Why to Consider Advertorials versus Going Native

On June 12, 2013 By RhonaIn Advertising, Advertising Trends, Digital, Digital Trends, Native Advertising, Print Opportunities, Rhona Bronson, Social Media, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Thanks to the web and social media we have yet another new advertising term to learn – “Native Advertising.” The problem is that even those in-the-know don’t know exactly what it is. “The native advertising industry is so new that nobody can agree what it means in the first place,” writes Jack Marshall in his Digiday article aptly entitled Native Ad Terminology is a Mess.

The easiest way to start to understand Native Advertising is to look at its counterpart in the print world – the Advertorial. In its most basic format, a native ad is a digital ad that promotes something by trying to appear as if it’s not an ad.

So why the new term? Simply put — Advertorials are simple and Native Advertising is not.

What Advertorials and Native Advertising have in common are two shared goals:

To create advertising content/copy that doesn’t appear to be an ad
To create an ad that is closely aligned with people’s expected experience.

The second goal is admittedly jargony as it stems from the web world, but this is what it means: when a reader picks up a magazine or newspaper, she expects to read articles. Hence, advertorial appears as articles. The format of the advertising matches the reader’s expected experience in picking up the print product. The good news is that newspapers and magazines have long-established standards so readers can easily spot advertorials and be aware that they are reading “Sponsored or Paid” copy. Industry studies indicate that readers understand advertorials are promotional, but like the format just as they like to read ads. Advertorials, when measured, continue to show solid returns for advertisers.

In the digital world the concept of expected experience also is called intended or organic experience. It means creating content that, similar to advertorials, match the viewer’s desired experience when they go on to a specific digital medium. And, here’s where it gets complicated as some come to a digital platform to read articles, others to scan headlines, some to watch videos, and still others to search for information, or listen to music. The format of native ads, therefore, changes for each of these experiences.

The most common type of native ad is a Paid Search Ad on Google. The intended experience is for searchers to see results based on a defined search term or series of words. The organic search results bubble to the top based on a Google, Bing, or other algorithms. The native experience is to see paid ads next to the organic ads that have been strategically placed to entice the viewer interested in the searched term.

Other common examples are sponsored Tweets, and sponsored Facebook posts, but there are many others. Google, Facebook and Twitter provide “closed” native ads – meaning you can sponsor Tweets within Twitter feeds, or sponsor Facebook links within the Facebook news feed. There are also “open” native ads that run across platforms, but these are too complex to address in one blog post.

Unlike print advertorials, digital native ads are not always clearly marked. According to a 2013 e-Marketer report: “Native ad spending is growing faster than many other forms of digital advertising.” And an April 2013 BIA/Kelsey study states: “Native social formats, including video, and mobile-social advertising will be the principal market growth drivers.” But the jury on native ad effectiveness is still out. Some marketers love them. Some consumers hate them.

The Walk-away: Sponsored ads work. It’s why advertorials have been popular with so many advertisers for so many years. But, when it comes to the digital world, the best advice is “Buyer Beware.” The medium is so new that it’s not yet regulated, and it’s easy to spend big bucks that literally dissipate into air. Until there’s more agreement on what works and what’s ethical, it’s best to stay grounded in advertising techniques that have proven their mettle for all sorts of advertisers.

Print Ads Used in Phenemy Positioning War

On April 8, 2013 By RhonaIn Advertising, Audience Reach, Lessons from Leaders, Print Opportunities, Rhona BronsonLeave a comment

It started at the Consumer Electronics Show at the beginning of 2013, then moved to a full page ad in major national papers, only to be countered in the same papers soon thereafter. What is it? The newest phone ad wars between AT&T and T-Mobile!

Newspapers love ad wars almost as much as oil companies like price wars, and divorce lawyers like contentious divorces. But, besides bringing in unexpected ad revenue, there are lessons to be learned from these phenemy (phone enemy) ad campaigns and not all of them are positive.

Companies have two basic ways to get their side of the story out — PR and advertising. Effective PRcan get company spokespeople on pundit talk shows and inches in commentary sections of newspapers. If done really well, it can get the company quoted in an actual news article. But there are never any guarantees with PR. On the other, Advertising does guarantee placements. It’s why during strikes, elections, employee recognition periods, and even phone wars, you’ll see a proliferation of print ads, because nothing tells a story better or quicker than a full-page ad in print.

Unfortunately, it’s not clear the recent AT&T and T-mobile ad wars were effective. Here’s why.

The campaign was limited to national publications.
It was based on a conference speech that was also limited to industry insiders.
The company with the leadership position gave free press to the competitor.

Here’s what happened. The new CEO of T-mobile made a snide remark about AT&T. Few might have heard the comment or given it credence since AT&T has the leadership position. But, instead of letting the comment slide, AT&T came out fighting with limited national ads. Most people never saw the ads, but others started talking about it as it hit the trades. In essence, AT&T gave a broader voice to the initial T-mobile argument.

The AT&T ads could have worked if they had been more widespread, but the creative also gave unnecessary ink to T-mobile. The AT&T ads claimed T-mobile had two times the dropped calls, two times the failed calls, and 50% slower download speeds. This drew added attention to the ongoing complaint about AT&Ts own dropped calls rather than playing to its strengths.

