Simplifying Native Advertising Measurement with Justin Choi, Founder and CEO of Nativo

Summary

Marketing Vanguard Podcast Summary Episode: Simplifying Native Advertising Measurement with Justin Choi, Founder and CEO of Nativo
Release Date: November 21, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney engages with Justin Choi, the Founder and CEO of Nativo, to delve into the intricacies of native advertising and its measurement. The conversation explores Justin's entrepreneurial journey, the inception and evolution of Nativo, the challenges marketers face in measuring native advertising, and the innovative solutions his company offers to bridge these gaps.

Justin Choi's Entrepreneurial Journey

Justin introduces himself as a serial entrepreneur, emphasizing his passion for building companies from the ground up. With no traditional job experience, Justin has pioneered three startups, with Nativo being the most recent.

“I am what you, I guess, call a serial entrepreneur. I don't always like using the word because usually serial precedes other bad words, but serial entrepreneur.”
[01:43]

His fascination with technology began at a young age when his parents purchased him an Apple computer, sparking his interest in computers and programming. This early exposure laid the foundation for his future ventures in web design and digital marketing.

The Genesis of Nativo and Native Advertising

Justin recounts the origins of Nativo, highlighting how his previous web services company ventured into sponsoring posts on forums and blogs before the advent of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

“We built a tool to make it easy for them to buy sponsored posts, but across all these different niche sites out there to get scale. And so to our surprise, by the time 2012 rolled around, suddenly it got a name, Native advertising.”
[02:10]

Recognizing the potential of native advertising early on, Justin and his team developed technology that predated the mainstream adoption of native ads. This foresight allowed Nativo to secure partnerships with major publishers such as Time Inc. and CNN, establishing the company as a leading native ad server.

Addressing the Measurement Gap in Marketing

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the challenges marketers face in measuring the effectiveness of native advertising. Justin points out that while marketers excel in measuring awareness and performance, the middle funnel—consideration—remains elusive.

“Marketers just accepted that it's a pain in the butt to measure. We'll do studies once a year and I'll put it in the backseat. I know it's important, but it's not as easy to measure as these other things...”
[10:54]

Nativo aims to simplify this by offering tools that make measuring consideration straightforward, real-time, and cost-effective. Justin emphasizes that by integrating consideration metrics seamlessly into existing marketing strategies, marketers can achieve a more connected and comprehensive understanding of their campaigns.

“We're here at Brand Week launching our new tool that makes it really easy to measure consideration. And we believe that if that becomes as easy to measure as lower funnel and upper funnel, that you finally have this full connected experience and marketing can get better.”
[09:50]

Innovative Solutions and Brand Week 2024

During Brand Week 2024, Nativo showcased its latest tool designed to measure consideration in native advertising. Justin discusses the importance of this launch and how it empowers marketers to optimize their strategies effectively.

“It's almost like when you can go to a person and just say, here's a brand new tool in your tool chest. We're just so excited to see what marketer can do with it.”
[09:16]

The presence at Brand Week underscores Nativo's commitment to providing marketers with actionable insights and user-friendly tools that address real pain points in the industry.

Leadership Philosophy and Future Aspirations

Towards the end of the conversation, Jenny Rooney explores Justin's leadership style and his vision for the future. Justin expresses a desire to be remembered as an innovator who not only built successful companies but also nurtured talent and supported fellow entrepreneurs.

“What I want to be known for is just someone who innovated, built great things, and helped build people... watching other people succeed is, I think that's where I like to spend my time going forward.”
[13:11]

When asked about his role on a soccer field metaphor, Justin likens himself to a coach and team owner, emphasizing the multifaceted responsibilities of a founder in guiding and supporting his team.

“As a founder, you feel like you play all those positions sometimes simultaneously. And I think the thing that I feel most right now is feel like a coach and a team owner.”
[14:04]

Conclusion

The episode provides valuable insights into the evolution of native advertising and the critical need for effective measurement tools. Justin Choi's experiences and strategic vision highlight the challenges marketers face and the innovative solutions Nativo offers to overcome them. By simplifying the measurement of consideration, Nativo empowers brands to create more impactful and accountable marketing campaigns.

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Notable Quotes:

• “Marketers just accepted that it's a pain in the butt to measure. We'll do studies once a year and I'll put it in the backseat.”
  — Justin Choi [10:54]

• “Here's a brand new tool in your tool chest. We're just so excited to see what marketer can do with it.”
  — Justin Choi [09:16]

• “What I want to be known for is just someone who innovated, built great things, and helped build people.”
  — Justin Choi [13:11]

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Resources Mentioned:

• Nativo: Nativo.com
• Brand Week 2024: BrandWeek.com

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Stay tuned to Marketing Vanguard for more insightful conversations with industry leaders driving the future of marketing.

