Future Predictions for Online Marketing

Advertising online has grown exponentially in the last few years, and appears to be one of the most dynamic industries out there. New trends will be emerging within brand publishing in the future, and  here is my take on a few of them:

1) Native advertising will not be a bad word! It will be viewed as content which consumers actually enjoy and want to see - they can ignore it if it doesn't interest them, and they can engage if it does. Further, they will be aware the entire time that it is very clearly sponsored, and it wont come as a shock. The feeling of betrayal will slowly pass - as it has been doing thus-far.

2) News organizations and corporations will eventually have sponsored content and stories that they will be promoting, and it will not be questioned.

3) Transparency will become a big goal for the majority of advertisers - it will help separate quality content and campaigns from the rest.

4) Though Social media will offer simpler privacy tools, they will continue to get more personal and expect you to share each moment of your life. Apps will greatly aid to this process, and Facebooks open API will facilitate app-makers posting all the things you do to your timeline so that you can continue sharing and make the world more "open and connected."

5) With time, there will be an uprising against the Buzzfeeds and HuffPo's of the world - the average intellectuals will crave an outlet for quality, indepth writing and reporting, and the journalism community would be more than happy to provide it. Nuance is still craved at a deeper level by many.

6) Big-Data wont be as big anymore - we would have figured out which parts of it are relevant and which parts are just fluff. Data will be judged by its applicability and impact, versus its quantity.

Though some of these trends are already happening, it will be interesting to see how they pan out in the future, especially against the backdrop of ongoing internet legal reform. We can only wait and watch!

7 Content Marketing Buzzwords you should know

1) Content Marketing

Who uses it: Everyone. SEO marketers trying to steer their careers out of a tailspin. Opportunistic MBAs attempting to build branded content farms. Agency folks touting a new content service that they just made up six days ago.

What they think it means: Doing a bunch of random crap and praying that it works. Blog posts! Vines! In the cloud, dude. It’s all about the content marketing cloud.

What it really means: The overarching practice of creating content to promote a brand or product. At this point, it pretty much encapsulates everything that isn’t a static ad (print, display, billboard, etc.) or a radio spot. (Those still exist, right?) Content marketing has even swallowed social media marketing, which is so 2012.

2) Brand publishing

Who uses it: All the cool kids cherishing the few months before it’s co-opted by every marketer this side of Madison Avenue.

What they think it means: Creating branded content that doesn’t feel like a slimy advertorial or a display ad in sheep’s clothing.

What it really means: The practice of a brand telling stories about the things they care about, their brand, and their brand’s products in a way that’s genuinely engaging and not promotional.

3) Contentvertising

Who uses it: People who should be fired.

What they think it means: That they created a clever new word for content marketing.

What it really means: That the buzzwords are mating and multiplying. Run for your life.

4) Native ad/Sponsored Content

Who uses it: Publishers desperate for a new revenue stream. Agencies freaking out over a dwindling media spend. Ad-tech dudes who know that talking about banner ads at a party is never going to get them laid. Ever.

What they think it means: A sponsored listicle on BuzzFeed.

What it really means: An ad that mimics the experience around it. Google search ads are the granddaddy of native ads online. Sponsored Facebook Newsfeed posts, Promoted Tweets, and, yes, BuzzFeed Sponsored Posts are all examples of native ads.

5) Brand Newsroom

Who uses it: Hip CMOs. Agencies that just dropped a half mil designing a command center with more screens than Minority Report. Old-school media types while rolling their eyes.

What they think it means: Gathering a bunch of people in a room and totally crushing the Super Bowl and Oscars. What time is it? IT’S REAL-TIME.

What it really means: The fundamental restructuring of brand communications to mirror those of a media organization able to publish great stories swiftly; the group of people who publish content on behalf of your brand consistently, improving and growing an audience over time.

6) Brand Journalism

Who uses it: All those people talking about brand newsrooms like it’s the latest Beyoncé album.

What they think it means: All the content a brand publishes.

What it really means: The specific practice of a trained journalist reporting on the inner happenings of a brand on behalf of the brand.

