Native Advertising: Opportunities and Challenges for Swiss Companies

Online marketing is no longer limited to advertising banners and newsletters: social media, video platforms such as YouTube or specially created web content offer companies the opportunity to present their products and services to the public. to be placed "naturally". As "native advertising", commercial contributions then blend almost unnoticed into entertaining articles or videos - and thus ensure a particularly high impact with potential customers.Initiated and organized by LikeMag Media House the Swiss Native Advertising Day in Zurich aimed to provide information about this sophisticated form of advertising. Various input presentations showed that a lot is possible with creativity, but many Swiss companies are not yet confident enough to break new ground.

Take YouTube, for example: Longer movies, preferably in slow motion

The first speaker of the day was Christoph Burseg, who, with his company Veescore analyzed and optimized company presences on YouTube. According to his observations, Swiss companies on the video platform tend to "underperform" - they would post content that only interests the workforce and then wonder why few clicks are generated. "CEO speeches", the analyst noted with a wink, "are a great example of this". According to the motto "Better well copied than badly invented", marketing professionals should take inspiration from what works for successful YouTube stars and try to transfer this to their own films. "Slow-motion shots work great for the industry," says Burseg. For example, a simple wood chipper can get millions of views - simply because the chips fly through the air so beautifully in slow motion. Important: The video has to be long enough, around ten minutes is ideal.

Example farmy.ch: Big success with a small budget

The fact that cheekiness sometimes pays off was shown by farmy.ch-His distribution company for Swiss food, direct from the producer to the buyer, took on Aldi Suisse with a marketing budget of just CHF 4,000. How did it work? farmy.ch produced a video that shows suppliers and employees in seemingly everyday situations - and countered an Aldi campaign that relies on quick cuts and color effects. Aldi Suisse played the ball back, to which farmy.ch responded in turn. The daily press picked up on the whole thing and the scoop was perfect."We wanted to use this humorous approach to highlight our own strengths one by one," says Hartmann. This worked very well, he says, with many people becoming aware of farmy.ch because they felt entertained.

Example Lovoo: Influencer marketing and back again

Tobias Börner, one of the co-founders of the dating platform Lovooreported on his experiences with influencer marketing. When Lovoo was founded in 2011, paid content in social media did not have to be labeled, so the company could easily work with YouTube or Instagram stars - which were quite cheap at the time. Things are different today: "Advertising always has to be shown," says Börner, "and YouTube in particular has become much, much more expensive."This is why Lovoo is once again focusing more on producing its own content, preferably with the involvement of its own community. Funny posts from users are duplicated by Lovoo, shared by other users and thus develop a snowball effect.

Trends 2018: The future of the "native advertising"

Finally, LikeMag co-founder Markus Bucheli spoke about the trends that will shape 2018 in the field of "native advertising" will become important. If you want to advertise "naturally" in Switzerland, you have to be prepared to take risks. However, the best results can often be achieved with innovations or by occupying an individual niche. Technologies such as voice control, messenger marketing and augmented reality will change the marketing industry in 2018 - and beyond. "You have to be part of it now, or not at all," Bucheli said with conviction.