantly, detailed awareness of the target consumers, going beyond their stereotypical consumption patterns or archetypal behavioural habits but instead into a world where advertisers must be one with the consumer, appreciating them as an individual rather than a bracketed demographic or socio-economic group.

This is native advertising far beyond a piece of PR tabloid in the evening press that’s selling readers a synthetic story involving a vacuum cleaner or the latest camera-phone — this is native advertising that integrates seamlessly with the content that the demographic or individual will happily consume.

The blogosphere is constantly expanding and it’s where the native advertising seed can be sewn. Prolific bloggers are the gatekeepers to young and dynamic consumers, paving the way for effective native advertising. Blogs reach out to consumers with disposable income, readers have time, interests, and hobbies, which usually translates into the perfect customer.

via Flickr

This form of marketing raises serious challenges, however. It’s unlikely (as an agency or copywriter) that you’ll be able to pay a newspaper or tabloid for effective and successful native advertising. Established publications will not jeopardise the credibility of their articles to help sell your product or service because their reputation means more to them and besides, journalists and columnist’s alike, will not appreciate the detail of your target consumer. Bloggers will be more inclined to allow native advertising within their work since it raises the profile of their articles, offers financial support, and the products are usually of their interest anyway.

Take Apple, for example. Their products have been disseminated on every demographic level, meeting the needs of millennials, urbanites, and over-50s. This, of course, is thanks to a number of marketing reasons: their big budget campaigns have allowed and enabled them to become one of the biggest companies in the Western World, but it’s the brand equity, at ground level, that makes Apple’s brand-image so significantly solid and impenetrable.

Bloggers discuss hipster trends alongside iPhones, independent coffee shops are accompanied by Macbooks and messaging fellow socialites via the ever-present iMessage, all under the watchful eye of Apple’s target consumer. This is intelligent native advertising. Savvy readers will spot an overworked promotion or an underdeveloped insight but they’ll genuinely enjoy well-researched tabloid from a voice similar to their own; one that understands and appreciates their likes, dislikes, and aspirations.

Images: Thibault Poriel via Flickr