Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Adnan Arnautlija
Damjan Planinc, Managing Director of Get Interactive, has been in the digital advertising for more than 15 years now. He has witnessed many trends come and go in that time, and has acquired keen eye for what good digital advertising is.
And good digital advertising according to Damjan is that which is non-intrusive, consumer friendly, informative and valuable for those for whom it is intended. All these traits he sees in Native advertising as a form of content marketing, and will share his in-depth knowledge about native and digital advertising in general with participants at the Content Experience Conference which will be held on June 07 in Belgrade, organized by Represent Communications.
Looking forward to the conference, we wanted to learn more about what Damjan will share with the participants.
Media Marketing: You are well-known as an expert in native advertising, and it is one of the pillars of Get Interactive’s business. What are the key things that need to be taken into account when it comes to native? When is native most effective?
Damjan Planinc: The most important aspect is to put customer first. To truly understand customer journey, what are customer needs and expectations in each of these buying phases. Native advertising and content marketing should not put brands in first place – its not about us, but about our customer needs.
We see native advertising very effective when content is well-aligned with distribution part of native advertising. At the moment we still see that brands are very focused on content creation and distribution of this content comes really as an after thought. They should think where their content will be shown, and in which format from the beginning.
Media Marketing: What are native’s major advantages in relation to other forms of advertising, and are there any drawbacks to it? How hard is it to measure native?
Damjan Planinc: In times of banner blindness it is good to know that consumers are looking at native ads 52% more frequently then banner ads. Research also shows that purchase-intent is significantly higher with native ads. And many customers want to learn about products or services through content and not through classical advertising.
Native advertising is not hard to measure. Most brands use same metrics as with other digital channels – mostly count clicks and CTRs. But more advanced brands also use engagement metrics, like time on site, shares of content,…
Media Marketing: The Coalition for Better Ads wants to introduce new global advertising standards that would curb „bad ads“, you were quick to join the initiative. How far are you in this sense, and how does native tie into the whole story?
Damjan Planinc: From the beginning we at the Get Interactive strongly believe in unobtrusive online advertising which enables better user experience of the whole digital world. All of our ad formats are strictly compliant with those guidelines. Native as a content based ad format has always been part of “better advertising”.
Media Marketing: There are those who believe that native is misleading, and there’s a common complaint that native isn’t always marked as advertising. What is your take on this?
Damjan Planinc: To build a long-lasting relationship being fair and open with your customer is definitely a no-brainer. But yes, we still see native ads not being labelled at all or poorly labelled. According to some data, there are around 10% of native ads not being labelled. I believe companies using these tactics will be on the long run out-of-the business. Users are simply not stupid and you can not trick them on a long-term.
Media Marketing: How much has native advertising changed in recent years, and where will it go in the near future?
Damjan Planinc: Native advertising as a way of communication has a long history, but it’s developing these days very dynamically, mostly due to new technology. In 2017, native programmatic took off, but with it came concerns of transparency and brand safety. This caused many marketers to wonder if the digital ad world is a safe place for their brands. Particularly in the age of programmatic where algorithms determine where ads are placed and who potentially sees them.
In 2018 we will see programmatic “clean-up”. Buying and selling of native will become simple, efficient and scalable. For this to truly take off, contextualization is everything. Native ads have to blend in seamlessly and in the content feed of the different media brands or social media platforms in order for the editorial content to really endorse and amplify the native ads and vice versa. This is why great native visual integrations will also have to be developed in next years for native ads to be more beautiful, more engaging and more dynamic.
Media Marketing: Major leaps are being made globally in programmatic TV buying. Are you working on this, and what is the overall level of readiness in Slovenia in this field?
Damjan Planinc: There has been a lot of debates on this topic – globally and regionally. But I think full adoption of programmatic TV will come not next year, but in five or ten years. We have to have in mind this is not so much technical challenge, but more a business one. TV budgets are still one of the biggest advertising budgets and many players in this field are not in favor of changing rules of the game.
Slovenia with only two bigger TV stations and few bigger media agencies will definitely not be first-mover in this field. Market is too small and on the other hand personal connections are too strong, therefore programmatic TV buying doesn’t make much sense.
Media Marketing: GDPR will come into force in a matter of days. Are you ready for it? And what is the overall readiness of Slovenia’s communication industry for the GDPR?
Damjan Planinc: GDPR is not a new standard for us. We were actually ready since last year. But for the whole advertising industry GDPR is not such a big issue, much more challenging will be ePrivacy regulation which will come into force most likely next year.
Looking from the local perspective, Slovenian companies already didn’t have much problems being compliant with data protection laws since our laws were quite strict and due to active role of information commissioner. But as in other EU countries currently our inboxes are being flooded with emails from companies asking for consent. I think many of these emails are quite unnecessary. I believe we are currently facing overreaction on GDPR.
Media Marketing: You will be sharing these insights and much more with the participants at the Content Experience conference in Belgrade. Is there a message you would like to send them already?
Damjan Planinc: We often forget that being creative is really what makes a difference in advertising. Native is not an exception. Be creative!