Publisher experiments with native advertising – attempts to create ad units that feel part of the online reading experience – have drawn plenty of fire for supposedly blurring the lines between advertising and editorial.

Content distributors that began life online, including social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as well as banner-free news brands ranging from Quartz to BuzzFeed, have found it easier to integrate native ads into their sites.

Traditional publishers however, inheriting a print model based on clear barriers between advertising and editorial, are finding the proximity of native ads to news content more problematic.

Nonetheless, these challenges haven’t stopped native advertising entering the mainstream in the US, the world’s largest digital market.

Yields from banner ads have fallen far short of expectations, prompting storied news brands, initially wary of the challenges native advertising posed, to start commercializing these new formats to shore up digital ad revenue.

These trends are likely to become more prominent in Asia too, as news consumption shifts online.

Quality controls

Many publishers in the US however, caught in the eye of the storm, are still moving forward tentatively, careful to protect a brand integrity that has served them well so far. 

“We have a lot of different quality controls,” noted Sebastian Tomich, advertising VP at venerable US daily The New York Times, speaking on a recent webinar about the newspaper’s native advertising offer, unveiled earlier this year.

“When we did our first presentation about this platform,” he added, “someone immediately raised their hand and said: ‘Will the advertising unit of The New York Times turn away a campaign if you feel the content isn’t high quality enough?’

"It’s very challenging for any publishing company to turn down business,” Tomich continued. “But we have said that we will, and it’s happened already.”

Overt promotions are perhaps better suited to banner placements, where readers are conditioned to expect sales pitches, rather than native ad slots, which should complement rather than interrupt the reading experience, Tomich noted.

Content marketing on the other hand, an attempt to carve out consumer attention with brand-sponsored editorial, could work well in native ad positions.

"We have a responsibility to the quality of The New York Times to make sure promoted content lives up to that,” Tomich said. “And for a Times reader to engage with it and share it, it has to live up to the value and quality as well.”

Brand disclosure

Compared with some other practitioners, The New York Times has adopted relatively strict rules for labeling sponsored stories.

This rigor however, sometimes mocked by sites with a looser approach, is not necessarily a negative for brands.

“It is a non-negotiable for us,” said Ricky Baizas, a social media specialist at Nestlé USA’s Digital Center of Excellence, also taking part in the webinar, which was co-organized by Sopa (Society of Publishers in Asia) and Media Business Asia.

“What we value most is our consumers’ trust,” Baizas added. “Full disclosure is very important. Our job and our responsibility, together with the publisher and our media agencies, is to come up with cohesive content. But it has to be very clear for any reasonable consumer that this is a paid ad.”

Native advertising isn’t something brands should tinker with, counseled Baizas, who previously worked for the food and drink giant in a regional digital role in APAC.

Half-hearted efforts, in terms of time and money, are unlikely to deliver favorable results, discouraging advertisers from spending more.

If done well however, native advertising can boost ROI.

“You need something to compare it to, so that you have a benchmark, whether it is a previous campaign that you want to improve or how an ad network buy performed in the past,” Baizas added.

“You have to be very clear if you want to have cost efficiency or something else. Establish what you want to achieve first, then have benchmarks set, and do your best to monitor those results afterwards.”

Spreading the word

Momentum in Asia will only take off once publishers start pushing native options here, noted Yean Cheong, APAC leader of MAP, a group of specialist digital practices within agency network IPG Mediabrands.

Some brands are still pondering the right mix of TV and online video, Cheong added, while others that may be interested in native advertising don’t have enough budget to run tests to get started.

Nonetheless, the popularity of social media platforms, with native ad units baked in, could propel adoption.

“Some advertisers in Asia have dabbled in branded content, and I think it will be a welcome move to look at native formats,” Cheong said.

“But firstly, we need to convince them this form of advertising has a role  in their overall marketing needs. One of the biggest challenges advertisers in Asia will face is, who is writing that content?

"If publishers come forward with creative talent and writers, that in itself would help some of our advertisers overcome the barriers very quickly.”

Why The New York Times Went Native

Sebastian Tomich, advertising VP, The New York Times