The New, New Thing in Digital Advertising

The New, New Thing is Native Advertising.....which is comical since it is not new. It is the current, current thing. 

Digital advertising is in a constant state of change since it is new and as an industry we are still figuring it out. It does not help that the screens we deliver it on change rapidly.

5 years ago the hottest cell phone was the Motorola Razor. The iPhone did not exist. Since then we ahve had an explosion in mobile traffic which encompasses Iphones, Androids, iPads, tablets, mini tablets and now "phablets". Publishers have gone from redesigning their site once every 4 years to creating 4 new sites every year or taking a responsive design approach where a site designed once renders to a multitude of screen size devices. 

The New, New Thing is adapting the old way of doing things to the new advertising environment. This includes efficiency through automation for standardized ad buys and custom ad solutions for premium. 

Native advertising is nothing new. As long as there has been print, there has been content written on behalf of advertisers for paid placement. There have been special ad sizes and approaches that have attracted the audience's attention and built the name recognition that leads to sales in other places. 

"I know that half of my advertising works, I just don't know which half." - Native compliments display. Native gets people buying online and leads to sales. Publishers and advertisers know this and will continue to use native and big, splashy ads because they know it works for their entire campaign.

The New, New Thing is adapting it for all the different screen sizes. Take a look at some of CheckM8's work: 

Here are some of our most recent cross screen work:

·         Aveeda Page Roll for phone & tablet (scroll to view, pauses when out of view): http://bit.ly/1f6gSig

·         Bottega Veneta Theater Unit (desktop example): http://goo.gl/HfHBmD

·         Shinola Expandable E-Commerce Ear for tablet & desktop (mouse over the right hand button in the masthead): http://goo.gl/VgS02R

·         Mercedes Benz Video Page Peel (desktop): http://bit.ly/1g0v9ww

The basis for this post came from an article on Ad Exchanger: http://www.adexchanger.com/the-sell-sider/the-current-current-thing/ @adexchnager by Jim Spanfeller @jimspanfeller