Disclosure of "native ads" doesn't always follow recommended guidelines

In 2015, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission published guidelines for how "native" advertising should be labelled and presented. A whitepaper released recently by leading native advertising developer Polar says that a large proportion of advertisers didn't use the recommended terms such as "sponsored" or "advertisement" and instead used no disclosure at all or chose ambiguous terms such as "promoted" or "partner" or "presented". According to an article in MediaDailyNews

The report, Polar’s “State of Native Disclosure,” analyzed 137 native placements across 65 publishers and found only 55% of them utilized the term “sponsored” and 4.5% used the term “advertisement,” adhering to Federal Trade Commission guidelines that native ad placements are explicitly labeled as sponsored advertising content 

The remainder either had no disclosure at all or utilized more ambiguous terms such as “promoted,” “presented,” or “partner.”

The FTC guidelines in 2015 said ambiguous terminology could potentially “mislead consumers that advertising content is endorsed by a publisher site and/or that the advertiser did not create or influence the content."

Some advertisers found that ambiguous terms were preferable because they performed better than explicit ones.

The study found the highest click-through rate (0.19%) was achieved by native ads labeled “promoted,” and the second-highest (0.17%) by those labeled “partner” content. “Sponsored” ranked third with a click-through rate of 0.16%, while native content with no disclosure achieved a rate of 0.15%.

How to label "native ads" in a non-confusing way

If almost all media, including magazines, will soon be using "native advertising" (and it seems it will), it might be good to know how best to identify such ads for readers. A post on Digiday reports on some research by the native ad tech company TripleLift exploring typical terms or disclosure labels used and how readers and marketers react to them.

Using eye-tracking, the study shows respondents who most (%) saw ads with a "presented by" or "sponsored by" label and the fewest, who saw ads with the heading "advertisement". 

It's understandable why advertisers and marketers prefer the softer, more evasive labels since people may tend to avoid or skip over obvious ads. Yet the research shows that the exact opposite is the case when asked which label makes it most clear that the content is an ad.

Yet, when the [U.S.] Association of National Advertisers asked its members (63% of whom said they expected to increase spending on native this year) which terms describe native ad disclosure "very well", they answered:

Go figure. 

CJF hosting October 2 panel about native advertising

L to R, Borra, Bradbury, White and Shapiro

I make no secret of my skepticism about so-called "native advertising", which to me is simply advertorials of old, glossed with new language. But I'd be interested in a panel being offered by The Canadian Journalism Foundation called "Native Advertising: Journalism's Saviour or Sellout?" 

It's to be held in Toronto on Thursday, October 2 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the TMX Broadcast Centre - Gallery, The Exchange Tower, 130 King St. W., Toronto.

($15 for students, $25 for early bird, $30 general admission.)

Panelists will be Jill Borra, executive editor at The Globe and Mail; Cathrin Bradbury, executive director of content development at Star Media Group (recently named editor-in-chief of Metro); and Scott White, vice-president of content strategy and business development at Postmedia Network, for this discussion. Ivor Shapiro, chair of the School of Journalism and associate professor specializing in journalism ethics at Ryerson University, moderates. The setup for the session says

Native advertising. Branded content. Custom content. Whatever it’s called, these ‘advertorials’ are controversial, yet news organizations see them as the latest and best business strategy. Can Journalism’s tattered integrity be rescued when the lines between editorial and advertising content are blurred? Can sponsored content be palatable to readers, and to journalists? And while these ads are delivering new dollars to legacy news outlets, are they also eroding trust and driving readers away?

Good questions, all.  

Study suggests consumers are wary of "native advertising"

A new study about to be released by Nielsen on behalf of tech startup company InPowered suggests that readers are wary of so-called "native advertising". A report in Ad Age, written by Steve Rubel, chief content strategist for public relations firm Edelman, says that 60% of readers in the U.S. lab study were less likely to trust a product review if they knew it was paid for by the company selling the product. And half of the study participants didn't trust a brand's own website for reliable product information. 

This may cause questioning about sponsored content being somehow almost as trusted as journalism. It also may counter a belief among marketers that they can simply go direct, becoming their own publishers.

The study found that consumers are quite sophisticated in seeking out what the research called "trusted content" -- 3rd-party articles by journalists. 85% seek this out and 67% say such information informs their buying decisions.

"[The data] raises serious questions over whether native advertising threatens to upend this trust publishers have earned with their audience. This is a particularly prickly issue as it could become harder for readers to discern ads from editorial."