Transcript

[Jenny Rooney]

Partnerize is the only partnership management solution powering profitable growth for marketers. Through an end to end software platform and comprehensive service practice. The Partnerize platform delivers a fully integrated, comprehensive suite of discovery, recruitment, optimization, payment, brand safety and fraud prevention capabilities supported by unrivaled service expertise. With Partnerize, you're in control of the entire partnership marketing lifecycle, all on a single platform.

[Justin Choi]

I think making something really easy is important, but what we're solving for here is something that marketers already think about. It's one of those things that's like, I think marketers just accepted that it's a pain in the butt to measure. We'll do studies once a year and I'll put it in the backseat. I know it's important, but it's not as easy to measure as these other things and you start getting more of a barbell effect of where money is spent. Or maybe money goes to content marketing and it's not fully accountable so they don't treat it like the rest of their media. And all we're trying to do and what we believe we've done is just made it really simple, fast and easy.

[Jenny Rooney]

Hi everyone and welcome to the Marketing Vanguard podcast. I'm Jenny Rooney and I'm here with Ad Week at Brand Week 2024 coming to you live from Phoenix, Arizona. And I'm thrilled to be joined right now with Justin Choi, the founder and CEO of Nativo. Justin, welcome.

[Justin Choi]

Hi Jenny. Thank you.

[Jenny Rooney]

Thank you so much for being here. I think it's going to be exciting for us to dive into certainly Nativo, but really you and what you have done in your career that's led you to this point and frankly, what's led you to launching this company and the problem that you think it seeks to solve right now in the marketer community.

[Justin Choi]

Yeah. So I am what you, I guess, call a serial entrepreneur. I don't always like using the word because usually serial precedes other bad words, but serial entrepreneur. And I've actually never had a real job. I've always started companies and Nativo is the third one. And really where Nativo got its start is I had a web services company back when the Internet was brand new and we were trying to help our clients advertise in forums and blogs. And this was pre social media, so you couldn't buy ads on Facebook, Twitter, none of that. They were brand new. And so we built a tool to make it easy for them to buy sponsored posts, but across all these different niche sites out there to get scale. And so to our Surprise. By the time 2012 rolled around, suddenly it got a name, Native advertising. And we were like, wow, we built all this tech ahead of this big trend. How often does that happen? So we went on to raise capital from some media and publishing based venture capitalists and we started offering the technology to publishers who were blown away that this level of tech was available in the market for what seemed to them a brand new trend. And that's how we got our start. We started becoming the native ad server for some very large publications that really we had no right as a 12 person startup working with examples Time Inc. CNN and others. And that's still part of our business today. So 90 some publishers out there, when they go sell native and branded content programs, they're actually using nativo to power and measure all the programs that they run on their site.

[Jenny Rooney]

Interesting. So you're a B2B brand, but obviously in this business, relationships is everything. And so being able to connect with the marketer community, the brand marketer community, and understand really what they need from this has to inform everything you do. So how do you think about that?

[Justin Choi]

Yeah, absolutely. So the piece I left out is publishers do use our tool set when they go out and sell these programs to marketers, but because we work with actually our technologies on 10,000 sites, we can go sell these type of highly integrated programs at scale to marketers ourselves. So we work with brands, direct and agencies who work with us because we allow them to reach consumers with content rather than ads.

[Jenny Rooney]

It's interesting and I don't want to get too like boxed into the B2B to C whatever, but at the end of the day, you also need to understand consumer habits and consumer needs and how are you basically capturing that data and having it inform what you do, because there's a food chain there, if you will.

[Justin Choi]

The great signal that we get to have is almost like a massively scaled media company. We see consumer consumption habits across content, across all these properties.

[Jenny Rooney]

So what are some key things that you're paying attention to right now?

[Justin Choi]

Especially, I think what's informative for marketers is how we're able to then slice that data specific for them. So for example, we could work with the brand and they could say, look, we want to put out content because we want to reach these types of audiences across this type of message. And we could tell them, hey, this message really worked when people were reading home and garden type information. And we all thought going in that this was really relative to health sites. But what we learned is that people aren't as engaged there because we think they're too far along on their journey by the time they got to one health site. So let's reach them with this content more contextualized to these other categories. So those are the type of insights that we could drive.

