Marketing

What is sponsored content and how to get started with it
March 9, 2021 Online advertising 1.3K 15 min. 0
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Many companies live, if not by advertising, then they get quite decently from it, so the regular mention of brands in movies / music / videos has long been commonplace. And netizens are used to this and no longer perceive ads as something negative that they want to quickly skip and close. With one BUT.

If the content is presented in a special form, when it is not annoying, it does not call to buy, unless it is a huge bright banner that says "BEST OFFER OF THE YEAR !!!" - this is how it looked before:

best offer of the year

Now, when the audience has become more demanding, companies have to come up with special promotion strategies: native advertising, sponsorship, affiliate, recommended content, etc. Let's talk about this.

Native ads as part of sponsored content
Let's start with it - native advertising is as natural as possible, organically integrated into the context of the media space. It is important that at the same time it is not hidden from the user that there is an advertising product in front of him. Now we will only briefly talk about its types and show examples.

Classics - James Bond. But only here we will not talk about Aston Martin cars, but about more affordable things.

Native advertising of a clothing brand in the cinema

Look at the hero's glasses. Do you see the letters "T" on the frame? These are glasses from Tom Ford. And the coat is stylish - also Tom Ford. The suit underneath is Tom Ford. Is it advertising? Yes, but who thinks about it - we are fascinated by the plot.

Another example is Mission Impossible.

Native car advertising

Heroes run away on a BMW car - yes, this is also native. The entire MI franchise advertises a Bavarian product, even in the chase scene in an inconspicuous car, an old five in the back of an E28 appears. Motorcycles are also BMW, other cars are BMW. Does it interfere with our viewing? No, we only note that this is a BMW, or even do not notice it at all.

How it works? The user wants not Tom Ford glasses, but James Bond glasses - he will find out what kind of brand this is when he google what the GG from Spectrum is wearing. No call to buy - just a cool product demonstration, unobtrusive, thoughtful as much as possible. Its goal is to make the viewer want to buy something from the sponsoring brand, but in such a way as to increase the client's confidence in the company.

Moreover, sometimes the consumer understands that there is an advertisement in front of him (this must be indicated), but does not let it through - and why? And because it is coolly presented - and it is interesting to watch the video, even though it is an advertising one.

Native advertising develops and adapts to everything, so it is difficult to keep track of this development. But you can! =)

Here are the types of native there are today:

Native social media advertising

Probably, it is impossible to find someone who does not encounter advertising posts when scrolling through the VK or Instagram feed, while it is noteworthy that such advertising does not infuriate. Why - because the content fully complies with the rules of the site, organically fits into it. It is important that there is no call to buy or go somewhere: if you want - click the link, if you do not want - scroll. We simply note that the actress Kaya Scodelario is "lying with Cartier", we remember this and then, when we want to buy a piece of jewelry, we remember that there is the Cartier brand. This is how it works.

Example of native advertising on Instagram

The meaning of such advertising is to demonstrate to the user a product, to show that he can (in our case, to shine stylishly on his hand) and, most importantly, to unobtrusively indicate the source where this product can be purchased or to get acquainted with it in more detail - find out the price and other features.

Here are a couple more examples:

Example of Vkontakte advertising


Example of Instagram ads

As you can see - there is a mark "Advertising", the publication is adjusted to the format of the site, there is no call to buy (okay, there is, but it is as unobtrusive as possible) - the offer is of interest.

A detailed interesting article with a bunch of other examples on native for your inspiration is on our blog - right here. I recommend. By the way, about the recommended content. =)

Sponsored Featured Content

This is also a type of natural advertising - it is shown under the article, news, and so on. The logic is simple - you have read the note, and under it you are invited to read a few more similar ones.

Reputation scandals in social networks: persons involved in the case
In this article, we'll break down a few situations and see how representatives of specific brands (large and small) act to regain the trust of potential customers.

Aviasales: the importance of researching your target audience
SOOQA soap: rudeness as a strategy
"Mom, buy!": A mixture of personality and brand
Good Wine: inappropriate trolling
Ahera Pass: good products and poor service
Aviasales
It seems that in no reputation collection this ticket finder can be ignored. And it is not surprising: Aviasales was created in 2007, at the time of the take-off of the online industry, so to promote it, it had to use all the tools available on the Internet.

The main product is, of course, the company's website, which allows you to find cheap plane tickets anywhere in the world in a few clicks. Traffic to it comes from contextual advertising, natural results from Yandex and Google, an interesting blog with useful tips for travelers and, last but not least, from social networks. The brand as a whole puts a lot of emphasis on content on all available sites, I talked about this in one of my previous articles.

Scandals due to dubious publications have haunted Aviasales for a long time. So, in 2014, Facebook users observed a skirmish between Konstantin Kalinov, the founder of Aviasales, and Sergey Fage, the owner of the Ostrovok travel service.

On his page, Konstantin said that he wanted to book a hotel through Sergey's website. When it was not possible to confirm the payment, he called Fage's personal number. Further, according to Konstantin, the situation developed as follows:

Post from the page of the founder of Aviasales

Sergey Fage gave his comment for the VC.RU portal, in which he described what happened in a different way:

“He actually called me on May 12 around 1 am. Explained that he was trying to book the Four Seasons Hotel in Beirut. That we have the best price, but the order is not confirmed and gives an error. Therefore, Kostya wanted me to "guarantee" this hotel to him. We have vendor errors, API crashes. I asked him to send me information by mail and said that I would figure it out by morning. In response, he began to shout at me - I just had to hang up.

Fage began to harass fans of Aviasales, Kalinov himself urged subscribers to do this. He and his subscribers posted memes in which they mocked the growth of a businessman, his inability to run a business, etc. The conflict was ultimately not resolved. Ostrovok continued to cooperate with the ticket finder, but only contacted the company through the CEO of Aviasales Maxim Krainov.

Another scandal happened with Aviasales in 2016, after a post on Facebook:

Aviasales Facebook post

The news lead was the divorce of the star couple Jolie / Pitt. User reactions were mixed:

Reaction to Aviasales Facebook posts

The commentary by Olga Strakhovskaya, editor-in-chief of Wonderzine, attracted the greatest public attention.

Olga Strakhovskaya's response to the Aviasales post

As a result, Konstantin Kalinov himself took part in the discussion thread:

dialogue between Olga Strakhovskaya and Konstantin Kalinov on Facebook

Although users massively complained about the post and the comment of the founder of the service, Facebook did not delete them, saying that it did not violate the rules of the social network. Aviasales continued to troll the disgruntled audience and made this post on behalf of Angelina Jolie:

Post on behalf of Angelina Jolie on Aviasales page

At the end of 2016, Konstantin Kalinov retired from the company's business due to illness, and in 2017 he died. The company's management has changed, which could not but affect the marketing strategy. In addition, by this time the brand had gained great popularity, so a kind of black PR was no longer necessary.

Now Vkontakte, Instagram and Facebook are publishing posts with useful tips for travelers, funny news related to flights and tourism, promotions, tests, etc.