In the cable television series, Mad Men, the advertising lead executive, Don Draper, will challenge clients complaining about their brand’s image. When a client has a particularly thorny issue, or wants to reposition their product or service, Draper tells them, “If you don’t like what’s being said, change it.”
His statement is bold and delivered with his signature smirk and swag. He’s right, though. Changing conversations is exactly what some brands should do. To do that, however, brands need to dominate and control their message – at least early.
We can’t, nor should, strong-arm media professionals to print what we want. That’s not their job anyway, but we can use native advertising to change conversation.
Origins of Native Advertising
The notion of this communication tactic has been around for longer than modern public relations, dominated by advertisers, and its name has evolved from “advertorial” to its current iteration.
Muensen Speciality Company in 1917 was earliest documented case using an advertorial, sponsored content, or its current term de jour — native advertising. The Federal Trade Commission identified the company’s editorial, which gave a favorable review of its vacuum cleaner, but settle with company over the stealthy practice. “It was the first case where advertorials (or “native advertising” as they are now known) were identified by regulation in the US,” wrote Emily Bell for The Guardian.
While the first advertorial was spotted in 1917, they begin regularly appearing in magazines until the 1970s, and have stirred much controversy, because they combine article writing as advertising sponsored by the content creator.
Seeing sponsored content can run the length of average articles, and may be mini-booklets with their own cover. They are also important revenue streams. However, they can be intrusive, if dropped into the middle of an article, but are less so if inserted between magazine articles. To separate paid content from editorial, as magazines began accepting and running more native advertisements, American Society of Magazine Editors established guidelines requiring advertorials to be clearly labeled and designed different than editorial material.
Current Industry Guidelines and Standards
Native advertising as we know it, like its ancestor, is neither inherently evil nor inherently good, but their use does require fore-thought. David Shank, president of Indianapolis-based Shank Public Relations, says, “I don’t have a problem with native advertising as long as it’s obvious it’s a paid message.” In a December pow-wow, the FTC invited advertising industry experts to DC for a conversation about native advertising in general. Writing for AdAge, Alex Kantrowitz, tells us, “The workshop, called “Blurred Lines: Advertising or Content,” focused on whether publishers and advertisers are doing enough to keep consumers from mistaking native ads — which are meant to closely resemble non-sponsored content — from the content itself.”
But what’s interest is this. Three months before Mary Engle, the FTC’s associate director for advertising practices, called the shindig, the ASME refined its Statement on Native Advertising, which set the ethical boundaries of the practice in four succinct points:
- The decision to publish native advertising properly belongs to individual brands, but such advertising should be clearly distinguished from editorial content.
- Native advertising should be clearly labeled as advertising. The phrase “Sponsor Content,” already in use on some websites, can be used to label native advertising.
- Native advertising should include a prominent, unambiguous statement that the content has been created by a marketer and that the marketer has paid for its publication.
- Native advertising should not use the same graphics, including type fonts, as editorial content and should be separated visually from editorial content.
Additionally, public relations professionals looking to muddle in native advertising have another set of ethics to consider. While the ASME guidelines tell us to “clearly label” native advertising, and provide “unambiguous statement[s]” telling readers the content is sponsored, not editorial content is just the beginning. The Public Relations Society of America reminds us to be moral — honest, accurate, and “foster informed decision making through open communication.”
The Editorialized Stealth Pitch
Aside from physically distinguishing sponsored content from editorial pieces, writing for SLATE, Matthew Yglesias warns us of advertising that more camouflaged. In his article, he points an editorial post where he in his own voice recommends Land Rover. Just so happens, his remarks appear next to an Land Rover ad. This is a regular practice of Mike Allen’s Playbook, as Erik Wemple reports for The Washington Post. He writes, “A review of ‘Playbook’ archives shows that the special interests that pay for slots in the newsletter get adoring coverage elsewhere in the playing field of ‘Playbook.’”
Allen’s “adoring coverage” of advertisers in his Playbook blurs the line between sponsored content and objective, editorial content, which can lead readers on, just as the Muensen Speciality Company did with its favorable editorial. Though to be fair, the vacuum company did write and place the piece, it was the editors who decided to run the piece. Who know, perhaps to sweeten the deal with editors, Muensen could have purchased a full-page advertisement too. You know what they say about money and bull shit, right. The latter talks and the former walks.
Back at the FTC dude ranch in December, a former Ad Age editor at large, lamented how native advertising would, over the years, erode trust — trust in the media and warned us that “publishers are mining and exporting a rare resource: trust. Those deals will not save the media industry. They will, in a matter of years, destroy the media industry: one boatload of shit at a time.”
Navigate the Shit without getting Your Hands Dirty
Without a doubt there will advertiser, marketers and corporations that will fairy these boatloads of shit, just as they have done before. As Justice Potter Stewart of the Warren Supreme Court once said of obscenity, “I know it, when I see it,” so the discerning media consumer will know shit when they see it.
Avoiding shit is probably in the best interest of all producers of native advertising, if our intent is to preserve trust and sustainability of sponsored content as a mass communication tactic.
Says Shank, “public relations people are good story tellers and will tell a better story than others IF that story can be told in an ethical and credible environment that isn’t confused with real reporting.” Roger Wu of Cooperatize warns us, “Brands want to be mentioned organically in the news and press. However, attempting to make your brand’s sponsored content appear as the publisher’s editorial content can get your brand into a lot of trouble.” He tells me, ”The FTC started investigating this deceptive practice late last year, and determined that publishers must mark paid content as ‘sponsored,’ links in the content must be tagged with a ‘nofollow,’ attribute, and brands are urged to follow the other policies in the FTC Online Advertising Disclosure Guidelines.”
Whether you’re using a service that displays your content headline form as “suggested reading,” or you’re using long-form content storytelling is probably you best bet because it’s the oldest form of communication next to smoke singles. Wu says, “Long form native advertising also creates awareness over a long period of time both online and offline, so that when the consumer is ready to purchase, your brand is lodged within the consideration set.”
To make a good thing last, make it ethical and credible. Follow the rules.