New web portal blickamabend.ch relies on native advertising

The online platform Buzzfeed is celebrating great success and finances itself mainly through native advertising.It has been known for some time that Ringier wants to launch an online portal tailored to mobile devices. In addition to "Blick am Abend" news, "entertaining information will be digitally presented in new listicles. This will be in the form of text, images and, of course, audiovisuals," according to Ringier's press release.Buzzfeed as a role modelThe model for this is the Buzzfeed platform from the USA. The website is currently the talk of the town. Over 80 million unique users per month look at the bizarre finds from the Internet. Users can publish content themselves. For its financing, Buzzfeed relies primarily on native advertising (more on this in this blog entry by Sven Ruoss). This business model is now also to be applied to blickamabend.ch.Advertising as information for users"Native advertising at Blick am Abend is storytelling," says Edi Estermann, Chief Communications Officer at Ringier. "The advertisers tell tailored stories in a journalistic way that fit the product in so-called sponsored stories".According to Estermann, the focus is on the information and entertainment value for the user. "The higher the added value for the user, the greater their willingness to share this content in their social network."Content tailored to the userNative advertising, as an editorial format free of product placement, creates an ideal advertising environment exclusively for a brand. "Brands distinguish themselves through interesting, informative or entertaining content tailored to the user. The brand's presence takes place where the target group is," says Estermann.Native ads "clearly identified as advertising" according to RingierThe other side of the coin is that it is difficult for readers to see which content is editorial and which is paid for. However, Estermann emphasizes that native ads at Blick am Abend - in contrast to other web portals known in Switzerland - are clearly marked as advertising, highlighted in color, and marked with a sender.In addition to native advertising, Ringier also relies on "extensive sponsorship opportunities". This is understood to mean further advertising offers that guarantee the advertising customer high visibility and interaction with the content. sw