A classic race car, Vanity Fair and Hennessy Cognac. None of those three things seem out of place with each other, and that's the point of the native ads that the classic magazine has rolled out on its website.
Vanity Fair has joined the ranks of sites like Buzzfeed, the New York Times and, yes,Mashable with the inclusion of paid content that is presented in a similar style as regular articles. The ads on Vanity Fair feature a video about Sir Malcom Campbell, a man who set numerous land speed records in the early 1900s. The piece was produced by advertising agency Droga5 for Hennessy's "Never Stop. Never Settle." campaign.
See also: Jimmy Kimmel Inks Digital Content Deal with Tostitos
Native ads, sometimes called sponsored content, have spurred significant criticism for the strong resemblance of many ads to editorial content that some argue borders on trickery. The Federal Trade Commission felt the topic serious enough to hold a recent hearing on native advertising.
The ad on VanityFair.com appears in a box in the middle of the page that includes the phrase "Sponsor Content" at the top and bills the video as a "Hennessy Original Film". The page on which the video is featured is in the same template as all other Vanity Fair articles, however the "Sponsor Content" tag makes another appearance near the top and the byline is from Vanity Fair Agenda.
The move may mark Vanity Fair's first venture into online native ads, but Edward J. Menicheschi, publisher of the magazine, says that the style of advertising is nothing new from what the company has done in its print edition for some time.
"We have been in the native advertising game since before it was named 'native,'" he says. "Over the past seven years, our in-house creative agency (Vanity Fair Agenda) has been producing advertorial content for a wide range of clients including BMW, Chrysler, American Express, Cadillac, Revlon and Juicy Couture, to name a few." The native ad trend comes as internet advertising struggles to attract an audience that has learned to avoid traditional strategies like banner ads. Not only are people clicking on less ads, advertisers are paying less for them. Google's cost-per-click rate has been in decline since 2011, thanks to the new mobile era, which has dragged down the average price of an ad.
"The prices and the effectiveness of banner ads are dropping like a stone," says Rebecca Lieb, an advertising and media analyst at Altimeter Group. "There's a lack of interaction. What you're supposed to do with a banner is click on it. Nobody clicks on it anymore."
Content providers and advertisers have turned to native ads in an effort to counter consumer expectations with a campaign that fits in with the platform, in this case Vanity Fair.
"Native advertising offers us the chance to share truly compelling, cinema quality content that is just not possible through traditional advertising," says Rodney Williams, senior vice president at Moet Hennessy USA.
Andrew Essex, vice chairman of Droga5, says native ads allow for the creation of content that matches the tone and quality of the advertising platform, providing readers with a better experience and advertisers with a better result.
"Why should it be any less good?" Essex says. "The question is what context does it belong? This was an example where the work seemed to belong in that environment....That to me is the true definition of native, an ad that belongs in the environment in which it appears."
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Image: Droga5