Neelam Khan
The difference between advertising and content marketing
When The Atlantic published and then removed a piece
advertising the Church of Scientology, the skepticism towards native
advertising become more apparent than ever. Many argue native advertising’s
role in journalism and magazine editorials as either productive for both
publisher and ad agency, or destructive for credibility and readership trust.
It can go both ways. The challenge, Willets explains, is not just about ethics,
but also how you can present branded content to your readers. If it’s done
well, then it serves a purpose. It’s all about the content and presentation. As
Mike Orren from Speakeasy explains, there’s a fine line between advertorial and
content marketing. Advertorial would be the instance with The Atlantic; an
advertising message thinly disguised as an editorial piece. It’s of little
value and readers can sniff right through the advertising. Content marketing is
“advertorial without all the ‘me, me me.’”
Guidelines
Meaning, advertising that is disguised as editorial should
be in most part, an editorial. It should speak to the reader the magazine’s
interests, and should barely be seen as an ad, but as a way to engage the
audience instead of sneakily sponsoring something. The audience needs to know
what they’re reading, therefore as publishers and writers we must fully
disclose marketing content from editorial. We must allow our readers to
comment, despite whether someone paid for the content or not. Content must stay
current and up to date, and lastly, we must respect the organizational divide.
News staff must not write, edit, or place branded content in order to keep
their independence.
ASME created tighter guidelines for native advertising,
saying to explain sponsored content with a prominent statement that explains
the article’s origin. Another guideline, although not followed well enough, was
to make native ads visually separated from editorial content. That means
different fonts and graphics so the audience knows it’s sponsored. The problem
with that is that most publishers want their
native ads to look like the editorials.
Being transparent is key
Readership is the main focus of advertising, as well as
editorial. For editorial, we want our readers to trust what we say. We need
credibility and independence, which is why it is important for journalists to
stay transparent. For sponsored content, our readers need to trust what we say
and know that although it is
sponsored content, it isn’t just an ad. They need to know that our editors and
news reporters aren’t writing sponsored content. It’s about trust. For a
magazine like Forbes, advertising works well until you can’t tell what is
advertising and what is real content. Their readership grows, but the power of
their brand risks fading. BrandVoice allows advertisers to produce editorial
content resembling real editorial work for Forbes, with 1,200 contributors in
addition to staff posts. This creates a multitude of opportunity for marketers,
but the messages do get mixed.
It’s hard to know what you read is sponsored content or not,
that is why as journalists we have to be transparent to our readers so that
there can be a balance between advertising and editorial content that is
ethical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc
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