Examining the WSJ’s native ad approach

Lucia Moses of Digiday writes about The Wall Street Journal’s native advertising strategy.

Moses writes, “‘I believe in native advertising, but I don’t believe it’s the answer to advertisers’ problems, and it’s not the answer to the publishing industry’s problems,’ he said. That’s Trevor Fellows, who as global head of ad sales for The Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones oversees its 1-year-old WSJ Custom Studios.

“And yet, under him, the 32-person studio turned out upwards of 50 campaigns involving custom content (including native) in 2014, for clients including Mercedes, AIG and the MetLife Foundation. Twelve percent of ad revenue at the Journal last year involved custom advertising, including native. (Corporate parent News Corp doesn’t break out the Journal’s ad revenue, however.) Native contributed to a 2 percent increase in Journal ad revenue in the most recent quarter.

“While other publishers have grabbed headlines with whiz-bang native ads — see The Atlantic’s treatment for Netflix’s ‘House of Cards’ — the Journal has taken an understated approach. While The New York Times talks up Adam Aston, the editorial director of its T Brand Studio, the Journal doesn’t pitch its people by name; it has a few writers and editors who are supplemented by freelancers, but Fellows didn’t readily know their names. Its native ads go byline-free, Economist-style, lest they detract from the client.”

Read more here.