As noted in the now classic marketing text “Positioning The Battle for Your Mind” by Al Ries and Jack Trout, “At almost every step of the way, the leading brand has the advantage.” By responding to the T-mobile posturing, AT&T gave up some of that advantage and opened minds to the possibility that T-mobile may be right. Or, as T-mobile’s CMO Mike Sievert said to Advertising Age, “AT&T doth protest too much.”

Check out the AT&T and T-mobile ads and judge for yourself. Then, take a step back and think how the full page ad space could have been used more effectively, because a full page is a terrible thing to waste.

The Walk-Away: Advertising should never be done defensively or off your main message because instead of giving a campaign legs, it creates confusion. It’s more like trying to run on a broken leg. All you get is more injured.

Promises = Real Ad Impressions

On February 11, 2013 By RhonaIn Advertising, Print Opportunities, Rhona BronsonLeave a comment

Recent posts by my colleague Bill Merklee have discussed the pros and largely cons of using humorin advertising. The basic tenet is that it doesn’t work if too many people don’t “get the joke.” I’d argue humor in advertising doesn’t work for a bigger reason – advertising is serious business. People want to find something that you’re hopefully selling.

One key to advertising is catching someone’s attention – hence the attraction of humor. It’s also the reason frequently for skimpily clad girls, six-pack bare-chested men and celebrities in ads. Sex and celebrities grab our attention. However, getting attention and having a message resonate are two very different things.

The reason ad-men have bad reputations and most ads don’t work is very simply that they don’t keep their promises. A promise not kept in an ad is a scam and you know the old saying: “Fool me once…”

The most basic reason for an ad is to make a promise. You advertise to tell someone that you have a product or service that will do something for the consumer. Heaven help you if you don’t have that product or service and if it’s falsely advertised in terms of what it promises to do.

Unfortunately, false promises are more common that one would hope. In one recent example, a retailer took a stock photo of a garment and put it in her ad. The good news is that the ad worked and people walked into her store with the ad in hand and asking for the item. Oops. The retailer never carried that particular item and couldn’t fulfill expectations. Sure, she tried to steer people to similar or different product she did carry, and also tried to quickly order the pictured garment, but the promise was broken particularly for those who hurried in to be first to buy.

What’s the promise in your ad? If you can’t easily say, there’s a problem right there. If you can, but feel unsure if it’s solid, that’s yet another problem. Make sure your ad firmly makes a promise you’re comfortable keeping. Promises can range from lowest price to largest inventory, punk trendy, get this one great outfit, get a James Bond car here, or find your closet full of coolest stuff. Then when targeted customers respond, they will never be disappointed.

The Walk-away: Great advertising makes a promise so compelling, targeted customers can’t help but respond. But like first impressions, consumers will only trust you once, so make sure you can fulfill the dream you promoted in your effective ad, or you’ll have trouble attracting repeat business.

Not All Ad Positions Are Created Equal

On July 10, 2012 By RhonaIn Advertising, Print Opportunities, Rhona BronsonLeave a comment

In advertising, not all ad positions are created equal. That should come as no surprise to advertisers. Every media has its star positions and remnants.

Radio morning drive time is valued over all other time slots.
In TV, prime time – 7-10pm – is the coveted time slot.
For magazines, right-paged ads get more eyeballs than left-page placements, and front of the book or inside covers are clearly premium spots.
In newspapers, above-the-fold positions are the“top” spots, but a below-the-fold strip ad on a section front also has extremely high value.

This is all common advertising wisdom, but effective ad placement is not always that cut and dry. Newspaper data, for instance, shows that comics and lifestyle columns are highly read and, yet, most advertisers overlook these key positions when creating their media plans. Don’t try to run next to Dear Abby or Garfield in The New York Times, since the Grey Lady doesn’t carry those features. But if you’re a local psychologist introducing a new service in an area served by a regional paper, an adjacency to Dear Abby or Carolyn Hax, Abbey’s younger counterpart in newspaper advice columns, might be just the ticket for getting the right eyeballs to your ad.

Positioning means just that – the position of your ad. It can include adjacencies to key features, or a “Blue Ocean” spot. For instance, a mortgage financing company should find that a newspaper ad adjacency to real estate listings is both more affordable than an above-the-fold ad in regional news AND more effective due to the readership affinity with real estate listing readers. The same would hold true in an online environment.

A “Blue Ocean” spot is one where other advertisers may not normally appear, giving you an open space, or blue ocean spot, to get your message clearly across without clutter from your competitors. An example of this is a recent real estate ad placed in Hometown, the zoned community section of The Press of Atlantic City, rather than in the real estate section. In this case, the realtor was effectively targeting interested residents from a specific area for attention to a unique property. It doesn’t mean the ad should not also run in real estate, but the positioning clearly set this ad apart from competitors. And that’s the point of all advertising — gain attention towards you and away from competitors.

Ad positioning is both an art and a strategic play. Great positioning means your ad is where the right people will see, hear or interact with it. But positioning alone doesn’t make for ad effectiveness. For instance, an auto detailing ad in a Sunday afternoon radio hour may be inexpensive, but not worth the dollars paid for it. Why? Radio listenership plummets on weekends except for morning religious shows for the homebound.

No matter the media, great positioning is the result of being in the right place at the right time to reach the right people.

The Walk-away: Positioning is one leg of three-legged stool – with the other two legs always being Reach and Frequency. Just as with a stool, one leg of a media plan won’t give you a strong platform. You need all three solidly in place at all times.