Whenever a new term is bandied around there’s always room for confusion and different interpretations. The one that seems to be causing a bit of angst at the moment is “native advertising” and the distinction between it and content marketing.
Last year Joe Pulizzi from the Content Marketing Institute took the Wall Street Journal to task for confusing native advertising with content marketing…. and I agree, his post was spot on in the definition of what constitutes native advertising and how content marketing is fundamentally different. If the Wall Street Journal is having trouble differentiating, then what hope have we got? So here's my explanation of what native advertising is and the fundamental difference between it and content marketing.
In my opinion native advertising is just another word for advertorial —an old way of trying to sneak ad content as though it is editorial into an actual news publication. Although now native advertising is not even acknowledging that is in fact a sponsored post, which is not just lazy, it's deceptive and also hurts the credibility of the publication in which it appears.
Fans of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” might have caught his take on native advertising where he compared it to “ads baked into content like chocolate chips baked into a cookie, except it’s actually more like raisins in a cookie, because no one ****&%** wants them there.”
If you have a few moments to spare and need a chuckle, you can watch the video here.
Is it a deceptive practice?
How many times have you been two paragraphs into what you thought was a real news article, only to discover it was paid for by a company who thinks you don’t notice the difference? It is, in fact, like eating raisins when you thought you were about to sink your teeth into some chocolate chips.
What’s worse is that it’s getting more and more sophisticated that you don’t realise that it is a paid for piece until you’re well down the track of reading the article, which makes you feel a bit stupid.
As much as marketers and even some content agencies try to rationalise that it isn't deceptive and that their customers know the difference, the fact is that it's trying to look like real reporting when it is in fact a paid piece. Which to me, means that it is definitely a deceptive practice. As a marketer is this really the way you want your customers to feel - like you’ve tricked them into learning more about you?
Building trust online
The thing about our online world, is that you need to build trust to gain readership and authority and I don't believe that native advertising helps to build trust online. People have their guards up, particularly online. They don't want to be conned or misled and they don't want to be sold to. Only by building trust will people want to work with you and your company. I believe native advertising is just the thin end of the wedge between trust and distrust.
Transparency is the way forward
What’s wrong with transparency? Why do brands feel that they need to hide behind native advertising? Is it really just lazy marketing?
As Julia Kirby of The Harvad Business Review wrote in "Trust in the age of transparency"
I think that sums it up nicely.
Good content marketing shouldn't try to hide the brand or pretend it’s something else. It must avoid being salesy, but it doesn’t necessarily have to avoid the brand. It's all about being helpful and engaging, while still tied to the brand.
