"We reach the profit zone more easily than our competitors".

Steven Goodman, Head of Strategy and Marketing watson.ch/Fixxpunkt AGFROM SIMON VOLANINMK The News platform watson went online on January 22. What's the feedback from the advertising industry so far?STEVEN GOODMAN The launch was a great success. The feedback from our customers, the media and advertising agencies, is positive all round. They like both the content mix and the visuals. The advertising industry has recognized that mobile advertising is an important part of the marketing mix and is increasingly investing in this area. The new forms of advertising, such as native advertising, are also attracting a great deal of interest.MK Until now, the media have struggled to make their mobile offerings financially viable - despite ever higher access figures. How does watson want to change that?GOODMAN Mobile advertising can potentially have a huge impact, and many agencies and clients are currently feeling their way towards new implementations. They are experimenting with campaign ideas specifically for mobile and are becoming more confident about what works. We will offer our customers the greatest possible help in this regard, for example by working very closely with the advertising agencies. We will work with the agencies to develop campaigns that are tailored to the individual customer. This will have a positive impact on sales.MK Is that enough to break even?GOODMAN In the design of our company, we have kept overhead costs extremely low. This allows us to reach the profit zone more easily than our competitors. In general, the use of the mobile Internet continues to grow strongly. Advertising spend on mobile advertising still lags significantly behind usage, but is growing steadily. Changes in media usage have always shifted advertising spend accordingly. Advertising dollars always follow media usage. We expect the gap between usage and advertising expenditure on mobile to narrow in the next few years.MK A big problem is that mobile advertising is perceived as annoying by users much more often than in print and on desktop.GOODMAN Until now, publishers in Switzerland have mainly used mobile advertising as an overlay, which means that the advertising comes as a pop-up window above the content. This restricts the view of the content for the reader. At watson, there are predominantly inlay ad formats, meaning the mobile ad is a fixed component like the editorial content and cannot be clicked away. Through the integration, the advertising is perceived as less annoying and, as with print, becomes a fixed component for readers that simply belongs. Apart from the formats and placement, it is of course also a matter of delivering the advertising content in an optimized way. We want to work with customers, agencies and intermediaries to further refine targeting so that every user gets the right advertising at the right time and in the right place. There is still a lot of potential for optimizing the user experience in the area of targeting.MK Similar to Buzzfeed, for example, watson relies on native advertising. What exactly do you mean by this form of advertising?GOODMAN In a narrower sense, for the advertiser it is about offering content that is just as interesting as the editorial content before and after it. This means that the content should be prepared according to journalistic criteria as far as possible. In particular, it is a question of finding the right presentation, both linguistically and in terms of the narrative form. Some stories are better told as elaborate reports, others as interviews, and sometimes all it takes is five good pictures.MK Which content is suitable for native advertising?GOODMAN When selecting content, you should start as high up the marketing funnel (AIDA) as possible: Generate attention for a problem, perhaps even arouse interest in a solution. Further down the funnel, it quickly "smells" like a sale - but the user is not yet interested in that at that moment. The advantage here is that the user can be introduced to the brand or its solutions at the top of the funnel. Subsequently, the user can be led further into the funnel via remarketing with classic formats, for example.MK Doesn't the reader mind that it's "paid" content?GOODMAN Native advertising is based first and foremost on high-quality and useful content, presented linguistically and visually well done in the right narrative form. Media consumers are "emancipated," so all hypocrisy and self-congratulation is seen through, and should be dispensed with. Stories that touch the user emotionally, bring him added value or otherwise fulfill one of his needs are much more popular. The reader then automatically establishes a connection with the brand when reading, and this can influence his or her attitude towards the brand. By the way, this is also the reason why it is important from the advertiser's point of view that the native advertisements are clearly marked with a logo: Otherwise, the user does not even know to whom he should be "grateful".MK Can readers even tell the difference between paid and editorial content?GOODMAN  A successful native advertising does not differ from an editorial service in terms of content, but of course the changed sender must be clearly marked. It must always be clear to the user that the sender is a company with commercial interests. Media consumers are very well able to deal with this.MK Can you tell us about a particularly successful native advertising campaign?GOODMAN The Stapferhaus has the first Native Ad at watson. The implementation was very successful: The content was of general interest and narratively well implemented - at the same time, the article showed very well around which problem the current exhibition "Deciding" in the Stapferhaus revolves. The info box accompanying the text referred to the exhibition in detail. The client created the environment where the user is ready to positively absorb the information from the infobox. Other very good examples can be found especially in the USA, where Native Advertising is already established. Forbes or Quartz (http://qz.com/) usually have very successful campaigns. Buzzfeed leads a somewhat looser way with their understanding of native advertising, but no less successful.MK watson also offers targeting to advertising customers. What is the idea behind this?GOODMAN Targeting has the advantage that an advertising campaign is only delivered to certain target groups or in a certain environment. Through GEOLocation, for example, an advertisement for a bakery in Bülach can only be delivered to those people who are in the city of Bülach. Or advertising banners appear through tag targeting only on stories with the tag "Roger Federer". We also offer various other targeting options - but the best thing is that targeting with us basically costs no extra. This is because we believe that users find matching ads less annoying. Targeting therefore minimizes wastage and makes a campaign even more efficient.MK What tips would you give a company for running mobile ads?GOODMAN Talk to us! Seriously. Every day, we look at what our mobile users need at what time of day and week, we investigate what topics and content are currently interesting, what forms of interaction are accepted. We have a lot of experience with community building and social media marketing, and so on. We are not an advertising agency, but we are happy to help any company that wants to tap into the mobile world. It pays to integrate the possibilities of mobile forms of interaction into mobile campaigns in a meaningful way. Instead of simply miniaturizing a print campaign for mobile, it is instead advisable to "mobilize" the core idea of the campaign.MK What are the biggest challenges with mobile advertising?GOODMAN Unfortunately, there are many bad examples of mobile campaigns where a print ad is scaled down for mobile and the user ends up on a landing page that is not mobile-optimized. One of the biggest challenges is still to optimize all customer touchpoints for mobile - not just the banners of a campaign. A second challenge is responsive design: can creative agencies build simple HTML5 ads that adapt responsively to any ad space? Because today's approach, where countless minimally different banner formats are produced, is rather costly.MK Which forms of advertising will gain in importance in the mobile sector in the future?GOODMAN One of the most important trends will be the growth of video advertising - not only as pre-roll, but also in various more innovative forms. Inlay ad formats will certainly also gain in importance as they become more accepted by users. Content marketing will prove to be one of the most effective mobile marketing approaches and you will increasingly encounter "native advertising".------About WatsonThe launch of the online portal watson (from the English-language What's on?) on January 22, 2014, was awaited with great excitement. The project of Fixxpunkt AG by Hansi Voigt, the former editor-in-chief of 20 Minuten Online, was already making waves in the Swiss media landscape before its launch. Funded in part by Aargau publisher Peter Wanner (AZ Medien), the portal is geared in particular to smartphone and tablet users. In the responsive design, the high proportion of images and the flexible menu navigation are particularly striking. www.watson.ch