[Jenny Rooney]

So let's dial it back a little bit and let's learn more about Justin. So this is where you are now and obviously this has been something that's been so successful and you basically saw where things were going, you prepared for the trend before it happened and now here you are. Let's take it back. What did you get your education in? What did you as an individual gravitate to in terms of what you like to study and what you like to work on initially in this business? I have to think it's been an interesting path for you.

[Justin Choi]

I like to say I really got my start when I was 11 years old and my parents bought me a nice Apple computer. It was Apple 2GS at the time and it was really way more. I was a real practical kid. We didn't have a lavish upbringing. So I asked for the Apple compatible computer that cost $200 at Fedco. And some people on this podcast obviously gonna smile when they hear Fedco. That's a age test. But they bought me instead this three. I mean they were, they made minimum wage, they spent 3,000 plus on a computer brand new, top of the line Apple at the time. And it opened my world up. This is pre Internet and suddenly I had access to classical music and all these things that 11 year old just you wouldn't normally get exposed to. And so that really laid the foundation for my career. And in college I studied computer information systems, which is a business major around computers. But really where I got my start was I had to work my way through school and pay for college and the whole thing. And so I was doing every computer gig I could doing computer consulting, selling computers. And eventually that led me to web design back when that was brand new. And so really I got my start partly out of necessity and partly really out of that gift of getting that computer, which is, you know, when you think about it, that was the dream of two other entrepreneurs, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. And you know, that led to the start of really my entrepreneur journey.

[Jenny Rooney]

Sure. But now of course you're also in the marketing industry too, and that's a big part of it. Did you ever get any formal education.

[Justin Choi]

In marketing and brand building as a business major? You did have to take marketing and management and all those classes and I'm a natural storyteller. And our platform is really a storytelling at scale platform 100%.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah.

[Justin Choi]

And I'm also an optimist and I'm also. There's a part of me that wants to save the world. And in the marketing space. When we started this company, what really inspired me is we saw an opportunity that, hey, if marketers could control content like they can control ads and reach consumers with something much more engaging, that we could actually make the advertising experience better for consumers. And that was part of our mission. We wanted to have this platform where engagement was at the core and authentic connection was at the core. And so I was able to combine all the things I loved about technology and saw an opportunity to make the space a little bit better.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah. Well, you answered the question I like to ask in this podcast is why does the world need Nativo?

[Justin Choi]

Yeah, I like to describe Nativo. Get always chuckles out of this. Where content marketing and programmatic advertising had a love child and that became Nativo. And why the world needs it is that marketers have all kinds of best practices and easy measurement tools against driving awareness. They have all that capability now against performance. And bottom funnel gap in the middle still hasn't really been solved. And that's where we think you can really influence opinion, really connect with a customer and get into the consideration set. And so we're actually here at Brand Week launching our new tool that makes it really easy to measure consideration. And we believe that if that becomes as easy to measure as lower funnel and upper funnel, that you finally have this full connected experience and marketing can get better.

[Jenny Rooney]

So talk a little bit more about what you're doing here at Brand Week this week. I mean, you are on site, you're doing different activations, you're connecting with folks from that storytelling lens. Why is that important?

[Justin Choi]

So Brand Week's been. Was our first time here, tremendous event. It's really been well attended by marketers and such that we've made really great connections. We're here because we want to, in a big way get this message out about, hey, consideration doesn't have to be hard to measure. It could be real time. It doesn't have to be expensive. You could even optimize against it. These are things that just weren't possible before. And it's almost like when you can go to a person and just say, here's a brand new tool in your tool chest. We're just so excited to see what marketer can do with it. And that's why we're here.

[Jenny Rooney]

I think that's important because I spend a lot of time with Brandside CMOs and connect with them and talk to them. And I think there's this feeling that they need to feel empowered within their organizations. They need to feel like they have access to the right tools, the right insights that are gonna help them do their jobs better, obviously, and drive the brand in business. And I think there's this feeling of the art of discovery is big for them and being able to continually discover new assets, new tools, new things that are going to basically be in that toolbox for them is so important. How do you think about that? Because marketers are busy. They have a million things on their agendas on any given day. They have so many decisions to make. And in fact, on the Marketing Vanguard podcast, I often talk with brand marketers about what are those key decisions you're making daily that are driving the trajectory of the business? How do you break through and make sure that to your point, you show them an example? But it does have to be simple, right, to be as much of an asset to them as possible.

[Justin Choi]

That's a very good point. And I think making something really easy is important. But what we're solving for here is something that marketers already think about.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah. Because it's keeping them up at night.

[Justin Choi]

It's one of those things that's like, I think marketers just accepted that it's a pain in the butt to measure. We'll do studies once a year and I'll put it in the backseat. I know it's important, but it's not as easy to measure as these other things and you start getting more of a barbell effect of where money is spent. Or maybe money goes to content marketing and it's not fully accountable so they don't treat it like the rest of their media.

