Native ads: A foreign world

By Dylan Sams
dylan.r.sams@gmail.com

In January The Atlantic published an article proclaiming a Scientology leader brought the religion to a "milestone year."

Except, it wasn't an article. It was an ad, paid for by the Church of Scientology as part of what The Atlantic and other publications are calling "sponsored content" or "native advertising."

The idea is simple. An advertiser gets to have their message brought to an audience of readers who trust or rely on the media's ability to report truth. A native ad looks like an article done by whichever publication ended up running it. In the case of The Atlantic and their ad, titled "David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year," it worked too well, and many cried foul.

Photo via businessjournalism.com

In Jeff Sunderman's article "How news organizations can sell sponsored content without lowering their standards," he mentioned that native ads could be successful and avoid the furor that The Atlantic received, pointing to Buzzfeed as an organization that has done this successfully. A native ad, Sunderman pointed out, should "still primarily serve the reader."

What this creates is an odd balancing act between allowing an ad to serve almost as a news article, while trying to also serve the purpose of an ad — that is, bringing in people to use a product or service.

In the case of The Atlantic, it was hard for the public to tell the difference between a normal news article and the Scientology ad; it used the same font and a similar layout. The public backlash prompted the magazine to pull the ad until they could devise a strategy in which it was more clear what was sponsored content and what was editorially approved.

It should be noted that The New Yorker, Forbes and BuzzFeed have been using these ads. However, to prevent similar situations, the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) made changes to their guidelines, hoping to dispel confusion for publications who want to try sponsored content, according to an Oct. 18 Advertising Age article.

The article says the ads should be marked as "sponsored content" and "should not use type fonts and graphics resembling those used for editorial content."

Ultimately, the use of native ads is not a bad thing, in that it can be used as a tool to make money for the publication, while also informing an audience of a product. It goes without saying that an ad cannot say something false, especially in this form of advertising. The suggestion by ASME is a way to make sure readers do not get confused, averting the disastrous situation The Atlantic experienced in their experiment.