Introducing: The Nativo Awards

As 2020 draws to a close, our team started thinking: How do you put a cap on a year that’s been so…unprecedented?

While ideas flowed, the desired effect remained unanimous: something that would make people smile. So, we set out to do just that. The end result? The 2020 Nativo Awards.

The Nativo Awards is Nativo’s first ever awards program dedicated to celebrating our clients that went above and beyond to educate, inspire and delight with native advertising. The categories were defined by our client success team, and the winners were selected through an internal evaluation process based upon specific criteria for each category.

We’re humbled to have partners that exhibit unmatched flexibility, creativity and responsiveness during uncertainty. It’s our genuine honor to present this year’s inaugural Nativo Award winners.

Agency Partner of 2020

Winner: Garage Team Mazda

Nativo’s Agency Partner of 2020 award winner, Garage Team Mazda, demonstrated the strongest agency partnership growth with Nativo during an extraordinary year. Since the beginning of 2020, Garage Team Mazda has increased their knowledge about content strategy and native amplification, clearly demonstrating sustained and substantial growth in the number of content executions produced through the Nativo partnership. By closely collaborating with internal teams at Garage Team Mazda, including strategy, account, analytics and media, Nativo and Garage Team Mazda co-created unique and strategic content initiatives focused on Mazda’s goals and KPIs. Garage Team Mazda has been a consistent Nativo champion as we together work toward success for our client, Mazda North American Operations.

2020 Champ

Winner: Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Our Nativo Awards 2020 Champ has demonstrated the strongest growth in brand partnership with Nativo. Our 2020 winner, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), works closely with Nativo across several of our product offerings, including our managed media, Nativo I.Q. and programmatic solutions. Over the past year, HPE has increased their content strategy expertise and native amplification, partnering closely with both their agency partner and Nativo to create robust content strategies that consistently meet their goals. HPE and Digitas are partners that have exemplary knowledge in the native space, and understand Nativo’s executions flawlessly. HPE and Nativo additionally won a 2020 Content Marketing Award for Most Innovative Content Distribution Strategy for their work on HPE’s Responsive Ad Desk campaigns.

Get It Done Awards

The winners of our 2020 Get It Done Awards are true hustlers that Get. It. Done. These individuals manage tight deadlines, openly communicate about both wins and improvements and are pivotal to the success of campaign and partner relationships at their respective companies.

Pat Moriarty, Media Planner, PHM

Pat Moriarty, media planner at PHM, is a stronghold on the PHM team. Pat consistently advocates for native advertising to his clients, working with vendors like Nativo on their behalf to continuously improve campaign performance. Pat’s communication is clear, thoughtful and concise, providing necessary information on deliverables in a timely manner that allows the Nativo team time to develop superior advertising experiences on behalf of his clients. Pat has proven instrumental in crafting and launching new campaign functionalities, providing the Nativo team constructive feedback that has consistently led to product advancements and wins for both his team and Nativo.

Hallie Wilson, Connections Manager, VMLY&R

Hallie Wilson, connections manager at VMLY&R, has consistently worked with her clients to grow initial Native Article investments into diversified portfolios of native advertising executions. Always on the hunt for how to better serve her clients, Hallie even tested Nativo’s newest format, Native Stories, earlier this year. Hallie is always asking questions to understand the full breadth of Nativo’s functionality, and often engages with Nativo resources to stay abreast of best practices on creating stronger consumer connections for her clients. Hallie’s hard work and consistent efforts led to strong results in 2020, with her native executions often ranking above benchmarks for CTR, average time spent and CTA rate. Hallie is a sincere pleasure to work with and a true client partner.

Sarah Yun, Senior Associate on Digital Activation, OMD LA

Having worked alongside Nativo’s client success team for the past several years, Sarah Yun, senior associate on Digital Activation at OMD LA, has a true Get It Done attitude. Sarah has been categorized as a rock on the LA team. She showcases consistent flexibility, strength and tenacity in advocating for her clients while being transparent and clear with communication. Sarah is grateful for this award and excited to see the impact native adverting will continue to have.

