When Capital One set out to endear itself with entrepreneurs, it enlisted Forbes to create blog posts on its behalf about cybercrime and other scourges of small business. Likewise, UPS entrusted Fast Company to create custom infographics that ran on the business brand’s site. In both cases, it was the publishers, not these brands’ creative agencies, who did the heavy lifting. In fact, that dynamic is becoming more common as native ads grow in popularity. Indeed, native isn’t just the latest buzzword in advertising; it’s the latest example of how advertisers are bypassing media agencies and having publishers create ad-oriented content for them. “Publishers know their audience best,” said Barry Lowenthal, president of The Media Kitchen, which uses native ads for a number of clients. One premium publisher whose site runs a lot of native ads estimated that more than one-third of those campaigns are done in-house or by the client and don’t involve a creative agency at all. The publisher, who didn’t want to be named because, like others, he wanted to avoid appearing to be dumping on creative shops, nevertheless said his staff can do the work at Web-speed and cheaper than a creative agency. Those shops “work on the basic assets and distribute them to the brands so they are still core to the overall look and feel of the campaign, but they lose out on the custom creative fees as brands can do it way cheaper for clients than they can,” the exec said. “As native ads... Continue reading at 'AdWeek'
[ AdWeek | 2013-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]