BBC looking for Australian partners for native advertising push
One of the world’s biggest media organisations, the BBC, is close to closing out deals with Australian brands to carry native advertising on its news and features.
Carolyn Gibson, executive vice president of international ad sales for BBC Worldwide, told Mumbrella the brand is going to broach the delicate art of native advertising, or “partnered content” as it is called at the BBC, in Australia having rolled it out across other international markets six months ago.
Alistair McEwan, vice president of BBC Advertising in Australia and New Zealand, has been in discussions with “a multitude” of different brands in Australia, and is looking to partner with brands cutting across the technology, entertainment and financial services sector. But it is undersood no deals have been closed as yet.
Gibson told Mumbrella: “It could be a sensitive subject for an independent news organisation, in terms of how we enter this space in an appropriate way that will be comfortable for our audiences and I think we’re navigating that quite well.”
Native advertising?? Shouldn’t that be “indigenous advertising”?
Hmmm a bit tricky when it’s the BBC, a UK tax payer funded organisation?
Ukraine riots sponsored by Heckler & Koch or Pakistan coverage sponsored by Lockheed Martin.
Maybe some Buzzfeed style sh1t:
21 best Apache helicopter attacks you never watched brought to you by Boeing
BBC Worldwide sits outside the normal commercial constraints that the UK tax-payer funded model does, which is why you see ads on your BBC News sites over here, yet can’t access any of their broadcast content online like you would back in blightly. But yes, tricky topic for them to safeguard editorial integrity. The very concept is a contradiction in terms and savvy BBC reader purists (of which there are many) will no-doubt notice the difference between the content types.