Advertisers are getting sneaky by disguising what they call “native advertising” ads as original website content.
“Native advertising” is a web advertising method in which the advertiser attempts to gain attention by providing content in the context of the user's experience.
Some experts lament the pesky posts, arguing that it undermines professional journalism while confusing readers with familiar “headlines, art, and text configurations” as regular posts. David Carr, writer of the New York Times article, “Storytelling Ads May Be Journalism’s New Peril,” warns us that this new type of advertising could potentially effect the journalistic credibility of a website.
In this piece, Carr interviews Joe McCambley, one of the creators of long used banner ads, who says poorly executed ads do more damage than good to both the consumers and companies involved. McCambley states, “I completely understand the value of native advertising, but there are a number of publishers who are allowing P.R. firms and advertising agencies direct access to their content management systems and allowing them to publish directly to the site. I think that is a huge mistake.”
And rightfully so. Allowing P.R. firms to hold the reigns? Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen for a company with a specific aesthetic being juxtaposed with an ad they have no full control over. Taco Bell’s ad on Buzzfeed (pictured above) is so painstakingly obvious, that it somewhat takes away from the site, and borders on embarrassment.
I know as a consumer, I’d be annoyed. An ad like this could prompt me to visit this site less frequently, or even worse: spot the ad and skip it altogether; It’s what I already do with regular banner ads.
“Native advertising” has been buzzing for the last year according to Jeff Roberts, writer for paidcontent.org. So much so that the FTC will hold a workshop on December 4 on what they call the “blurring of digital ads with digital content.”
An excerpt from the FTC announcement says: The workshop will bring together publishing and advertising industry representatives, consumer advocates, academics, and government regulators to explore changes in how paid messages are presented to consumers and consumers’ recognition and understanding of these messages.
Luckily, no one as of yet has experienced any downturn from what many are predicting. It seems that more companies like The New Yorker, Buzzfeed, The Atlantic, and surprisingly, The New York Times, are jumping on the “native advertising” bandwagon.
Forbes is one of the leading companies weaving “native advertising” into their regular flow of content. Although McCambley worries that Forbes’ fact-checked posts are being undercut by these ads, Lewis Dvorkin, chief product officer of Forbes, thinks otherwise. “I believe that people gravitate toward content they trust,” says Dvorkin. “And over the last three years, according to comScore, our audience has grown from 12 million unique users to 25 million. We have very high standards and we spend a lot of time vetting our contributors and making sure that our marketers put real effort into what they put on the site...with accurate, useful information.”
McCambley offers some advice at the end of the article: “It has to stand on its own as good journalism. Bad native advertising is destructive for the publishers that host it.”
My only hope is that companies don’t get carried away with the ad blog posts and turn into another Youtube.