Native Ad Position Paper

CRAFTING NATIVE ADS

ENC 3254 October 1, 2018

Today’s Agenda

1. Principles of a good native ad 2. Researching platforms 3. The rest of the punctuation

Place-Based Branding Project Debrief

What was your overall experience?

What do you need to think about for your

next assignment?

What’s some major

takeaways? Lessons?

COMPONENTS OF A NATIVE AD

How to make one

Analysis Observations

What do we know about

native ads so far?

What are some key elements?

What elements are platform

specific?

Label

Contextually Relevant

Incorporation of visual elements

Informative and/or entertaining

Clear next step

Integration

Aesthetics

Mobile friendly

Consumer/audience focused

Label Clearly mark somehow your content is sponsored/an ad

1 Don’t be sneaky

2 Don’t be obtrusive

3

Contextually Relevant

What is other content on that site?

01 What are audiences interested in?

02 What about broader contexts— what is useful and relevant not just on the website but anywhere?

03

Visual Elements

What does the rest of the site look like? How can you copy this style?

01 What would be visually engaging to the audience?

02 How can you tell part of your story through images?

03

Informative/Entertaining

What is the kind of content already on the site?

01 Is the site focused on publishing information, entertainment, or user-generated?

02 What elements do you need to incorporate into your content?

03

Next Step

What will let readers know that the advertised content is over?

How will you tell them to take that next step without being too pushy?

What is the next step you want readers to take?

Integration

How will you make your content blend with the content of the site?

1 How will make your content lead naturally to your next steps?

2 How can you combine both of these elements together?

3

Aesthetics

How will you make your own mark on the

content?

What will be the visual elements and design layout that will make your piece stand out?

How will you balance the site’s aesthetics

with your own?

Mobile Friendly

Make sure your content looks good on both mobile and

desktop

How will you make sure you content

looks good on both?

Consumer/Audience Focused

How will you make sure the brand is

secondary to providing content?

How will centralize the audience?

What aspects of an ad makes the

audience the focus?

RESEARCH Looking for brands and platforms

OTHER PUNCTUATION Apostrophe, Quotation Marks, Parentheses/Brackets, Hyphens/Dashes,

Questions Marks, Exclamation Marks

Quotation Marks

■ NOT FOR EMPHASIS—not in formal writing anyway

■ Use to set off a direct quotation

■ For titles of shorter pieces

■ Periods and commas always go inside the quotation marks

■ Use a single quotation mark ( ‘ ) for quotes inside of quotes

■ Quotation marks can also be used to mark using a word in an unusual way

■ If a quotation extends over multiple paragraphs don’t include an end quotation mark until the last word of the quote, but start every paragraph with a opening quotation mark

■ British vs. American English

Parentheses/Brackets

■ They are not used interchangeably—parentheses are WAY more common

■ Parentheses – Enclose information that is an aside – Periods only go inside parentheses if a full sentence is in the parentheses – Whatever is inside parentheses can never be crucial to the sentence

grammatically

■ Brackets – Brackets are for interruptions to someone else’s writing

Apostrophes

■ Shows possession – Hat’s, hats’, Jones’ hat – Possessive pronouns do not take apostrophes

■ Contractions – Can’t, aren’t

■ Its vs it’s

Hyphens/Dashes

■ NEVER used interchangeable ■ Hyphen: --

– No spaces, longer – Create a compound word (off-campus, take-off) – Links words together for effect or for clarity (two-year-old boy) – Indicates spans of time (1-2 pm) – Attaching prefixes and suffixes that are normally attached to that word

(transportation vs. trans-American) or for clarity (recover vs re-cover) ■ Dash: -

– Spaces, shorter – Work similar to parentheses but for different effect

Question Mark

■ Use question mark after direct question – Replaces period

■ Do not use with indirect questions

■ Be careful: some commands or statements take the form of a question but clearly aren’t

Exclamation Mark

■ Do not use in business/professional writing

■ All right in formal writing in some situations

■ Perfectly acceptable in most other situations—be judicious

■ Replaces period

■ Do not over use

Up Next

■ Punctuation Quiz Due MONDAY

■ Wednesday: Pitch peer review