[Jenny Rooney]

Partnerise is the only global partnership management solution powering profitable growth for marketers through an end to end software platform and comprehensive service practice. The Partnerise platform delivers a fully integrated, comprehensive suite of discovery, recruitment, optimization, payment, brand safety and fraud prevention capabilities supported by unrivaled service, including the category's only in house support program. With partnerise, you're in control of the entire partnership marketing lifecycle, all on a single platform. Partnerise gives marketers a better way to.

[James Frankes]

Partner for all your meeting, event and workplace needs. Convene is a partner, not just the place. A preeminent global hospitality company within the meeting, event and shared workplace industries. The company and its portfolio of brands provide clients with concierge style service in house, food and beverage in house, event production resources and dedicated service staff, all to ensure a seamless and memorable experience.

[Justin Choi]

And all we're trying to do and what we believe we've done is just made it really simple, fast and easy. And when we've shown it to people, we're hearing things like, that's the missing metric that we need. Especially if you think about larger brands, awareness isn't their challenge. Typically, people know who they are and they've optimized the bottom of their funnel for years and years. It's really this now new territory. It's not so much. Here's another tool set of your 500 tools that you could use more of. Here was the missing piece in your belt that you know you needed, and it slips right in.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah, that's great. That's storytelling. That's accessibility. You need to make sure that you're there and meeting them where they are. Now, just some fun questions about you as a business leader. What do you want to be known for?

[Justin Choi]

Wow, that's a great question, boy. What I want to be known for is just someone who innovated, built great things, and helped build people. I know it sounds a little cliche, but it's true. It's like, I think the biggest joy I get from what I do now outside of Nativo is help other entrepreneurs and support them, share with them. I mean, the journey is it's like signing up for an ultra marathon. So sharing lessons and watching other people succeed is, I think that's where I like to spend my time going forward.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah, that's great. Borrowing a metaphor that I like to ask C suite leaders, you're a player on a soccer field. Are you the striker who's at the front trying to score those goals? Are you the midfield line trying to be that connective tissue between the offense and defense? Or are you at the back of the field in a defensive position, protecting your goal from the competition at all costs?

[Justin Choi]

As a founder, you feel like you play all those positions sometimes simultaneously. And I think the thing that I feel most right now is feel like a coach and a team owner. And I think ultimately it's something you really have to earn as a founder because as you're building things up, you really do have to play all of those roles. Otherwise it's hard to be a coach.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah, for sure. Because you have to earn the credibility, the trust and all that. Last quick question. Who's next? Who's somebody that is in this industry, however you want to define it, the marketing Advertising, media industry, either who you know very, very well or somebody you've never met but you admire from afar. In either case, somebody who you think is doing extraordinary things in this business and you think we need to have on the podcast to interview.

[Justin Choi]

I think someone who's really at a bit of the crossroads of where marketing has been and where it's transitioning to is Jay Altshuler at MasterCard. You may have already had him.

[Jenny Rooney]

I haven't, but I would. That's a great choice.

[Justin Choi]

Okay.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah, I'll reach out and I'll say that you recommended so well. Justin, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a pleasure. Loved having learned more about you and about Nativo and thanks for being here at brainweek. Thanks.

[Justin Choi]

Thanks for having me.

[James Frankes]

For all your meeting, event and workplace needs, Conveen is a partner, not just the place. A preeminent global hospitality company within the meeting, event and shared workplace industries. The company and its portfolio of brands provide clients with concierge style service in house, food and beverage in house, event production resources and dedicated service staff, all to ensure a seamless and memorable experience.

[Rebecca]

Welcome back, listeners. Today we're joined by James Frankes, head of product from Conveen. And today we're going to be touching on a topic that might be familiar to some marketers, which is how to successfully brand an event. First of all, James, how are you?

[Unknown]

Well, thank you. Thank you for having me.

[Rebecca]

Yeah, good. It's lovely to have you here. Last week we talked about the basics of planning an event, some of the additional components that people might forget, like AV and how to choose the correct space. This week we're going to delve a bit deeper into branding the event. So you picked your venue, you've nailed down the purpose of your event. How do you pick a brand for it? Where do you even start?

