Tag: native ads

NYC AdWeek 2016: Waze Launches Native Ads

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Popular navigation app Waze introduced its first native ad product named Favorite Brands on Monday at its NYC AdWeek event. Marketers can now invite Waze users to tap an ad to “favorite” a brand to make their favorite stores and restaurants more accessible in Waze’s mobile map. It will also surface customizable brand messages in some on-the-road features such as Planned Drives, Calendar Sync, and Speed Limit. Dunkin’ Donuts is the first brand to sign on for this ad product, which will be in beta testing for the remainder of the year.

What Brands Should Do
Waze has 65 million monthly drivers worldwide, which presents a sizable audience for brands with physical stores to make a play for. By integrating brand messaging into its app, Waze manages to deliver location-based native ads in the form of utility with minimal disruption to its user experience. Brands that are looking to drive store traffic and engage their customers to build long-term relationships should consider giving this native ad product a try.

Source: AdWeek

 

Twitter Helps Advertisers Convert App Install Ads Into Native Ads

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter has rolled out a useful tool for advertisers to convert their app-install ads into native Twitter ads. By simply checking a box labeled “native,” app install campaigns will appear as native ads across the apps using the Twitter Audience Platform.

What Brands Should Do
Twitter says its testing found that native app install ads received 56% higher click-to-install rates than ones that appeared as traditional banner ads and interstitials. For brands seeking to leverage social ads to drive downloads for their apps, this new feature offers a simple way to improve their campaign performance.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Imgur Debuts New Native Ad Product

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Popular image-sharing site Imgur is rolling out a native ad product that aims to help brands effectively reach its predominantly millennial male users on mobile. The new Promoted Post does not feature any targeting capability as the posts will appear in all Imgur users’ shared content stream, but it does support autoplay videos besides GIFs and still images. Launch partners for this native ad product include eBay, Square Enix, and New Form.

What Brands Need To Do
Dubbed “Pinterest for guys,” Imgur reaches a specific set of nerdy, young male online audience that could be difficult for brands to reach. To help brands better connect with its audience, Imgur has an in-house creative team that works with brand advertisers on creating that kind of branded content that would resonate with its users. As our study on branded content has shown, native ads are less intrusive and more effective than most other ad units, which is only more significant in the context of consumers’ growing aversion to ads.

For more information on how brands should leverage interesting branded content to earn consumer attention, check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: AdWeek

Pepsi Becomes The First Brand To Sponsor Twitter Stickers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
When Twitter added searchable stickers in June, we anticipated that the microblogging service would soon turn it into an ad product. Now, Pepsi has become the first brand to sponsor Twitter stickers. For this campaign, Pepsi created about 50 stickers based on the emojis that the soft drink brand has featured on its bottles since February as part of its “Say It With Pepsi” campaign. Twitter declined to say how much it is charging for promoted stickers but announced that it is making this new ad unit available for all brands starting Monday.

What Brands Need To Do
Twitter’s searchable stickers are an extension of the emoji marketing that many brands including Coca-Cola and Toyota have experimented with on Twitter. In Asia, branded stickers have long been a popular ad unit on messaging apps, with Japanese chat app LINE racking up over $280 million in revenue from selling branded stickers in 2015. By making stickers available for brands to sponsor, Twitter is giving brands a new native ad product to engage users with. Brands seeking to add a fun sparkle to their Twitter campaigns should certainly look into Sponsored Stickers.

 

Source: AdWeek

Tiffany Becomes The First Luxury Brand To Buy Snapchat Lens

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Upscale jewelry retailer Tiffany has become the first luxury brand to buy a sponsored selfie lens on Snapchat in an attempt to connect with a younger audience. The branded selfie lens transforms the eye color of users into Tiffany’s signature blue and adds heart-shaped branding on top. The lens received some extra exposure after scoring an unsolicited Snapchat post from Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian.

The branded selfie lens is just a start for Tiffany as the NYC-based company says it has more Snapchat campaigns planned. Throughout August, a branded Snapchat Geofilter will be made available at all 93 of its U.S. stores, and it will also be running video ads on Snapchat that appear in between users’ stories to amplify its brand presence.

What Brands Need To Do
With this initiative, Tiffany joins a growing list of brands that have tried out Snapchat’s unique ad products such as Sponsored Selfie Lenses and Branded Geofilters to connect and engage with users on the fast-growing social messaging app. Last week, both Maybelline and L’Oreal bought Sponsored Lenses in celebration of National Lipstick Day and leveraged the lens’ AR technology to virtually showcase how their products would look on users. For brands that wish to reach millennial consumers, Snapchat is a social channel with some great native ad units that should not be overlooked.

Source: Glossy

Header image courtesy of Tiffany’s Twitter

Tumblr Ramps Up Ads By Putting Ads On More Blogs

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Tumblr is taking a significant step to increase its ad inventory by rolling out a new ad program that puts more ads across its network of blogs. Starting Thursday, sponsored posts and sponsored video ads will start appearing on Tumblr’s slide-out section on the web, on the main page of blogs using the default Optica theme, as well as on its mobile apps and mobile web. Users can earn money off those on-blog ads if they sign up for Tumblr’s Creatrs program. This program is applied to Tumblr’s network of over 306 million blogs from 65 million users by default, but users who wish not to see ads on their blogs can opt out of the program in settings.

