There is a lot being said about native advertising. It’s become a buzzword in the media industry, but all it means is sponsored articles.
Eek! What you say?
That’s right. It exists, and through native advertising, national media organizations are gaining positive results in online dollars and clicks. It’s making journalism purists downright neurotic.
Part of the problem is that it exists in so many forms. First, there are the names. Native advertising also is known as branded or sponsored content.
Then, there is the labeling. It ranges from the ambiguous “presented by,” “promoted by” or “brand publisher” to the clear “paid advertisement.”
Another factoring element: There is no native advertising police. Each media organization bears the burden of guarding their news content. There are self-regulating bodies, such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Council of Better Business Bureaus’ National Advertising Division.
To the rescue, the Federal Trade Commission is stepping in and in December held its first native advertising workshop under the program title: Blurred Lines: Advertising or Content? That says it all.
According to the Newspaper Association of America, the FTC has authority for enforcement actions when native advertising is deemed unfair or deceptive to consumers. What’s unclear is whether the advertiser or the publisher holds the liability bag.
Even the Interactive Advertising Bureau considers native advertising a bit schizophrenic.
“Native has become a hot topic in the advertising marketplace, but for the practice to flourish further, it needs consensus on definitions and structure,” the IAB says in releasing its native advertising playbook for marketers developed by an industry task force.
In essence, native advertising is the same animal as a print advertorial, but somewhere along the line of mobile technologies, publishers began to loosen up on properly identifying such pieces.
At Springfield Business Journal, we have a few products that fall under the native advertising banner: the Who’s Who in Business section (previously Profiles in Business), the annual Giving Guide and the Ask the Experts online Q&A.
Those items are not produced in SBJ’s newsroom, and I believe they are clearly communicated as advertising. But it’s something we need to keep a pulse on and make sure we’re handling properly.
A couple of weeks ago, I received what I consider to be the first local native advertising piece submitted to our newsroom as a “news release.” In a special section on Women Business Leaders in the June 16 issue of Forbes, Deep marketing agency partner Valeri Lea is featured, among other paying clients, in a full-page article with photos.
To Forbes’ credit, the page is labeled as “promotion,” and to Deep’s credit, the information about Lea is valuable. Her role in the company, a division of Marlin Network, and in our business community is now on SBJ’s radar.
As a newsroom editor, I surely value content. It’s everything to us, but equally important is our credibility. So good content will get published on merit, not because it fits into a marketing campaign.
At worst, we’re talking about ads that look and act like news articles – infiltration without clear and proper labeling. My fear is only a keen eye will notice the difference.
My encounter with the Forbes/Deep native advertising piece came days after SBJ management returned from the summer conference of the Alliance of Area Business Publications. In a group session, inPowered CEO Peyman Nilforoush educated us on the latest trends and the growing opportunities in the mobile space. I noticed people shifting in chairs and muttering under their breath.
It’s not a comfortable place to be.
In the newsroom, the rise in native advertising causes us to refine the definition of an article and uphold clear identification of the article’s source and how it got there.
Some clarity is emerging. Media organizations are beginning to funnel native advertising opportunities through custom publishing divisions. Forbes launched BrandVoice and Wall Street Journal uses WSJ-Custom Studios to strategically place and label content. But there is clearly more work to help consumers discern between editorial and advertising content.
In the meantime, look for the labels.
Springfield Business Journal Editor Eric Olson can be reached at
eolson@sbj.net.
