Native advertising, ads that are presented in the form of editorial content, will ultimately replace classical display ads in digital, says an exec from WPP’s data-driven Xaxis unit.
“The new inventory source is native,” Xaxis business development SVP Larry Allen tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “We see that effectively replacing display in the coming years.”
Native has garnered attention in recent years, as display performance has deteriorated further and ad blocking threatens traditional ads, despite the rise of programmatic technologies allowing for more efficient buying.
But few have bet on a wholesale replacement of the display category, which eMarketer says will grow to overtake search spending this year. Indeed, most definitions of “display” have that category including native.
Allen says: “”We’re betting on that early and evaluating all the players in the space, whether that’s individual platforms that are catering specifically to native formats, integrating with publishers, or going directly to publishers that have their own native and content marketing capabilities.”
Allen also says he is seeing a resurgence in affection for legacy media brands in the advertiser mix, despite the rise of pure-play publishers like Vox and The Verge.
This video part of a series about the state of programmatic advertising sponsored by OpenX. Please find other videos from the series here.
