Imperson(ad)ing Real Articles

The most important thing to realize about native advertising is that these branded articles are not easy to spot. The native advertisements that readers come across are often disguised as articles. What we are seeing is a return of advertisers being in charge of consumers' content, instead of the media. It is structured information pushed in the stealthiest form.

Tom Fishburne, 2013

The USC Center describes native advertising as "Paid content that is created and delivered outside of traditional advertising means, using formats familiar to consumers, with the intent of promoting a brand — either implicitly or explicitly — through the means of controlled storytelling."
But just how ethical are these ads? According to their report in 2018, the results demonstrated that "5 percent [of PR professionals] thought using branded content was somewhat or very unethical. Of those who had at least some ethical concerns, 69 percent indicated that the major problem was misleading the consumers, while half said it diminished the credibility of media and 47 percent agreed it undermined the authenticity of influencers." Hopefully, these results inspire more news-related outlets to take ownership of the content they produce and the quality of what they present to their readers. 

The public sees these kinds of examples every day; the most popular area being on social media, or Instagram more specifically. According to a 2016 article by the Los Angeles Times, The clothing company Lord & Taylor was paying influencers to show off a dress, but not disclosing that information on the thousands that they were getting paid to do so.

Another issue is that there is no policy in place that requires media outlets to share if they have received money or free product from a client in order to produce an advertising placement. The reason native advertising still exists frequently is that ultimately it helps the publication. In an article from Public Relations Tactics, PRSA writer, Ann Willets, points out that disclosure for branded content is a guideline that professionals should live by. "If everything that you publish is paid propaganda, then your readership will dwindle to near zero, and it will happen quickly," Willets wrote.

In response to this problem, The American Society of Magazine Editors updated its guidelines on "sponsored content" for editors and publishers. This is for magazines for the most part but they are considered applicable for most published mediums. The organization suggested that links should be placed at the top of a native ad to provide the origin of the article. These taglines should be visually separated from the rest of the font and content on the page in order to be clearly seen.

Journalists are responsible, if not more so than advertisers for the influx of native ads. Online content that is not explicitly labeled when it has been compensated, is unethical. The industry cannot rely on technology to filter out branded messages or for readers to pick up on labels. Still, transparency is essential to the credibility of firms and gaining trust from their clients/the public.