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Q&A: Mark Howard, CRO Forbes Media, on Creating Native Advertising Content
This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Mark Howard, CRO Forbes Media on Creating Native Advertising Content.
Q: Describe the importance of quality content in the Native Advertising value proposition:
A: As with editorial content, quality brand content is key for an advertiser to remain relevant and achieve credibility and impact. Some typical hallmarks of quality are, of course, accuracy, craftsmanship and usefulness to the audience. But it’s important to note that those characteristics can mean different things in different contexts. That’s why contextual relevance is also critical to a quality experience. What may work contextually in one environment, site, social media network or native ad placement may feel out of place−or not resonate as well−with the audience in another.
At Forbes, we review each potential partner’s content plan to determine whether that content would be relevant for the Forbes business journalism audience. We have guidelines for the nature of the content on our site. The content itself is not a place for marketers to promote products or services but rather a forum to provide domain expertise and insights and authentically engage with the Forbes.com audience. Members of our team work closely with our digital partners to share their years of expertise in the digital content landscape, and we share those lessons and collaborate with marketers to help them achieve success.
Q: Describe the way in which your organization handles the creation of Native Advertising content:
A: Forbes gives marketers a voice as experts in their fields to share their thought leadership and storytelling on Forbes.com and in Forbes magazine. Marketers have direct publishing access to Forbes.com. We first launched BrandVoice (then called AdVoice) in 2010, which emerged from a visionary philosophy that perceived the web and burgeoning social networks as great equalizer and merit-based information sharing systems. A variety of voices–whether it’s the voice of journalists, audience members or marketers–now has a chance to be heard. The audience “votes” through engagement.
In 2013, Forbes BrandVoice articles garnered more than 11 million page views. Partners have also seen benefits from their BrandVoice campaigns beyond article engagement. For example, a contributor from one of our partners received an invitation to advise government officials on her area of expertise–cloud computing−based on the exposure and credibility she earned via the Forbes BrandVoice platform.
Q: What types of marketing initiatives lend themselves best to leveraging Native Advertising and how can they be designed to better deliver on their objectives?
A: Brand content should serve the audience first. It should be useful to the audience in some way, it should be aligned with the marketer’s identity, and it should also make sense contextually within the environment where it’s being featured natively. Forbes readers expect authentic business thought leadership and storytelling aligned with a marketer’s expertise and ethos. On another site, the audience may expect, for example, entertainment or life science information.
Three pieces of advice for marketers for brand content programs:
- Commit to and resource brand content as a permanent initiative for your brand, with an ever-growing body of work. This is especially key as social and smartphone usage continues to rise. Content commands attention on the smaller screens and on social media.
- Think and act like a publisher, information provider, journalist, storyteller and/or entertainer. If you don’t know how, hire or work with people who do.
- Consider your brand content program one important piece of your overall brand marketing and advertising strategy that aims to broaden reach, drive awareness and trust, and increase exposure. A great brand content program works in concert with—but is itself different—than other types of advertising and marketing within your brand universe.
And some advice for publishers would be:
- First and foremost, be transparent and provide clear disclosure about the source of the content.
- Make your brand content programs truly native and contextually relevant to the spirit and goals of your environment, avoiding commoditized native advertising shortcuts that aren’t truly native, aren’t contextually relevant and aren’t useful to the audience.
- Teach your partners to become great publishers. Guide them strategically. Share metrics openly.
Mark Howard is Chief Revenue Officer at Forbes Media. In this role, he is responsible for the U.S. and European digital and print sales organization, marketing and advertising solutions. Previously, he was SVP of Digital Advertising Strategy. Howard also held the position of SVP and VP of Digital Advertising Sales for Forbes Media, overseeing the global sales team in its online sales efforts as well leading the Western Region team in its integrated sales efforts. Howard joined Forbes Media as a Regional Sales Manager in 2002. During his time at Forbes, he has also served as West Coast Digital Sales Director and Western Region Director of Integrated Sales. Prior to joining Forbes Media, Howard held sales positions at Inc. and Fast Company magazines, as well as E-Trade Financial. He began his career as a media planner at Anderson & Lembke.
Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.
Also in this series:
Q&A: Mike Kisseberth, Chief Revenue Officer of Purch, on Creating Native Advertising Content
Q&A: Edward Menicheschi, VP & publisher of Vanity Fair, on Creating Native Advertising Content
Q&A: Edward Menicheschi, VP & Publisher of Vanity Fair, on Creating Native Advertising Content
This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Edward Menicheschi, VP & publisher of Vanity Fair, on Creating a Native Advertising Content.
Q: Describe the importance of quality content in the Native Advertising value proposition:
A: Quality is everything in generating content for our audience and Native is no exception. Part of the filter that our in house agency, VF Agenda, applies is: does this have a rational reason to be within our brand? Will our audience find value in all of this? Does it propel the storytelling process around the subject matter?
Q: Describe the way in which your organization handles the creation of Native Advertising content:
A: We receive multiple requests on a monthly basis for Native Advertising content creation. As a company, we made a decision to enter this space last year. We pass on a fair number of requests if we feel we don’t have something great to offer the consumer or something that makes sense within our brand voice. An example of something that worked particularly well was the Hennessy Native content program we produced last December. The “Hennessy Original Film” about car racing felt like a natural fit for our readers.
Q: What types of marketing initiatives lend themselves best to leveraging Native Advertising and how can they be designed to better deliver on their objectives?
