Garry Taylor, UK Art Director at Say Media, believes you should never judge a book entirely by its cover, but argues that online, first impressions really count.

Substance should always win out over style, right? However, in the digital world - where you have literally (milli) seconds to grab someone’s attention - first impressions still count. People make snap judgments all the time in daily life, forming lasting first impressions of people, places and products in an extraordinarily short period of time. You may make a final choice on a new perfume by testing it out with a little spray here or there, but how did you decide which perfumes to try on before you even smelt them?

When a reader lands on your website, it’s often their first interaction with your brand. That first impression your site’s design creates is crucial in grabbing users’ attention. Google research has confirmed that site visitors get an initial ‘gut feel’ for your site within 50 milliseconds of landing on it. By comparison, the average blink of an eye takes 100 to 400 milliseconds.

You can’t expect people to stick around if that first impression is dull or confusing. The quality of the content might be great, but what good is it if users get put off before ever reading a word?

First impressions not only count. They last.

There is so much debate right now around the subject of Native Advertising: should advertisers be carving out budget for it and if so to what extent? But the degree of hype around Native is masking the fact that there is no singular definition for it. While on the one hand anything with the word 'native' in its name must mean that a degree of effort is being made to ensure that the reader experience is a more fluid and intuitive one, unless the nomenclature is clear and common across all users, measuring what works against what doesn't becomes a huge challenge.

As the market bifurcates ever more starkly between standard brand advertising and integrated content marketing, there has never been a more important time either to take a stand and clearly commit the 'Native' tag to one type of activity over another or to simply lose the tag altogether.

Check out all the findings from our recent study into native advertising in the infographic below: 

Native advertising is having its Snow Fall moment. When The New York Times published Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, a multimedia feature that made simple words on a page feel suddenly old-fashioned, it was heralded as “the future of journalism storytelling.” It would go on to win a 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing as “a distinguished example of feature writing giving prime consideration to quality of writing, originality and concision, using any available journalistic tool.” Now, a year and a half later, it’s clear that Snow Fall did change the landscape for old and new media. Suddenly digital tools made it possible to enhance a story and tell it in a new - and better - way.

We’re at that precise inflection point with native advertising too. Here’s why:

Five questions to keep in mind for your next content marketing initiative.

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet.” - Bill Gates, 1996

It’s hard to believe Bill Gates coined the phrase “Content is king” only 18 years ago in a 1996 essay about the Internet - at a time when most people weren’t even online yet. The phrase is such a familiar saw now that marketers are starting to argue for other heirs to the throne including “context” and “distribution.” While it’s unlikely anything will unseat content, it’s an interesting discussion to have. At a recent Cynopsis Digital Monetization Summit, Steve Bradbury, COO of Zazoom conducted a panel discussion that included audience members in an exercise to fill in the blank, “Content and _________ are King.” If we concede that content is king, then what is the next most important element that helps content rule the marketing kingdom?

More articles for less money and media metrics that skip engagement get us away from what was central to the value of content marketing in the first place? There is a better way.

“I love the artistic challenge of doing something kind of impossible.”- Phillippe Petit, high-wire artist.

The last couple of years have ushered in an explosion of content marketing and “native” advertising activity. These concepts are not even a little bit new, but what is new is that as an industry, we’ve been feverishly working on standardization, scale, and efficiency in the name of truly making content marketing a meaningful part of the digital advertising revenue pie.

So the big news this week came from popular mobile dating app Tinder, with its parent company InterActive Corp (IAC) announcing during its earnings call that it may start to introduce native advertising in a bid to make money from the free app.

IAC chairman Greg Blatt said: “The nature of the Tinder user experience presents itself with real opportunities for native advertising that certain of our other products don’t.”

“To build important companies, the best people live in the future and then fix its problems.” - Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator.

Content marketing, branded content, native advertising...whatever you choose to call it, it has become one of the fastest growing parts of the advertising ecosystem. When created with a little art and sophistication it can surprise and delight readers, transcending traditional advertorials and becoming authentic, engaging editorial. Across the media industry, old-school publishers and digital natives are getting into the act.

So now that you've accepted 'native advertising' is hotter to advertisers than cronuts to Manhattan's hippest, let's see if we can shed some light on how to make it engaging - and still keep it classy.