Rookie of the Year

Winner: Sofia Leiva, Assistant Media Planner, Garage Team Mazda

The winner of our 2020 Rookie of the Year award is an associate level partner that has demonstrated exemplary knowledge and an unparalleled desire to grow the Nativo partnership on behalf of their agency and client. Sofia Leiva, our 2020 winner, is a true champion of collaboration. Over the past two years, Sofia has been a main point of contact for the Active Shopper team at Garage Team Mazda. During that time, Sofia has proven herself to be an instinctive, thoughtful critical thinker who continues to be a crucial component of success in every campaign she works on. Sofia is a true student of the industry, exhibiting strong intuition amplified by her dedication to her agency, team, partners — and most importantly, her clients.

Best Digital Storyteller

Winner: Miles Partnership - Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism

Our Best Digital Storyteller award goes to a company that produced a truly outstanding Native Article execution within the travel space. Our 2020 winner, Miles Partnership - Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism, leveraged Nativo’s interactive image heat map custom Native Article offering to provide readers with a unique way to “Choose their own Gulf Shores & Orange Beach” adventure. Using the interactive map, readers selected areas of Gulf Shores & Orange Beach they wanted to explore. Once selected, information on various activities popped up on screen, allowing the reader an opportunity to learn more about what Gulf Shores & Orange Beach has to offer without leaving the publisher site. The end result? A seamless, engaging advertising experience. We consider this Native Article by Miles Partnership - Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism to be the gold standard of Native Article executions.

Who to Watch

Winner: iProspect

Our Who to Watch award goes to a Nativo partner that exponentially expanded their use of native advertising in 2020. At the beginning of the year, iProspect was looking to extend their native advertising footprint beyond programmatic executions for one of their clients, a leading financial brand. What began as a Native Display test campaign in Q2 2020 quickly evolved into a robust native advertising strategy that included Native Display, Native Video and Native Article by the end of this year. Both campaigns iProspect ran with Nativo on behalf of their client performed better as the year progressed, showcasing their persistent growth and expertise in the realm of native campaigns. Overall, iProspect’s use of native advertising on behalf of their clients reached new heights in 2020, with campaigns consistently exceeding expectations. iProspect is a fantastic partner that has exhibited unmatched potential heading into 2021.

Platform Pro Awards

Our 2020 Platform Pro Awards go to clients across the country that have demonstrated expertise in the Nativo Self-Service Platform. These agencies and brands have learned the ins-and-outs of native campaign executions, increased their knowledge about content strategy and leveraged native amplification across a variety of initiatives or verticals.

Platform Pro – East

Winner: ICF Next

ICF Next is a global consulting agency helping organizations transcend experiences to create long-lasting, emotional connections with customers, colleagues, citizens and communities, and moving them from a state of passive engagement to long-term brand loyalty, advocacy and shared identity (learn more at icfnext.com). Over the past year, ICF Next has used Nativo Self-Service to execute native content campaigns across verticals, A/B test targeting and messaging tactics and tailor content to each unique audience to drive stronger engagement than Nativo’s national benchmark and achieve measurable results for clients.

Platform Pro – West

Winner: Pollinate

Pollinate, a Portland, Oregon based full-service marketing agency, is focused on turning consumers into brand fanatics. As such they have found great success in their partnership with the Nativo Self-Service platform, enhancing creative consumer fanaticism for notable clients. The Pollinate team enjoys having the flexibility to build their own ad units and visualize how they will appear to consumers. The dashboard also provides transparency into performance and allows the Pollinate team to access real-time reporting and make optimizations efficiently.

Platform Pro – Central

Winner: Decode Digital

Decode is an award-winning agency in Houston that breaks down the ever-changing digital space to develop original strategies that complement their client’s vision and goals. Within the past year Decode launched 14 Nativo campaigns with a primary focus on health care initiatives. Their use of the platform to distribute timely and informative content in response to the ongoing pandemic resulted in high levels of engagement from their target audience, and put their clients in the best possible light.

Every brand, agency and individual that received a 2020 Nativo Award exhibited incredible strength amid adversity. Thank you to all of our clients for your continued partnership — we can’t wait to see what you’ll do in the new year.

NEWS