Fairfax Media is eyeing off mobile, with commercial director Tom Armstrong saying that when the advertising formats on mobile get better, including native-in-stream ads, the dollars will follow.
Armstrong told AdNews that the reason the advertising and commercial opportunities surrounding mobile have been slow to follow usage, is because of a lack of understanding and measurement around the medium.
Talking on the lack of money following mobile, “I think that’s down to our understanding of mobile growth,” Armstrong said.
“It comes down to better measurement within the environment and the formats. Having more high impact formats as opposed to the early generation of small banner ads, once you get those native formats and those high impact ads, I think you'll see a lot more brands moving into that space.”
Armstrong said that getting the ad formats right on mobile is a big focus for the publisher, with Fairfax looking at higher impact ads rather than the small banners users are currently served on their devices.
“It won’t be long before we're a mobile first company,” he said. “It's a huge area of focus for us, the small banner ads that we've seen to date just aren’t really getting any traction.”
“Getting new formats into mobile is going to be crucial, so we're focusing on that, high impact formats that are much bigger and much more eye catching, but also native advertising in stream as well, it's going to be a big focus for us.”
Last week the publisher launched a brand solutions division to work with editorial and advertisers to explore opportunities across the publishers' core verticals, Armstrong said that the new division is less about transactional sales, but more about creating integrated opportunities for advertisers.
The division aims to tap into the content creation boom and attract brands who want to use Fairfax's resources to tell meaningful stories.
“Most marketers today are really tying to understand culture and how their brands play a part in that as opposed to just trying to badge it. They're trying to figure out how to create culture,” Armstrong said.
“If you look at progressive brands out there at the moment, Red Bull, Mastercard, Coca-Cola, they are creating great culture through great content, they are creating content, they are telling great stories.”
Those brands who area creating good content generally have one thing in common, they are pulling people into that content rather than pushing it to them. However that can be easier said than done.
“Content marketing is exploding all around the world, brands want to become publishers, but what we're also seeing is a lot of bad executions of this because creating good content, content that makes readers think, or really engage them, or makes them laugh is not easy to do.”
“It's that expertise that we have, we're saying is that the right content to create? We ask is it good? Is it going to engage audiences? Some are doing this really well, others are not, and as this area explodes, publishers and people who do this for a living can really help them (brands) - that's our core expertise.
For more news:
Fairfax eyes brand dollars, launches new division
New York Times backs native in print, will it boost the ad style in Australia?
News a no go for native says Life Media boss as it seals $3m Dan Murphy's deal
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