Digital Publishers Are Using Traditional Demographics Less and Less in Their Native Advertising

Native advertising has taken many forms since it started becoming the norm for publishers. From written articles that look like editorial content to fully produced video series, brands have worked with publishers to find ways to connect with an already engaged audience. During an Advertising Week panel Tuesday called "The Bad Guys and Girls of Publishing," publishers discussed what native advertising means and how it'll continue to evolve. Edwin Wong, BuzzFeed's vp of research and insights, noted that younger generations see themselves as less binary and more on a spectrum of traditional concepts like gender than ever before. "But programmatic advertising tends to work in binary pieces of data," Wong said. "Instead, we make [branded] content that connects with consumers, and it becomes what people are interested in." Earlier this year, Wong told Adweek that BuzzFeed has started to operate in terms of psychographics, or what interests and beliefs people have, as opposed to traditional demographic concepts. "People are more complicated and way cooler than just a 'snowflake,'" he said at the time. "Traditional marketing wants to see demographic groups, but there’s a way to understand the ethos of a generation." Slate and Vice have started to use audience segmentation to better target ads against their articles and native content. Charlie Kammerer, Slate's chief revenue officer, said the publisher wants to "create value based on what people are already looking for." "Some of our smaller verticals tend to be more highly engaged, and we can see where they like to spend their time," he said. "Based on that data, we can eventually monetize those segments in a branding sense." Kammerer also said Slate makes sure its native advertising is contextual and "doesn't fool anybody." In addition to written articles and some videos, Slate invested heavily in podcasting over 10 years ago and created its own podcast network, Panoply Media, two years ago. Some of the shows produced by Slate are branded podcasts, including from Netflix and GE, but they weren't always a successful part of the business. "We started investing in podcasting … when nobody was making any money off of it," Kammerer said. "And that was most likely at the expense of our video production, as you can't do both at scale." Now, Slate's podcasts are a "significant part" of its overall revenue and business, he said. Bustle Digital Group, which now includes Bustle, Romper and Elite Daily, holds true to its roots of news and culture coverage for millennial women. Kate Ward, BDG's editor in chief, noted that the publisher's audience doesn't go to just one source for news, so it has to tailor its editorial and branded content to fit the platform. "Make it in the way a user actually uses the platform," she said, "and package it authentically. Why would it look different than what their friends are posting? We think of our own media habits and what we view on a daily basis." [kickout id="1"] All four publishers cover breaking news heavily, and they're aware that brands don't always want to be connected to sensitive subjects in the news cycle. Brands may not always be comfortable with Vice's reporting methods or the topics it covers, but Andrew Smith, Vice's svp of advertising product and solutions, is confident in the way the company navigates those tricky waters. "Believe it or not, there are brand-safe options over at Vice," he said. "We're building sophisticated technology to find new ways of building audiences while being truly thoughtful of our context. There's a huge, diverse footprint of audience and destinations on Vice that are appropriate for brands." As native advertising keeps shifting and publishers get more comfortable producing it in partnership with brands, they're looking to the larger media ecosystem for what comes next. Vice has experimented in the physical space with its partnership with AB InBev that includes a bar in London and a bespoke line of beer. Smith said Vice "challenges what content can even be, especially branded content." BuzzFeed has also created IRL products. "There are ways to make media meaningful in the real world," Wong said. "Our Product Labs teams have been turning our digital projects, like the customizable Tasty cookbook, into physical—or analog—real products. We upended the traditional model of printing."