Ethics and Content Marketing

Shawn Rudolph

sr772610@ohio.edu

Content Marketing:  Coming to you

Sponsored content, content marketing or native advertising has been a growing trend in advertising for years now, and in the constantly changing world of the Internet, guidelines for publishing content are a discussion of an ongoing debate.  The expectations for sponsored content have created conflict among journalists who are trying to find an ethical balance between identifying the content source and following similar guidelines as editorial content. 

Publishers owe it to the readers to promote ethical advertisements and promote advertisements that follow the same principles as the publisher.  If The New York Times includes a few native advertisements on its website, readers should expect the advertisements to be presented in an ethical manner, as the newspaper has reviewed the content.  Paying advertisers should target specific markets for their products and services and place their advertising business in a way that will reach their optimal audience.  

BuzzFeed has a history of publishing native advertisements on its website.  The advertisements mock the style of the articles on the site.  By keeping the same format, readers avoid the immediate, disinterested pop-up ad.  Readers can be assured BuzzFeed has reviewed the material, and the advertisement will relate to the editorial material on the site, in order to make certain the content will interest readers. 

Working with the content

Sponsored content has many avenues to reach an audience. Various advertising companies work to create content, and other companies work specifically to help find markets for the content.  Many publishers establish niches within the company to work with content creators, to review the material and help tweak small changes necessary to publish within the standards of the publisher.  For example, BuzzFeed has a creative team working specifically with native advertisers, according to this article by Jeff Sonderman on Poynter. 

Expectations of content marketers

In an article by David Carr, the creator of the pop-up ad, Joe McCambly, expressed discontent with native advertising. “I completely understand the value of native advertising," he said, "but there are a number of publishers who are allowing PR firms and advertising companies direct access to their content management systems and allowing them to publish directly to the site.  I think this is a huge mistake.”  

While the community works to define the guidelines for native advertising, it is important for publishers define internal rules.  Recently the ASME released guidelines to follow before publishing native advertisements. They ask that native advertisments include a “What’s This?” link on the advertisement, which will clearly identify the ad, as well as link to the companies site for further investigation in case the audience wants to learn more. This seems easily agreeable. 

However, the guidelines propose that the ad, “should not use type fonts and graphics resembling those used for editorial content and should be visually separated from the editorial content.” One of the benefits of native advertisements is the flow of reading an editorial article which leads into a similar ad targeting a specific audience. Advertisers will have little interest in redefining the look of the ad to differentiate it from the editorial content. The pop-up ad annoys readers and fails to reach an audience because of the construction of its design. Discussions on how to ethically modernize native advertising will continue within the Federal Trade Commission, in a December workshop to review the matter.