Native advertising has been making big moves in digital advertising, but there is still a lot of confusion around whether or not native ads will be regulated and monitored in the same way. And not all consumers have decided how they feel about the format.
Just for reference, native advertising is a form of paid media where ads follow the context, form, and function of where they are placed.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) recently released the IAB Native Advertising Playbook with a breakdown of the types of native ads that are available to brands, as well as some recommendations around disclosure and regulation, if you are looking for some additional in-depth information on the topic.
While there is a wealth of examples in the B2C marketing community on native advertising (good and bad), we wanted to take a moment to show you some examples of native advertising done right in B2B:
SAP and Forbes’ BrandVoice
SAP is a major B2B leader of merging native advertising and content marketing. They maintain a channel on Forbes’ BrandVoice and regularly post exceptionally written and researched content for their audiences. SAP is a great example because, while they are paying for the exposure of their content to readers of Forbes, they are not taking the responsibility to produce high-quality content lightly and maintain an excellent standard in their posts.
GE and BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed is definitely a leader in native advertising from the publisher-side and they tend to work with B2C brands who are looking to reach BuzzFeed’s highly engaged, social audience. GE uses BuzzFeed to impact brand engagement and shares with the fun, viral content that BuzzFeed is known for.
Adobe and Mashable
Mashable doesn’t quite have their native advertising program down as well as Forbes or BuzzFeed on the publisher-side, but they do offer a program called “BrandSpeak” for brands looking to engage Mashable readers. Adobe connected with the tech-savvy, socially engaged Mashable audience with this post around the new year.
LinkedIn Sponsored Content
You can see several examples of sponsored updates on LinkedIn — from SmartRecruiters, Pardot, and PointDrive. LinkedIn Sponsored Updates provide B2B brands a lower cost of entry with more targeting options than a lot of the larger publishers.
IBM and The Atlantic
IBM released this sponsored content on The Atlantic with multiple interactive topics for users to engage called “The Power of Data.” Pictured below are screenshots of the “The Power of Reinventing Work” and “The Power of Delivering Exceptional Customer Experiences” subjects. The campaign is beautiful. A user can rollover sections of the content to learn more and there are many areas to explore.
American Express Open and Huffington Post
American Express Open Forum is an undisputed leader in the B2B content marketing world — constantly testing the waters of emerging media and new ways to deliver a great experience to its audience. This section really could have been “American Express Open Forum and a lot of publishers offering native advertising,” because they are participating in sponsored content on multiple sites across the web.
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