7) Content Marketing Cloud

Who uses it: People who apparently think that you just can’t wait to get rid of your content marketing mainframe.

What they think it means: That you will give them lots of money.

What it really means: Cloud-based software that lets you manage your content marketing operation and analyze your success. Not to get too SaaSy (see what we did there?), but is there any other kind?

Source: http://contently.com/strategist/2014/04/18/the-best-branded-content-of-2014-so-far/

Branded Content: Is it better to own or sponsor?

As branded content surges as an alternative to digital ads, many advertisers are facing essentially the same question - do they make their own content, or buy it from somebody else? Creativity, control, speed, quality and cost -- all are at stake. Which do they choose?

GE makes its own media for brand properties like Ecomagination.com, its informational site about technology and environment. Cadillac, on the other hand, elects to sponsor a travel site, Gallivant, for a month at a time. Virgin Mobile's model is to create innumerable lists that it posts on BuzzFeed.

It's all branded content, but each is a vastly different investment. Sponsoring content on a media property can cost much more than generating content on your own property, such as a microsite or blog. But there are plus and minuses to both approaches. What you gain in ease, you could lose in control and vice versa.

Katrina Craigwell, digital marketing manager at GE, which is still experimenting, says her publishing medium of choice is Tumblr, which offers a massive built-in network of a certain demographic -- mostly teens and tech-savvy bored-at-workers. (GE's newest content property, txchnologist.com, runs exclusively on Tumblr.)

Owning the media in this fashion gives the sponsor full control of the message, allowing it to develop a unique and memorable voice, and to engage with readers and viewers on the brand's home field, with the brand's own design. But, as anyone in media will tell you, building a devoted audience as a publisher requires patience, coordination and leadership, not to mention talent to create appealing stories. Brands face the additional challenge of pacifying the variety of corporate cooks who typically want to weigh in on any outbound communication. 

The internal complications lead many advertisers to chicken-out and buy interruptive, shot-in-the-arm banners and TV spots. The average click-through rates and user-engagement time on owned media can be 10 times that of banners. But persuading one's boss to wait six months for results to grow, when superficial results can be bought now, can be a magician's feat.

That's where sponsored content comes in.

Last year, GE sponsored a short series on BuzzFeed called "The GE Show." One of its stories, "The 60 Most Beautiful Cinemagraph GIFs" which showed examples of a new type of visual media (essentially, high-definition still images with overlaid video), garnered nearly 120 responses and 1,000 shares. The post became instantly popular, garnering tens of thousands of views from being on the BuzzFeed homepage, plus extra traffic from friends of the 1,000 readers who shared. It was a powerful alternative to annoying readers with a takeover ad, and just as easy to buy.

As was the case with BuzzFeed and "The GE Show," content sponsors typically get story ideation and approval rights, and the publisher creates the stories in its own voice and style. The publisher can then maneuver posts in order to obtain the number of impressions the advertiser paid for. With ease come downsides: lack of control, both creatively and process-wise; the audience is loyal to the publication first, advertiser second (BuzzFeed users are there because they love BuzzFeed); and it's difficult to capture traffic for content retargeting from a sponsored slot where the content is blanketed in the media company's design (placing a sponsor's code for a newsletter subscription form or a cookie for content retargeting requires custom programming, which requires code reviews, contracts, etc.).

However, when brands team up with established publishers like Forbes, The Atlantic and Gawker, which are among several media companies to have created BuzzFeed-like sponsored content programs, they can inherit audience trust. Said Mashable COO Sharon Feder to me on one occasion, "Our readers love our advertisers, because of the content they sponsor." When BMW underwrites Mashable's "Innovation Series" and refrains from speaking about cars (per Mashable's editorial policy), readers appreciate and respect BMW more than if it had smooshed ads in their faces.

It's probable that the most successful content programs will always contain a mix of owned and sponsored. And while both media and advertiser make out well in this model, the real winners are consumers, who benefit from great content.

Read the full article here.