A: We always think of story line first in considering how Native Advertising can support a brand’s marketing initiative. Is there something new to discuss, is there context that works beyond a traditional ad message that leads to discovery? Is there relevant subject matter that will lead an audience to want to find out more? Those are the benchmarks that we think marketers should be asking themselves beyond the traditional KPI’s.
Don’t enter the space for the sake of saying you’re in it. Really think through the implications for your brand. Transparency is paramount in communicating that Native Advertising is sponsored content. The consumer is way too plugged in to assume that you can blur the lines and they won’t know. Be up front. Tell a great story. Set the bar high. And use great content creators who know how to land a message with the consumer.
Edward Menicheschi has been VP and publisher of Vanity Fair since August 2006. He previously was president of WWD Media Worldwide. He first joined Condé Nast in 1986, working at GQ. He also served as executive editor of Vogue for two years before being named associate publisher in 1994. Menicheschi also was the president of IAM.COM, a talent-search website.
Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.
Also in this series:
Q&A: Mike Kisseberth, Chief Revenue Officer of Purch, on Creating Native Advertising Content
Q&A: Mike Kisseberth, Chief Revenue Officer of Purch, on Creating Native Advertising Content
This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Mike Kisseberth, Chief Revenue Officer of Purch, on Creating a Native Advertising Content.
Q: Describe the importance of quality content in the Native Advertising value proposition:
A: Quality is of the utmost importance when it comes to native. Consumers are smart and discerning. They will quickly disregard content if it isn’t providing value or enhancing their overall experience. Quality content, regardless of the source, also ensures publication integrity long-term. Without that, you’re not a credible venue for any type of promotion.
That’s why our editorial leadership is deeply involved with decisions regarding programs that could be considered native. When content creation is a part of the project, they will provide high-level direction to assure the approach will resonate with the audience. Since page design plays a huge factor in whether that content achieves the engagement the marketer is striving for, our editors will also work with our design and analytics teams to make sure the data says we got the experience right.
Finally, of course, is our passionate community of over 78 million readers worldwide. They keep us honest and let us know what they like or don’t like. They’re our best assets for quality control.
Q: Describe the way in which your organization handles the creation of Native Advertising content:
A: We’ve been hosting native campaigns, advertorials, and other forms of custom content, for years.
We have a very rich tool set to achieve a wide variety of objectives – from the beginning of the sales cycle to the final design. As a publisher that works in both programmatic and highly-customized campaigns, our direct sales team plays a tremendous role in providing potential buyers and clients with the deep contextual grounding and insight that is needed to develop and execute a standout, impactful campaign right from the start. They are backed by a product marketing team that has built out a proprietary content discovery platform that works across all of our sites and our partner sites. That team also project manages the programs from start to finish to assure flawless execution.
If content creation is part of the project, we call upon our editorial leadership for direction and thought leadership. We develop the content with a team of subject matter experts outside of the editorial team. All content requires the approval of our editorial leadership.
Recently we have become most excited by the mix of Brand Impact and Direct Response Performance that we have been able to achieve by optimizing page design of our own in-market content. In some cases, this can include wiping all the ads off the page to focus the audience’s attention on the action the marketer is striving for, even if that is just deeper consideration of the content. We have seen performance for many of these pages out stripe that of any marketing tactic our customers engage.
Q: What types of marketing initiatives lend themselves best to leveraging Native Advertising and how can they be designed to better deliver on their objectives?
A: It really depends upon the marketer and the media property that will host the content. Brand themes, thought leadership, even demand generation can be accomplished by a Native Advertising effort. The most important thing to consider is how you can serve the target audience first with the content you are delivering. If you can deliver value to the audience and your marketing objectives, then you can achieve performance that is hard to match through most any other marketing effort. Marketers and publishers who are considering sponsored content as part of their overall marketing mix need to get the order right though, serve the audience first with content that will be of genuine interest.
As Chief Revenue Officer, Mike oversees Purch’s (formerly called TechMedia Network) multiple advertising revenue streams. Most recently, Mike was the President and CEO of International Data Groups (IDG) Consumer & SMB division, where he led the growth of PC World and Macworld, evolving both to digital media and more than doubling the audience size. He also launched a new brand, TechHive, built a marketing services business “Content Works” and dramatically expanded IDG’s mobile and paid product offerings. Prior to IDG, Mike held high level positions at CNET Networks, Inc serving as SVP/Corporate Sales and Operations, where he led sales efforts and played an active role in implementing business strategies for every brand under the CNET Networks umbrella.
Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.
Also in this series:
Q&A: Edward Menicheschi, VP & publisher of Vanity Fair, on Creating Native Advertising Content
New OPA Study Reveals Native Advertising Best Practices, Marketer Goals and Metrics
The Online Publishers Association (OPA) has released “Premium Content Brands Are Native Naturals” a research study of native advertising offerings by premium content brands which includes marketer goals, metrics and best practices. Among the findings are that 81% of OPA members find marketers are primarily using native advertising on their sites to increase consumer engagement with advertiser brands and 81% also want to leverage publisher brand equity to achieve brand lift. The study, which includes quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews with OPA members, was conducted by Radar Research in May 2013 and is available now available.
OPA members also shared best practices for editorial, sales, marketing and legal, which include:
- Provide as much value to the reader as regular content
- Label native advertising content to guarantee transparency and clarity
- Ensure that native content mirrors discoverability of editorial through search and social media
- Develop clear editorial standards and practices, for instance training marketers if they are providing content, or for monitoring audience posts or comments
To view the Press Release with a longer summary click here.
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