The Tricks of Native Advertising

Mishalaina Coles
mc565515@ohio.edu

Native advertising is like the new kid on the block for advertising and it is blowing up online.

What is Native Advertising?

Native advertising is a type of paid media that is placed as an advertisement in the natural form of whichever platform it is placed on. This advertisement will be placed intermixed with the content on someone's timeline for example. 

Examples of Native Advertising

1.

Photo from wordstream.com

This advertisement is an example of native advertising that doesn't pop up on a timeline. Instead, it is on Vanity's Fair website in a form of an article. The reader should know that this article was paid for because of the words "sponsor content."

2.

Photo from ovrdrv.com

This is an example of when an advertisement is placed in someone's timeline on Facebook. This type of advertising is meant to seem very natural just as if it was your best friend posting on Facebook. The user should be able to tell that this is a paid post from the word "sponsored."

3.

Photo from mediakix.com

This is an example of how an advertisement is placed on an Instagram feed. On Instagram, as the photo shows, this add can come in the form of a photo, video, or as an album of photos. The user should be able to tell that it is a paid post from the word "sponsored."

Where Does the Line Get Blurred?

So if you haven't ran into this yet, not all ads on the internet actually say that it's sponsored, has been paid for, etc. Personally, I have ran into this a lot on Instagram and actually have some personal experience with it as well.

So on Instagram a lot of times you'll see super high quality pictures of people (that aren't just selfies) and sometimes they'll have a brand tagged in the photo and also mentioned in the caption. Some people just do this for fun in hopes that they will be noticed by the brand (I do this with my makeup Instagram account, it is free exposure.) Others are doing this because they were actually PAID or received some free products from the brand to post this.

You may wonder, how in the world can someone advertise something without saying they were advertising? Well the thing is, a lot of times companies and brands do not get caught. If a huge celebrity were to do something like this, most likely it would be caught. But a lot of companies and brands will get in contact with influencers (people who have a large social media following and a niche in something) and send them free things or give them money to use one of their products in a post and tag them.

Like I said earlier, I have some sort of personal connection with this. As I mentioned earlier, I have a makeup Instagram account and by no means do I have a huge following but I DO still get contacted by brands to partner with. A lot of times these brands will ask me to just promote their products (that they would send to me) with no intentions of me revealing it as an add. I haven't agreed to do this with any brands because I don't feel like it is right to not disclose that I am receiving some time of incentive to do so with. What I do is actually promote and tag brands of stuff I already own and enjoy and actually purchased with my own money.

Sadly though, I know a lot of people I follow do these types of deals with companies without disclosing that their post was actually sponsored.

My Advice

You really just have to be smart when you look at content; if it looks too good too be legitimate, it probably is a paid ad (if it doesn't say sponsored.) A lot of companies and platforms are doing really good with native advertising though. I feel as if in the near future it is going to become harder and harder to be able to tell what is really an advertisement online.