IAB releases "playbook" for "native advertising"

What used to be called "advertorial" (ads imitating stories) is now called "native advertising" and it has been a bit of a wild west out there, with no one knowing what the standards or rules were. Well, in its role as the new sheriff in town, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has prepared the IAB Native Advertising Playbook", which is available for download. 

Though mostly concentrating on the web and the interface between traditional TV and the internet, the new standards bear on what print and digital magazines do, too. 

“Marketers are already embracing native strategies and publishers are looking for a roadmap that will allow them to take full advantage of the trend,” said Peter Minnium, Head of Brand Initiatives, IAB. “The more we can define and structure the framework surrounding native advertising, the easier we will make it for brands to easily incorporate it into their ad buys.”

“I firmly believe that advertising on the modern internet will be defined by meaningful content, not standard ads. There’s a movement happening, away from interruptive, traditional ads, and towards thoughtful brand stories — and native ads are the most potent and effective distribution strategy for content-based advertising,” said Dan Greenberg, Founder and CEO, Sharethrough, and Co-Chair, IAB Native Advertising Task Force.

Hearst's Harper's Bazaar embracing branded content approach

Harper's Bazaar, the high-end fashion title from Hearst Corporation, has embraced "branded content" or "native advertising" or what you will in a major way with the launch of a new website next Monday in which advertisers can interleave their own products with editorial items in a new daily feature called #TheList. 

According to a New York Times story, Monday to Friday sponsors will be able to include their products as branded content and a link to their own site as well as running digital banner ads associated with #TheList. On weekends, they can include their products exclusively.

While the feature is the first time that Harper’s has used a branded content product, the announcement follows a broader effort by Hearst to create products for advertisers that, while labeled sponsored, resemble editorial content, a trend many publishers are turning to known as native advertising or branded content. 

In May, the company announced a series of native advertising products, including allowing advertisers to publish topical content about a developing story that can run alongside editorial content and pages where advertisers can post short videos, curate social media posts or sponsor photo galleries.

Hearst executives said that any sponsored content will be clearly labelled. Some of the products will also be available on ShopBazaar.com, which allows readers to buy products featured in the magazine. 

“Our attitude in this is that if we can create a really high-quality advertising experience that taps into our editorial team’s insights and into what resonates with readers, and do so in a way that it’s transparent, we think that is really powerful,” said Todd R. Haskell, the senior vice president and chief revenue officer for Hearst Magazines Digital Media. 

“We have an opportunity to create something from scratch that lets us develop one of these branded content experiences that is just so perfect for the reader and that lets us talk about the kinds of things that our readers love to interact with.”

Whether "native advertising" will kill journalism worries the inventor of the banner ad

The New York Times's David Carr has written a thought-provoking column about the perils of "native advertising", a column centred around an interview with Joe McCambley, the founder of the digital design firm Wonderfactory. 

"When the guy who ruined the Internet with banner ads tells you that a new kind of advertising might destroy journalism, it tends to get your attention," [says Carr.]

McCambley thinks native advertising may damage the longstanding contract between consumer and media organizations (what we used to call readers and publishers). Ads mimicking the style and format of journalism and nestled among real stories; sometimes labelled, more often not, gain attention and engagement. (They're what we used to call "advertorial" but even more closely integrated with content.) 

“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. 

“It is a very slippery slope and could kill journalism if publishers aren’t careful....

“You are gambling with the contract you have with your readers. How do I know who made the content I am looking at and what the value of the information is?”

The hustling of "native advertising"; new Hearst digital chief says it's a "natural evolution"

Occasionally, I find myself saying "what the heck does that mean?" and one of those times just occurred when reading an interview in Ad Age with Troy Young, the president at Hearst Magazines Digital Media* saying this about so-called 'native advertising':

There's a lot to come on the native side, and I'm glad the market is rallying around the idea, but really it's a natural evolution of doing a couple of things: Making the advertising fit more elegantly in the content experience, and making it more interesting and removing the friction from consuming it, which was always the problem with legacy advertising experience.

Now it's about putting something back in for the user. Give them value or you're dead. It's a natural evolution. I think it's all good and every publishing company is going to have to deal with it.

Native advertising is apparently seen as a natural evolution of a thing rather than the mere application of a rebranding gloss to something that has long been with us; advertorial, or advertising that masquerades as editorial content. Apparently, too, there was perceived to be a friction present when reading advertising in traditional formats (say, in the pages of a Hearst magazine), now to be lubricated away by making advertising more interesting and integrating it more seamlessly with editorial content. This new, elegant and apparently, better kind of advertising (also contains lanolin) will give readers more value, by the mere act of making ads look more like editorial.

[*Another thing I found out when reading the interview was the Young got his start  in the '90s at Montreal Mirror.]