More and more brand dollars are going toward native ads. Business Insider reports that Native Advertising will reach $7.9 billion this year alone and for good reason. You can’t argue with the results: Higher click-through rates, especially on mobile at over 1%, and better reception from audiences. Many consumers have trained their eyes away from banner ads, seeing them, but not registering what they say or whom they represent. With native, ads are placed where consumers are already looking – in their news and social feeds, and on their phone.
In addition to blending into feeds more seamlessly, native ads help build a brand’s minimum viable personality. By sharing content that is relevant to an audience’s values and less obviously a direct sales plug, a brand can connect more meaningfully with the consumer, build loyalty and establish positive associations that kick in when the consumer is choosing between products.
Marketers are always searching for ways to engage consumers on a higher level, and many are turning to interactive ads. Snapchat Discover and Instagram’s photo carousel for ads fall into this category. Facebook is also testing Immersive Mobile Ads. It is clear that this kind of multi-disciplinary, interactive content is the next step for social media advertising. Users get primal satisfaction by being able to participate in a story; like flipping pages through a picture book as a kid. The ads are more engaging and the brands become more memorable.
At Visual Country, we create short video content for native ad platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat and Vine for large brands. But, we are always exploring new platforms to express our own personality and the personalities of our brand partners.
If you haven’t checked it out yet, Steller, based out of San Francisco is a great app for telling stories in a fun, interactive way, and is a compelling immersive content creation platform. The perks of Steller include being able to group content by theme and use multiple types of media, making it the perfect platform to share recipes, follow a “day-in-the-life” campaign, and create stories about Stevie and Pickle. Give the story to the right a flip.