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Yahoo! boss Marissa Mayer: Digital is the only medium that hasn’t embraced native ads

Marissa Mayer talks at Cannes

Marissa Mayer talks native at Cannes

Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo!, said today that digital is the only medium that hasn’t fully embraced the potential of native advertising.

In a presentation that heavily pushed Yahoo!’s products and proposition, Mayer used the digital publisher’s own research to support the argument for why brands should spend more on native ads.

The 39 year-old former Google executive, who took the helm of Yahoo! in 2012, said that consumers are more than three times more likely to search for a brand if they’ve seen a native ad than a traditional format.

“Digital is the only type of advertising that hasn’t fully embraced native [advertising]. There is a notion of the internet with advertising as a sticker; content with advertising stuck on the side of it. Native advertising offers brands a better opportunity and a better experience,” she said.

“Native [advertising] beats its [traditional] counterparts on every relevant metric,” she suggested, so brands should think more seriously about “building ad products that feel natural.”

She pushed Tumblr, the social network for creatives that Yahoo! acquired last year, as an effective platform for native advertising, referring to Ford’s ‘And is better’ campaign as an example.

Mayer finished her presentation by making a connection between advertising and art.

“Art is advertising, and advertising is art,” she said. “And advertising has to aspire to be as good as art. The future of advertising is only just beginning.”

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