The New York Times has placed a series of native ads on Mashable. It’s the news organization’s first native ad campaign from its audience development group, Times spokesperson Linda Zebian tells Poynter. It has, she said, promoted its content “through advertisements on other sites outside of our own” before.
The Times placed sponsored content on The Awl, Gothamist and Digg earlier this year, Joe Pompeo reported for Capital in April.
The first ad, “11 Inspiring Videos That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity,” ran 5 days ago. A new one, “9 Cultural Icons Who Have Written for ‘The New York Times’,” bowed today. There are two more ads planned in the campaign, which runs to the end of the month, Zebian says.
So why Mashable?
“The goal is to introduce Mashable readers to the full breadth of The Times’s offerings,” Zebian writes. “Our hope is to increase engagement with this audience and also gain new loyal readers and subscribers. We chose Mashable because they have an audience that we are interested in reaching and also the promotional support they provide both on their site and on social media.”
Mashable’s executive editor, Jim Roberts, decided in early 2013 to take a buyout from the Times. The Times has begun running native advertising on some of its digital platforms, including a “Snow Fall”-like presentation of a promo for “Orange Is the New Black”‘s second season.