What Brands Need To Do
Since this opt-out program displays ads on Tumblr blogs, it effectively enables Tumblr to monetize its vast amount of blogs that reach all visitors, whereas previously Tumblr’s ad products only reach logged-in users. In 2013, Tumblr was purchased for $1.1 billion by Yahoo, which, in turn, will be acquired by Verizon by early next year. As Verizon plans to integrate Yahoo’s online ad business into AOL, we expect to see Tumblr further step up its ad efforts in the near future. For now, brands advertising on Tumblr will gain a significantly wider reach for their ads.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Reddit To Allow Brands To Sponsor User Posts

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Reddit is taking a big leap in ramping up its ad business by launching a new ad product called Promoted User Posts. Set to launch on August 4, this ad product will allow brand marketers to sponsor user-generated posts on Reddit. For example, if someone posted something interesting or humorous about a brand’s products and got some traction on Reddit, the brand can ask Reddit to contact the user for permission to sponsor that post so as to propel its reach. The sponsored posts will be featured in different subreddits – topic-based forums on Reddit – so that brands can target specific segments of users.

What Brands Need To Do
Reddit currently has over 240 million monthly unique visitors, but brands have historically found the site difficult to market on due to its lack of viable ad products and a notoriously anti-ads user base. Still, some brands such as Toyota and Ford have found moderate success in their content marketing efforts on Reddit by playing to user interests and sensibilities. This new ad product should make it easier for brands to tap into viral content gaining momentum on Reddit and reach a significant part of the global online audience.

 

Source: AdAge

Spotify Now Lets Brands Sponsor Its Popular Playlists

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Spotify has introduced another ad product for brands to connect with its over 100 million users worldwide. Brands can now sponsor some of the most popular playlists curated by the music streaming service, with a message that matches the playlist of their choice. Dubbed Sponsored Playlists, the new ad unit matches a marketer with a playlist that aligns with the target audience they have in mind. For example, an athletic wear brand would be a good fit to sponsor a workout playlist. Kia, McDonald’s, and Target are among the advertisers that have tried it out during beta testing. Spotify also says it will help drive users to a playlist during the sponsorship through native promotion and social media.

What Brands Need To Do
Playlists are one of Spotify’s most popular features, with its top playlists amassing millions of followers. For example, the Today’s Top Hits playlist currently has 8 million followers, and its personalized Discover Weekly playlist has reached 40 million users so far. For brands, this offers an interesting way to get their messages across in an organic way. And because those messages are embedded within playlists, they can even reach paid subscribers.

For more information on how brands can earn consumer attention with branded content or sponsorships, please check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: AdWeek


Header image courtesy of Spotify’s Vimeo video

Publishers Can Now Publish Branded Content On Facebook

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
If you get your news from Facebook, you are about to see a lot more brand-sponsored content. On Friday, Facebook announced it is loosening its rules on branded content, allowing publishers to post branded content in all formats, including video, as long as media companies and marketers go through a simple verification process. Previously, publishers were technically prohibited from posting advertorial content as organic posts on Facebook unless they are part of a paid ad placement, despite some publishers’ attempts to sneak them through.

The announcement comes at a time when publishers are increasingly turning to branded content to supplement ad revenues. For example, earlier this week, The Economist started pitching brand advertisers sponsored mini-documentaries as a new ad unit for brands to attach themselves to the social and environmental causes they care about.

What Brands Need To Do
Facebook recently reported that 83% of the ads running on its Audience Network are now native ads. We expect more to pop up now that Facebook has opened the gates for branded content. With consumers continuing to shun away from traditional ads, it is important for brands and media owners to try engaging with their audience in new ways, such as branded content and native ads.

For more information on how brands should leverage interesting branded content to earn consumer eyeballs, check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.

For more updates on Facebook, Remember to check back next week to read our in-depth take on Facebook’s annual F8 developer conference.

 

Source: WSj

Coke Partners With iHeartMedia to Target Teens With Podcast

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Coca-Cola is teaming up with iHeartMedia, parent company of popular internet radio network iHeartRadio, to target teens with a branded podcast. Named “iHeartRadio First Taste Fridays With Coca-Cola,” the podcast is billed as a source for “first tastes of the hottest new music and behind the scenes artist interviews.” This partnership marks iHeartMedia’s first foray into podcasting, a medium that has sparked renewed interest from marketers following the runaway success of Serial last year.

What Brands Need To Do
Podcasts provide a growing opportunity for brands to reach a targeted niche audience of specified interests with sponsorships and native ads. A recent study also found podcast listeners are usually active users of social media and are more likely to follow brands. This branded content deal cements podcasting’s place in mainstream media landscape as a burgeoning marketing channel, which brands of all types should heed to.

 

Source: AdAge