NYTimes unveils redesign, native ads

The New York Times unveiled its much-anticipated redesign early this month but what’s most notable isn’t actually about the design at all. The new native ads folded into the design are what has the industry buzzing. Design-wise, the site looks cleaner, crisper, but nothing too drastic. But with the site’s improved functionality and opportunity for ad innovation—namely native ads—it’s a new day for the Old Gray. Experience-wise, Rob Tannen of Intuitive Company writes for Fast Company, “What’s most enjoyable about the redesign is that it delivers a useful mix of the relative benefits of both “p” and “e”—print and electronic—reading in a digital experience.” In engagement, the redesign does a better job of helping you find other content, and features comments more prominently. And, of course, it’s all responsive – seamlessly moving across many screens.

As for the native ads, Dell was on board first, contributing sponsored stories such as “Will Millennials Ever Completely Shun the Office?” The ad looks nothing like a New York Times story, however, in style or design or tone or … anything. So it’s clear that the Times, late to the native ad game, is serious about clearly differentiating sponsor content. As a Capital New York headline put it, “Times’ new native ad platform pretty hard to complain about.” As AdAge’s Michael Sebastian points out, this could be problematic. “Such transparency might turn off other marketers interested in native advertising, which more or less aims to mimic the editorial content surrounding it. The Times’ native-ad play very clearly avoids such confusion, as promised.” Still, the Times is confident that Dell is getting its money worth. As Meredith Kopit Levien told Adweek’s Lucia Moses, “The Times could only do this in a way that’s utterly clear to readers. I actually think the value of this is [that] the brand gets to have their story on one of the most important places of storytelling on Earth.”

• ‘New York Times’ Website Redesign Goes Back to the Future (Mashable)
• Times Designers Are Monitoring Reaction to the Redesign, With Adjustments Possible (Washington Post)
• Five Things to Know About The New York Times’ New Native Ads (AdAge)
• Personalisation and engagement key in NYTimes.com revamp (Journalism.co.uk)
• New York Times Debuts Site Redesign (Huffington Post)
• New York Times redesign points to future of online publishing (CNN)
• What The New York Times Web Reboot Gets Right (Fast Company)
• With Redesign, NYTimes.com Unveils Native Ad Platform (Adweek)
• Times’ new native ad platform pretty hard to complain about (Capital New York)