Every time you open your internet browser you will often be exposed to the vast barrage of advertising material that presents itself to you. However, this has led to a couple of bothersome issues that advertising companies have to combat.
- Firstly, software that actively blocks advertising from browsers has become increasingly popular amongst internet users trying to find effective ways of avoiding the disruptions caused by ads.
- Secondly, users are becoming immune to the advertising material, innately brushing passed without paying any attention to what is being presented. This is often known as banner blindness.
What exactly does the term ‘banner blindness’ mean?
Banner blindness is ‘a term used in online advertising to describe the ineffectiveness of banner advertisements due to their oversaturation and lack of intent-based messaging.’
Click here to read the full article on Banner Blindness by crazyegg.com.
President of the IRI Media Center of Excellence, Nishat Mehta said:
‘The environment of increasing media channels, ad blockers, banner blindness, shorter attention spans and general mistrust of advertisers is tough for brands trying to get their messages to the right people. Tuning out the noise has become instinctual — even my two-year-old son has learned to “Skip Ad” in YouTube to get to his Daniel Tiger video faster. It doesn’t take a futurist to realize that we have to improve the way we advertise to consumers if our industry hopes to survive.’
To read the full article, taken from forbes.com click here.
Nevertheless, Ben Givon points out that the developments and innovations in marketing techniques such as postback URL and cookie trackers, allow marketing campaigns to become much more tailored to what the consumer actually wants and actively looks for when browsing the internet. By taking advantage of the valuable data at hand, marketing departments have the ability to generate advertising material that consumers pay attention to.
Published on the 1st of June 2017, Google’s Senior Vice President for Ads and Commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy wrote the following:
‘The vast majority of online content creators fund their work with advertising. That means they want the ads that run on their sites to be compelling, useful and engaging – ones that people actually want to see and interact with. But the reality is, it’s far too common that people encounter annoying, intrusive ads on the web—like the kind that blare music unexpectedly or force you to wait 10 seconds before you can see the content on the page. These frustrating experiences can lead some people to block all ads—taking a big toll on the content creators, journalists, web developers and videographers who depend on ads to fund their content creation.’
‘We believe online ads should be better. That’s why we joined the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry group dedicated to improving online ads. The group’s recently announced Better Ads Standards provide clear, public, data-driven guidance for how the industry can improve ads for consumers, and today I’d like to share how we plan to support it.’
‘We believe these changes will ensure all content creators, big and small, can continue to have a sustainable way to fund their work with online advertising.’
Click here to read the full report.
So, with consumers taking measures to avoid irritating advertising, emphasis needs to be placed on relevant and appealing marketing that users will want to engage with. Consequently, this is where native advertising could come into the limelight.
Native Advertising: What is it?
Native Advertising is paid advertising that blends in and camouflages with the overall environment and feel of a website in terms of content, context, layout and tone. In contrast to other advertising techniques such as banner ads and push notifications, native advertising gives the impression of not actually being advertising material.
Native ads customarily appear on social media platforms or as suggested content and are often inconspicuous and practical. The main purpose of native advertising is to blend in with the website surroundings and the user experience so that the consumer or visitor is not distracted or irritated; instead the user usually doesn’t even realize that the native ads are paid advertising.
As reported by Business Insider on June 14th, 2016, native advertising is making its mark on the world of online marketing:
‘By 2021, native display ad revenue in the US, which includes native in-feed ads on publisher properties and social platforms, will make up 74% of total US display ad revenue, up from a 56% share in 2016, according to new BI Intelligence estimates based off historical data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC, as well as IHS.’
‘The rapid uptick in native’s share of display ad revenue can largely be attributed to the dominance of social platforms like Facebook and Twitter — which were early champions of native and rely almost entirely on native formats — as well as the introduction of new programmatic technologies that are making it easier for publishers and advertisers to scale native campaigns.’
Click here to read the full report by the Business Insider.
The main intention of native ads is to put its message across to consumers in an unobtrusive and subtle way. There is now a greater focus on creating native advertising that presents relevant and useful content as opposed to jumping straight to the intended action or product offer.
In a report entitled Is Native Advertising the New Black? Tim Walters, the Senior Contributing Strategic Analyst and Robert Rose, the Chief Strategy Officer, for Content Marketing Institute wrote the following:
‘Is native advertising growing as dramatically as the projections suggest? We asked nonusers how likely they were to use native advertising for content marketing in the next 12 months. Only 11% said extremely or very likely. Still, another 36% said they were somewhat likely to deploy native advertising. If half of that total of 47% do begin using native advertising next year, it would represent roughly a 30% increase in usage for our sample—which is almost exactly the growth in native advertising spending that BI Intelligence predicts from 2015 to 2016.’
Click here to read the entire report.
What is Ben Givon’s important reminder when it comes to native ads?
According to Ben Givon, it is crucial that native ads are exhibited as advertisements. This is because when native advertising was first introduced you could not differentiate between paid ads and authentic suggested content. However, the US Federal Trade Commission set out its regulations in a statement entitled Enforcement Policy Statement on Deceptively Formatted Advertisements:
‘Is native advertising growing as dramatically as the projections suggest? We asked nonusers how likely they were to use native advertising for content marketing in the next 12 months. Only 11% said extremely or very likely. Still, another 36% said they were somewhat likely to deploy native advertising. If half of that total of 47% do begin using native advertising next year, it would represent roughly a 30% increase in usage for our sample—which is almost exactly the growth in native advertising spending that BI Intelligence predicts from 2015 to 2016.’
‘Although digital media has expanded and changed the way marketers reach consumers, all advertisers, including digital advertisers, must comply with the same legal principles regarding deceptive conduct the Commission has long enforced. This statement sets forth principles of general applicability on which the Commission will rely in determining whether any particular advertising format is deceptive, in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act. The Commission will find an advertisement deceptive if the ad misleads reasonable consumers as to its nature or source, including that a party other than the sponsoring advertiser is its source. Misleading representations of this kind are likely to affect consumers’ decisions or conduct regarding the advertised product or the advertisement, including by causing consumers to give greater credence to advertising claims or to interact with advertising content with which they otherwise would not have interacted.’
Research by Sharethrough and IPG found that native advertising was more successful in gaining consumer engagement in comparison to traditional banner ads.
Main points gathered from the research include:
- 53 percent more consumers noticed native ads rather than banner ads
- Native ads had a 25 percent higher consumer engagement rate when compared to display ads
- 32 percent of users said they would recommend or promote native ads as opposed to 19 percent for traditional banner ads.
To read the full report by Sharethrough and IPG click here.
Ben Givon’s Conclusion: Native advertising is picking up pace in the world of online marketing as research is proving that consumers are engaging with and using native ads more frequently. This is partly to do with the fact that native ads provide relevant information and content that the consumer is genuinely interested in. In addition, native ads tend to blend in with their surroundings and adopt the style and tone of the website or platform that they are posted on, making them a part of the overall user experience as opposed to the traditional display advertisements that can sometimes be out of place and easily avoided.
