Published in AdNews, 31 January, 2014
BuzzFeed’s Australian site launched today with a global boss in town expecting a “snarky” local audience. But as yet there are no local brand advertisers on board to do “advertising that is more like TV advertising” and cease “tweeting boring shit”.
Andy Wiedlin, global chief revenue officer, urged advertisers to try a style of advertising “we just stole from Facebook, Twitter and Google”.
Speaking at the IAB’s seminar on native advertising in Sydney he said native was “just advertising that sucks less”. “Our view is the internet is awesome, it allows people to find cool stuff to share, so why doesn’t advertising do the same thing? That’s where we’re focusing,” he said.
Wiedlin said he preferred the term ‘social advertising’ to native advertising but either way, brands needed to “take the Facebook test – would you share it with a friend?” If not, it won’t work.