[Unknown]

Yeah, I imagine your listeners might be dealing with a range of different types of event, from an internal event, which is really targeted at an internal company audience, all the way through to a high brand experience for a known brand or an up and coming brand. And even within those categories, there'll be a range of different possible things you might be trying to do. So it could be a board level executive presentation at one end and an internal team training at the other end of the spectrum. Or it could be a really high brand product launch through to more of an existing customer showcase. Right. Like it varies a lot between what types of event we see it convene and then I think branding is important across all of those different segments. So for example, we host a lot of large graduate training programs. Many of the big banks do this kind of thing, right? And they'll go to a lot of effort to make sure that the event space is fully branded so that their new graduates get immediately immersed into the company culture, experience, look and feel like they've joined something that's really exciting and dynamic.

[Justin Choi]

Right.

[Unknown]

They wanted to stay with them for a long time and they think that first touch point is super important for these young graduates coming in. At the same time, they try and make sure the food is more positioned at a younger audience. So we do sort of more burgers and hot dogs than we do necessarily foie gras and caviar. So the full experience needs to be considered in like who's this audience, what are we trying to immerse them in and what's exciting to that audience. On the other end of the spectrum with really high brand touchpoint events, I think then you start to get into what is the brand trying to say and what are they trying to talk about and what are we trying to achieve with this event. And just like any output, be it advertising or any kind of output that a brand makes, the event is just as important. And I think they can achieve so much because they are so high contact with a particular audience. We have seen every level of branding from fully wrapping a stage with an AV built in screen, creating a custom catwalk into the middle of the room, to exhibitor booths across the entirety of our space, to branded experiences like a gin brand coming in and doing a pop up or a coffee brand for a more of a data time event coming in and doing a pop up event component in it. And so finding those collaborators as well and people who you want to be associated with you and bringing them into the space too can be really powerful in setting a tone. I think thinking about the flow and the arc of the experience you're trying to create, that's really what you're doing approximately when people are going to arrive. And therefore you can curate there a day from start to finish. So thinking about what that arrival moment looks like, how they check in, what event experiences, how are they getting their badge, what does their badge look like? That's a branding opportunity, right? What does the event site look like that you're hosting, that's a branding opportunity. All of these touch points make a difference and make it feel seamless and like people are going to be worried coming to an event, right? There's always these anxieties. So making them feel as seamless as possible is really critical. And then all the way through to the end of the day where you can pivot straight into a reception or pivot straight into more of an entertainment moment as well. And thinking about how that full art goes, I think can make it a really special experience. One of the things that we actually try and plan for when we're designing space is a range of different style of space so that we can try and allow meeting planners to keep an audience kind of captive for an extended period of time. So that there are spaces which feel great in the morning, great at lunch, and then spaces which feel great and it's more of an evening setting. And so that you can keep them all in one venue and you don't get that drop off of everyone having to leave the building going to a different venue. Some people get tired, they go home. They do. All they have to do is walk around the corner to the other side of the venue and then they can get involved in a different kind of branded experience. And we find that level of design really powerful. It captures meeting planners attention versus a completely unbranded, uncurated venue which you can layer a lot over the top of. But it doesn't have any personality to it to start with. So it's difficult to create settings, if you like.

[Rebecca]

And you mentioned there are some of the more kind of fun examples like catwalks and coffee stands and things like that. I feel like we've lived through the era of the branded event tote bag for a long time now. Are there any trends that you're seeing in the branding space in terms of like freebies or products that are taking over the tote bag?

[Unknown]

I mean, water bottles is the current one and cotton Paxi backpacks are the two that I see all the time. I think those have almost become tropes already though. And there's this idea that somehow those things will be sustainable. I think it's actually less sustainable now handing out the number of water bottles we're handing out into the world. I think where we're seeing where it gets really right is when it's actually more linked to the event. So it's something that is actually relevant to that audience, be it future of retail, giving out more beauty products, be it nice scented candles which actually apply to the brand. Right. And like actually align with the brand you're trying to represent. I think things that have real use and value, but also align to the customer. And yes, if you put that all in the tote bag, that makes sense. It's a walking advert, you need a container for it. So I think those will long continue.

[Rebecca]

Yeah, still a place for the tote bag. Well, I think that's been some really helpful advice, James, on how to brand an event. Looking forward to our next chat, so I'll speak to you soon.

[Unknown]

Thank you, Rebecca thank you for listening to Marketing Vanguard, part of the Ad Week Podcast Network and Acast Creator Network. This podcast was produced by Jordan Praetano, executive produced by Al Mannarino and John Heil, and edited by Laine McGivney at Boutwell Studios. You can listen and subscribe to all of Adweek's podcasts by visiting Adweek.com podcasts. Stay updated on all things Adweek Podcast Network by following us on Twitter at Adweek Podcasts. And if you have a question or suggestion for the show, send us an [e-mail] thanks for listening.