By Krystal Thorp
If you’re like me and roughly 49% of the rest of the world,
native advertising means absolutely nothing to you. You have either never heard
of it, or don’t know what it means. Simply
put, it is advertising that is made to look like the content you’re reading.
According to the Native Advertising Playbook, written by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), native advertisements are “paid ads that are so cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the platform behavior that the viewer simply feels that they belong.”
John Oliver does a good job giving some more insight into native advertising in a clip from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
According to the Native Advertising Playbook, written by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), native advertisements are “paid ads that are so cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the platform behavior that the viewer simply feels that they belong.”
John Oliver does a good job giving some more insight into native advertising in a clip from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
So what’s the problem?
Hasn’t this been around for decades, in magazines, newspapers, and
pretty much every website that exists? Yes,
but now it has gotten to the point where normal internet users cannot
distinguish between content and an advertisement.
This causes issues with consumers because our trust in the publisher is diminishing. It also confuses the reader with various labels. Aside from plainly stating “advertisement” companies can use “sponsored by,” “brought to you by,” “presented by,” and “promoted by” to label the sponsored content.
Further, readers state that they feel deceived when they realize the content they are looking was sponsored by someone else. A 2014 study done by Contently showed that almost 54% of web users do not trust sponsored content.
This causes issues with consumers because our trust in the publisher is diminishing. It also confuses the reader with various labels. Aside from plainly stating “advertisement” companies can use “sponsored by,” “brought to you by,” “presented by,” and “promoted by” to label the sponsored content.
Further, readers state that they feel deceived when they realize the content they are looking was sponsored by someone else. A 2014 study done by Contently showed that almost 54% of web users do not trust sponsored content.
So why have websites started using this sort of advertising? A 2007 eye-tracking study done by the Nielsen
Norman Group had the following to show:
What you are looking at is the eye movements of users on websites. The red indicates the most number of views,
while the yellow has fewer views, and the blue minimal views. Did you even notice all of the advertisements
on the top and right hand sides? If not
don’t worry, there is almost no color which indicates that no one else did
either! See the problem? Advertisements are
being placed where no one looks, making them pointless and a waste of
advertiser money.
So along comes native advertisement. For a fantastic and more in-depth article on
sponsored content, I strongly urge you to read Everything
You Need To Know About Sponsored Content by Chad Pollitt
Like your point about how native advertising has been around for decades, but now it has gotten to the point were normal internet users cannot differentiate native advertisement from regular content. Also like the John Oliver video, think it was a great addition, and he really gives a humorous insight into what native advertisement is.
ReplyDelete