- Advertising formats such as a 60-word branded content, designer fact cards which gives a full screen ad experience and videos in a portrait format are the most popular advertising categories seen on the Inshorts app
- The app has witnessed a 3x increase in spending on branded content with 10x better engagement on content ads
- Smartphone players and automobile manufacturers are top contributors to content ads as per last quarter data of Inshorts
Mumbai: With digital brand marketing taking innovative routes in the smartphone-dominated era, native advertising and branded content are becoming the next frontier of digital narration for all brands. Marketers are consciously shifting their digital budgets toward mobile advertising because more than half of India’s digital audience is now on smartphones and the amount of time spent on mobile devices is increasing every year. The sudden shift of screen by consumers also require the development of ad experiences that better fit the medium and hence mobile native advertising is taking the lead here. An analysis done by content discovery and distribution app Inshorts to understand the spending patterns of brands have shown that there is a drastic shift From display ad inventories to branded content in the last few years.
Brands are now focusing on creating strategies to qualitatively engage with their customers. This is evident From the ad spend on Inshorts app witnessing a 3x jump in branded content when compared to the previous year. With over 200 advertisers on board, the company has done innovative product integration for brands like Netflix, Uber, Adidas, Raymond, OnePlus, Flipkart, Vodafone and others.
Inshorts understands the content consumption patterns of millenials and has invested heavily in innovative and non-intrusive ad formats that give brands and advertisers a relief From intrusiveness, pop-ups and click baits. Advertising formats such as a 60-word branded content along with embedded pictures or videos, designer fact cards which gives a full screen ad experience and videos in a portrait format are the most popular advertising categories seen on the app.
Speaking about this, Tarun Arora, Chief Marketing Officer, Inshorts said, “There are myriad of brands that are striving to capture eyeballs of millennials and experiment on newer ways to capitalize on their incremental screen time. Inshorts paves a way for brands to connect with their consumers in a unique and non-intrusive manner through branded content advertising and product integration.”
Piyush Thakur, Vice President – Sales, Inshorts said, “As per industry analysis, native advertising is making a stronghold on mobile advertising having significantly higher engagement as that of display ads. We have witnessed a similar trend on Inshorts app with users spending 10X time on branded content than on others.”
“Our consistent focus on technology-driven solutions opens up a wide spectrum of creative approaches, thus leading to innovative solutions in the mobile ad space and seamless integration of brand messages that fit within the context of our app’s content.”
It is interesting to see that brands are now selectively choosing branded content as a part of their larger campaigns. The app has provided great results for brand campaigns such as – Raymonds’ Khadi campaign – The Story Re-Spun, Uber’s share ride status feature, #SafetyAtHeart campaign and the launch of Netflix original first horror Indian miniseries – Ghoul.
Focused on curating relevant personalised content for over 10 million unique users, the app has users in almost all the cities of India with a majority of the user base coming From tier I and tier II cities. As the content is mostly consumed by individuals with higher spending power, Automobile brands and Smartphone makers have spent heavily on the app for branded content in the last quarter. While in the same quarter, a display ad was preferred by Telecommunication, Fashion Retailers, Online Media Entertainment and Online Food Delivery brands.
From HTML ads to vertical video formats, advertisers are seeking all possible routes to reach the app’s users.
Inshorts is India’s highest-rated news app, with more than 10 million downloads on Android and iOS. The app curates the most significant news items of the day, across categories like national, world, politics, business, sports, technology and entertainment, in just 60 words with a link to read the stories that interest them, in detail. This enterprise was set up by a team of IITians, Azhar Iqubal & Anunay Arunav of IIT Delhi and Deepit Purkayastha of IIT Kharagpur in 2013.
