Processed Bovine Waste... Native Advertising

Over the past decade, cooperate influence in the media has steadily grown more, and more prominent.

As a result, the distinction between editorial content and advertising has grown increasingly blurrier. And this issue, had become especially problematic in regards to the news.

Dwelling in such an information rich society, we are exposed to countless advertisements on a daily basis. As such, many individuals grow accustomed to the constant barrage of commercial endorsement, and advertisers are left with the challenge of breaking through the noise and captivating their attention. This is where native advertising comes into play.

At its very core, native advertising is simply the masquerade of advertisements as legitimate new stories. Seemingly normal pieces of content are stamped with tiny disclaimers and contain messages that are often blatant endorsements.

A superb example of this would be an article released last year by the New York Times on the subject of Women Inmates.

The feature, written by Melanie Deziel, was about women in prison and its intended audience as one might expect were the readers of the New York Times and presumably those interested in the article’s subject matter.

Now, the sincere nature of the article, coupled with its use of statistical claims and statistics, casts it as a serious piece of journalism, however in reality, it is nothing more than an elaborate paid post.

As the disclaimer at the very top of the article highlights, the article is a promotion for the second season of Orange in the new Black. And one might ask, why the advertisers choose to showcase the show in such a manner.

The article dwells into a matter very similar to the plot of the TV show it’s advertising, and in many regards acts as a twisted call to action. Having read the article, readers are left wanting to follow through and subtle references scattered throughout the text hint to a solution; watch Orange is New Black.

Now, this post acts as a more positive example of native advertising: the reporting is real and the sponsored branding is kept to low.

However, not all advertisers are so lenient, and this form of advertising has compromised the integrity of the news, as consumers can increasingly not tell the difference between what is credible information and mere cooperate jargon.

Recent studies further support this and show that less than half of visitors to news sites could distinguish native advertising from actual news and of course they can’t because native advertising, is supposed to blend in.