Native Advertising: A Little Too Close to Home?

Screenshot from Buzzfeed’s homepage

Most people won’t know what native advertising is if you ask them, but will definitely know once you show it. Native advertising, also known as sponsored content, consists of advertisements placed within content, both digital and print. It often mimics the look of the content, which raises concerns from many about ethicality. The very nature of native advertising is the confuse the reader into thinking they are looking at content without obviously indicating that it’s marketing. The screenshot above is a perfect example of this. Buzzfeed is well known for having sponsored content spread throughout their site, but it looks exactly like their other articles, with a small “Sponsored by Capital One” in the top left corner.

The debate as to whether native advertising is ethical has raised arguments from both sides. In “Native Advertising Is The New Journalism,” interviews were conducted with professionals in journalism, advertising, and public relations. The journalists were concerned with the credibility and reputation of their work, as accuracy is the root of their relationship with customers. If people are getting fooled by the sponsored content in your articles, they are less likely to want to come back and read anything else from you (that is, if they realize they have been “tricked.”) On the other hand, advertisers and public relations realize that native advertising can be a blurry line, but it’s an unavoidable evil. Many companies rely on this kind of advertising for their revenue. Buzzfeed made $24.2 million in Q2 of 2021 from content advertising alone.

The ethical part comes with a deception piece. A lack of transparency can lead to irritated consumers, especially since there is a huge effort to hide the “sponsored by…” tagline. However, this study found that 68% of people can tell that something is native advertising. While that is more than half of the study participants, there’s still a good chunk that is being deceived.

CNN has it labeled straight out - no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

But one could argue that this is America, there are ads everywhere. We’re always trying to sell you something. Advertisements are a natural occurrence with nearly everything we do in our lives, and as long as it’s marked/labeled as an ad, then there really isn’t anything more to do. This is just how money is made for many companies; selling webpage space for advertising.

From a content strategy standpoint, I think native advertising can be detrimental, especially if you are redesigning your whole site to get more traffic. The last thing you want to do is steer away from the people you worked so hard to get. It’s different for companies like Buzzfeed and Facebook because they’re well-known for it and it’s part of their identity. However, when you’re trying to establish your own content strategy, it’s hard to incorporate someone else’s content. It becomes less about you and more about them. You lose some of your identity to them. Now, I understand that a company or site can’t go on without money, so there has to be some sort of revenue somewhere. But, I don’t think that should come from sponsored content.

For me, native advertising mars the personality of the company. I would avoid it entirely, but if I had to incorporate it, I would make it blatantly clear that it is sponsored content. As a reader, I would rather have ads defined than learn afterward that I’ve been duped by native advertising. It’s almost 2022… let’s find a new way to advertise.