Page 36 - AeM_June_2018

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

FreakOut about the future of native ads

The limited screen space, generally a disadvantage of
the mobile devices, probably helped a bit to enforce
native advertising in the mobile sector as well: With so
little scope to place banners, ads needed to be
integrated into the given format better than before.

However, despite the fact that native ads show
generally higher engagement rates in the mobile sector
than desktop-based applications and their increasing
popularity, there is still no fast growth in programmatic
mobile native ads in sight. The reason why that is so is
what we tried to find out from FreakOut.

Native advertising will rise – and change

Although native ads are obviously very effective, there
is a catch. “Each platform presents its content in a
Asian eMarketing met recently with Narayan Murthy different way, but a “truly" native ad must adapt to the
Ivaturi, VP South East Asia & India, in charge of format the individual media, therefore placed in a
strategic partnerships, product integration and conventional, non-programmatic way. As a result,
development for FreakOut, one of Japan's largest ad- native advertising is a very time-consuming process
tech companies. that must be set up for each individual platform”,
Narayan explained.
FreakOut started the DSP business in 2010 and later
expanded into the DMP and native advertising Mobile native ads are facing two fundamental
businesses, all three offerings being the largest in challenges FreakOut’s VP believes, stating that:
Japan. In June 2014, the company got listed on the
Tokyo Stock Exchange and then started to  So far, there are still no uniform standard formats
aggressively expand especially in Asia. available: The unclear number of competitors in the
field of mobile advertising and the various
Active in Asia now for the past 8 years, FreakOut platforms, systems and advertisers make it difficult
managed to be the first native ad network in Southeast to set uniform standards for various reasons.
Asia, convinced of native ads being the future and well "Native" is a very broad term with many different
-aware of the fact that by making proper use of definitions - most publishers have their very own
technology, people will have more time to spend on versions of native ad formats and therefore different
creativity. views on how and if at all standard formats should
be available.
Technology and creativity will unleash
potential of native  Facebook and Google throne overwhelmingly in
their "ivory tower": With their enormous reach and
As we know, in the early days, mobile app developers sophisticated targeting capabilities, Facebook and
focused mainly on attracting new users to take off Google are hard to beat, hence, the biggest part of
globally. Intrusive mobile advertising was the result the advertising budgets flows directly to them or
which in turn led to lower dwell time and forced the their subsidiaries. Their dominance makes it not
market to rethink their strategy. That rethinking only more difficult to enter the market, but to create
leveraged the use of native ads, since they have the any kind of standard, since the market is distorted
attributes of being effective and at the same time less in a certain direction.
intrusive.
“While standardizing mobile native advertising is only a
“Native ads are created with the specific intent to matter of time, publishers still need to learn to market
their audiences outside of Facebook and Google”,
promote a product, while matching the form and style
of the platform's editorial staff. The association with Narayan emphasized.
valued content makes it impactful”, Narayan explained.

36 June 2018 - Mobile & Video Marketing