Title	SOCIAL JOURNALISTS BECOME SOCIAL ADVERTISERS
Brand	BEN ASSICURA
Product/Service	NATIVE MARKETING CAMPAIGN WITH ORIGINAL CONTENT BY SOCIAL JOURNALISTS
Category	A02. Creative Innovation (incl. business solutions in association with a brand or creative campaign)
Entrant Company	BLASTING NEWS Chiasso, SWITZERLAND
Advertising Agency	BLASTING NEWS Chiasso, SWITZERLAND

Name	Company	Position
Andrea Manfredi	Blasting News	Ceo
Linda Iulianella	Blasting News	Business Manager
Massimiliano Aliverti	Blasting News	Head Of Advertising
Massimiliano Busin	Blasting News	Head Of Product Development
Sophia Matveeva	Blasting News	Head Of Communications/Business Development

The Brief

Native marketing is a new original trustworthy advertising format created for millennials: when promoting your products, do you want to be a brand that shouts at people, or a friend who suggests? Preferring to be a friend, Ben Assicura, a new insurance brand by Direct Line (Mapfre Group), turned to Blasting News social story telling: Ben Assicura wanted to have an innovative launch campaign to reach their potential consumers, while being original and getting a return on their marketing investment. As a result, Blasting News ran a unique campaign: Blasting News contributors, whom we call Blasters, were asked to participate in a discussion about Ben Assicura, writing news and reporting their real views about car insurance and topics related to the brand. To encourage Blasters to write shareable content on a niche topic, Blasting News gave them specific information about the brand, asked them questions, and set up an extra payment scheme for their readership. The articles were subject to the same checks as all other content, so no advertorials got through. Blasting News (www.blastingnews.com) is a two year old social journalism site, where 440,000 contributors publish news to a monthly audience of 25+ million people. The Blasting News vision is to create a unique digital magazine curated by the crowd, thanks to the extensive use of technology, without a central newsroom. Editorial quality is key: each piece of content is checked by a senior contributor before publishing. Meritocracy is fundamental: Blasters are paid depending on the number of views and are thus incentivised to spread their content on the web, generating a great social wave. The first Blasting News site was launched in Italy, where it is now one of the biggest digital native news magazines. Blasting News has sites in 34 countries, reporting in 24 languages.

Native Marketing is a true innovation of technology and creativity, which has not been offered by any other media before. The Native Marketing campaign solves two problems in advertising today: the lack of consumer trust in advertising and the rising use of ad blockers. Content written by Blasters and spread on their social networks to their friends has a unique element of trust which advertising created by media agencies does not: 81% of people said they trust content over advertising. By writing content about Ben Assicura, Blasters became brand ambassadors who promoted the brand to their networks – people in the same demographic and customer segment as them. Ad blockers, which are being used more and more, are powerless against this social wave. The native campaign gave Ben Assicura unrivalled access to content creators and led to a higher volume of content and social mentions than they could not have had from a traditional media agency. By seeing what Blasters wrote about and how consumers reacted to it, Ben Assicura also had access to market research and consumer trends – both of which would be difficult and expensive to access. Native Marketing is very different from sponsored content: Blasting News does not pay writers to create positive content about a brand. Instead, Blasting News opens a dialogue among readers, allows a brand to convey specific messages, and generates an additional social media wave. The content is truly natural, although moderated, and this is why it so effective: it does not smell like an advertisement. Native Marketing is truly efficient for brands: Ben Assicura did not pay for content, but instead paid for reach – if the articles had no audience, the client didn’t get a bill.

Ben Assicura ran the Native Advertising partnership in two stages: the first was to launch the brand. After the success of this campaign, the second phase was commissioned: to publicise a Ben Assicura promotion. The first campaign ran over 18 days, with Blasters publishing 61 articles about Ben Assicura, read by 14,000 people, with >5.0%CTR on the banner. The second phase ran over 5 days, with 30 articles read by 6,500 people and 4.7% CTR on the banner. After that, the company commissioned three more campaigns for 2015. Following the successes of the Ben Assicura campaigns, we launched Native Partnerships with Hotel Scan and Telecom Italia in Italy, and ARCCA Vitan Village in Romania. Given that most consumers trust content over display advertising and 31% say they use ad blockers, native advertising is hugely effective. Clients love it because they only pay if the content is seen by a real audience. Putting advertising in the hands of social journalists could change the advertising industry forever, taking the monopoly of message crafting away from professional agencies. As the use of ad-blockers increases and advertisers are fighting harder to win trust, citizen campaigns can become the advertising campaigns of the future.