Catching audience interest and creating brand benefits with sponsored content in online news media : case study Iltalehti & Alma Brand Studio

This thesis demonstrates a holistic view on sponsored content published and created in online news media by applying a case study method on a tabloid media Iltalehti which operates one of the most visited online news media among Finnish population. Firstly, brand paid stories published in Iltalehti, and digital ad products directing reader traffic to those, are attached with applying the principles of native advertising. Native advertising is defined as instream appearing embedded ads following the form, feel and function of the platform. As deepening the view on sponsored content’s role for news publishers within digitalized transformation of media markets, perspectives on sponsored content’s financial significance and evolving audience preferences are discussed. Also, critical views shared of bringing paid content into news feeds are presented. Secondly, this thesis examines how sponsored content is created by a publisher’s established content studio, as a case study of Alma Brand Studio, planning and executing sponsored content campaigns e.g. to Iltalehti. Main contributions of this thesis are practical guidelines, composed from secondary sources and from primary data with interviewing creative producers at Alma Brand Studio, of how to create audience appealing sponsored editorials and how to integrate advertisers’ marketing needs in branded stories native to Iltalehti. Also, practices of building sponsored editorial content are reflected on content marketing tactics according to the concept of customer journey. As key findings of this work, creative producers in Alma Brand Studio are found to follow content marketing practices when creating sponsored content to Iltalehti. Yet, those content marketing practices are applied with media specific characteristics, reflecting close relations with Iltalehti’s online audience and emphasizing creative producers’ knowhow of utilizing audience data within a publisher. Also, sponsored editorial content’s marketing benefits for brands are found to relate with the mechanisms of rented media, functioning similarly as with earned media, yet as paid stories benefitting from Iltalehti platform’s high interest value for its audience, volume with content and mass audience reach