Here’s our list of the best native advertising campaigns.

We’ve put together a list of the best native advertising campaigns. It’s a form of advertising that now needs to be taken very seriously as it’s being viewed as relevant advertising. What is it? In an extremely short version, it’s advertising that suits the media it is placed in. It can be paid or sponsored articles, images and blogs that almost ‘trick’ the reader into thinking that it’s not an advertisement. So without further ado here’s our list of the best native advertising campaigns.

5. Netflix (OITNB) and The New York Times.

This was a paid post on the New York Times website. Paid for of course by Netflix who wanted to promote it’s new season of the popular on demand series ‘Orange is the New Black’. The article highlighted the problems with the female prison system, something the programme also deals with heavily. The article references the show and even the real life memoirs of Piper Kerman whose experiences the show is based on. The article is full of interesting graphics and videos, which all feel very similar to the look of the programme. There’s also a banner ad which tells the reader that season two of the programme is now streaming.

It might not be the most creative use of native advertising, but we appreciate the message it sends. It also shows that the creators of the show and Netflix themselves are paying attention to social problems such as this.

4. The onion and Starbucks.

The Onion is a well known news satire website and when they partnered with Starbucks on a promoted article, the results were pretty good! The article was based on the rarely encountered ‘productive weekend’. It talked about how scientists believe that the productive weekend is in fact theoretically possible. Massive shock we know! The product Starbucks plugged was the doubleshot espresso. Scientists believed that motivation and an undetermined volume of Starbucks doubleshot espresso could lead to productive weekends and to do lists being completed by Sunday.

We like this one because it’s combining humour and a brand a website like The onion would usually take the piss out of. You can read the full article here.

3. Guinness guide to oysters.

The native advertisement that made people take notice of native advertisements. Made by the father of advertising, David Ogilvy this is not only a great piece of native advertising but also advertising as a whole.

On your first view you’ll think it’s just an editorial on the different variety of oysters, and it works fine as just that! It’s not until you see the Guinness branding your realise it’s an advert. It worked so well, that there were follow ups on the Guinness guide to variety. You can see examples here and here!

2. Gawker and newcastle.

What’s pretty great about the Gawker and Newcastle native advertising campaign is that it basically tells you that this is a native advertising campaign. Unlike other campaigns where the advertisement is disguised, the headline for the campaign is “We’ve disguised this Newcastle ad as an article to get you to click it”.

It works so well because it goes against everything a native advertising campaign should be. The article talks about how Newcastle didn’t have enough money to pay for a fancy ad so they’re using this article instead. Read it here and enjoy it! It’s a really interesting, funny read. It really makes you respect Newcastle a lot for having the balls to basically take the piss out of a method of advertising that has become so popular.

1. NZTA and Tinnyvision.

The NZTA (New Zealand transport agency) grab our number one spot of the best native advertising campaigns. What was great about the stoner snapchat story was that it reached an extremely hard to reach demographic…stoners. According to reports over 50,000 kiwis say that they have drove while they were stoned. Which the NZTA needed to do something about. Enter Tinnyvision, a snapchat channel which followed a group of stoners throughout their day. The channel became so popular because Clemenger BBDO, the agency behind Tinnyvision, reached out to a number of online stoner societies and asked them to share the channel, telling their followers that this is a really interesting snapchat channel.

The channel kept showing this group of stoners, doing stoner things before the shocking final snap of a group of friends getting into a car (stoned) and knocking over a girl. People freaked out obviously, before a final snap arrived warning the people who were tuned in of the dangers of driving while stoned. It took advantage of the insanely popular snapchat and reached a demographic who are experts at tuning out. That’s why it grabs our number one spot. We may have missed a couple of the best native advertising campaigns, but that’s what our comment section is for! Let us know any great examples we may have missed out on…