Ad platform Respond has announced that the New Statesman is implementing a new ‘non-interruptive’ and in-content alternative to standard ad formats across its website.
The formats from Respond integrate advertisements natively into digital content “without compromising consumers’ content experience”.
The native ads are customisable; enabling the magazine’s own team to modify the ads to adapt to design elements of newstatesman.com, including the images, typeface, colour, size and line spacing.
The ads adapt to a number of platforms, including mobiles, tablets and desktops, in which they automatically adjust to the space available on the reader’s screens.
From the units, Progressive Media International – the owner of the New Statesman – can enable advertisers to launch full screen overlays of their choice once a consumer chooses to click on a Respond format. The ads are entirely user-initiated, “drawing consumers in to engage with the format willingly, rather than visually assaulting them with interruptive ads”.
The ad platform is based on semantic analysis, using proprietary algorithms to process the language content of web pages and then associating relevant adverts to the editorial. In-built ‘sensitivity controls’ prevent ads from displaying within certain types of content which would make the ad placements look incongruous or inappropriate.
“At times, ad formats and creative supplied by ad networks conflict with the design of publishers’ sites, so brands’ ads look and feel intrusive and dissonant,” said Brad Chuck, commercial digital director of Progressive Media International.
“As Progressive Media International’s ad operations department can easily modify Respond’s ad units to create tailored yet native ad placements which follow the form and function of newstatesman.com’s design, the ad units attract consumers into engaging with brands rather than pushing advertising into consumers’ faces.
“This means brands can achieve impact without being overbearing.”