I never disagree with anything Peter Horan says. Bottom line is that you really have to be a platform to be able to sustain native format ads. Maybe that’s a good way to define whether something is a platform or not.
Peter Horan, a longtime digital media exec, is hardly the world’s biggest banner ad booster but feels many of these native-format efforts will fail. They’ll fail, he said, for the simple fact that agencies and advertisers don’t want (and can’t afford) the extra work. Custom means costs that are paid by the buyer. Agencies are barely profitable today. They want to push much of online ad buying through automated exchanges. These kinds of formats gum up the process. Most platforms aren’t large enough to get away with forcing their way.
“Google can do it, Facebook can do it,” Horan said. “[But] for Tumblr to have its own units is kinda crazy. It will get some dollars, but the P&Gs and the Fords and won’t mess around creating custom units just for them.”
via Can Online Advertising Really Go Beyond the Banner? | Digiday.
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