Will the FCC Step in? Advertorials

As I've previously written HERE and HERE, the industry for native advertising, or so called "Advertorials" has evolved substantially in the last few months.  In the beginning, only a few sites were doing and, and many, like Buzzfeed and The Atlantic were getting blasted for it.  Now we know, that almost all websites, inlcuding the New York Times are considering it.

The FCC has recently decided to get involved in regulating the many manipulative practices of online advertising, in order to help keep consumers from getting confused. 

In the last few months, they've issued rules to twitter users (twitter celebrities) mandating that if a tweeter is posting about a product, and getting paid for that product, they must tell their users.  Specifically, the FCC said that they must post "Advertisement" in the tweet. Those 13 characters, with a space, represent 10% of tweeting room, so many have skirted the rules and used "Ad" or something to that effect. In any event, I don't think most celebrities are paying attention to the FCC.

Next, comes possible regulation of Advortorials/native advertising....or advertisements made to look like regular articles on the sites where they are placed. The idea, of course, is to trick the user into thinking that what he/she is reading, is not sponsored content, but news.

The FTC stated, "Regardless of context, consumers should be able to tell what’s an advertising pitch, whether it’s an advertorial, an infomercial, word-of-mouth marketing or native advertising," 
Currently, there are no guidelines for enforcement because there are definitional issues to be decided. But make no mistake, regulation is coming.

Advertorials - Following Up

A few weeks ago I opined that content websites, which only make their money through advertising, should be selling Advertorials, as long as they don't alienate their readers tooooo much.

To remind you, BuzzFeed Ben was called a right winger by a "hater" b/c he sold an advertorial on immigration to the Koch Institute.

In the last few weeks, almost every news organization now agrees with me.  The latest, is NBC breaking news.

Now, these articles have to be done right! You can't screw with your readers as The Atlantic did with its Scientology love fest a few weeks ago.

Not all advertorials have to be controversial.  I heard, that slate published an article that was on its front page, an advertiser liked it, and a week later, the same article was sponsored content and was at the top of the page.  Nothing controversial there.

I think, as they become more and more mainstream, readers will get more and more used to looking for the "sponsored content" indication at the top of any page. 

As a NYT reader, I'll be interested to see how advertorials impact their business.

While BuzzFeed is still the leader, there isn't as big a difference between their decisions and the big news organizations anymore. 

Are all Advertising Dollars Equal?

This professor I follow on twitter retweeted an article (subscription required) on Ben Smith (aka BuzzFeed Ben), which called him a “shill for the right wing”.  Now I don’t know the professor’s motivation for retweeting, so I won’t hold the contents of the article against him. It was an interesting read.

The article's author views himself as an investigative journalist but is actually what I would call a “hater,” to the point that he wrote a book called “The Corruption of Malcolm Gladwell.”  In my eyes, it speaks poorly of your character when you write a book for the purpose of taking down another author.

The article makes a few points to back up the “RightWingBen” assertion, the first being that BuzzFeed hosted an immigration panel funded by the Koch Institute.  While true, the fact that everyone on the immigration panel ended up supporting a path to immigration is somehow lost on the author.  Actual conservatives were pretty unhappy about the panel.

Of course, none of the above has much to do with this class or blog.  Thus, more importantly, the article mentions that BuzzFeed had a webpage/advertisement sponsored by the Koch Institute.  I believe this is the article/webpage to which the author is referring. 

Clearly, this is quasi sponsored content by the Koch Institute.  Now comes ethical question… or the question that sprung up in my mind:

Should a content website, which is a business model that relies solely on advertising dollars, reject advertising due to its political nature? 

I’d argue that as long as the material isn’t offensive to your readers, you should be accepting money/advertising from all sources.  TV stations do it, newspapers do it, and now even online news portals have said they will do it.  The Washington Post and Politico both recently announced they were doing something similar, with the advertorial, allowing sponsors to post content.

In other words, I have no problem with BuzzFeed posting an “advertorial” written by the Koch Institute.  I’m sure BuzzFeed understands the economics of its choice and is willing to take the risk that its growing readership won’t go somewhere else for their adorable duck pictures.