Turner Network is becoming one giant native advertising platform

Turner Network is like everyone else in 2016 seeking to expand their native advertising abilities. The idea is to turn the entire network into an native advertising platform. Turner will work directly with marketers to replace traditional 30 second commercials with "brand pods" that tell a brand story instead. Think longer branded content normally seen on the web, but now aired on Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT and CNN. Turner will both produce content for marketers, as well as bring clients' existing long-form content to TV. Turner will then use its targeting capabilities to find the right placement for the content across the entire Turner portfolio.

"The idea is to turn Turner into a giant native ad platform," Dan Riess, head of content partnerships at Turner, explains. "This is less interruptive for consumers and more powerful for brands."

Intel will be one of the first brands to use "Native Plus" in 2016.

As we've reported earlier, Turner has already been experimenting with branded content on CNN, or as I like to call it the "advertorial department". Subaru partnered with CNN's branded content studio, Courageous, to create content for "CNN Heroes." The vignettes told short "CNN Heroes" stories. The "CNN Heroes" clips were two to three minutes long, and the only content that aired during the commercial break, while also being mentioned during the show.

In the future those who once brought us entertainment will bring us all of the branded entertainment. This gets extra interesting when it is those who once brought us the news....