Sponsored content is all the rage for some of the advertising community these days. Benefitting from social media’s emergence as the dominant information sharing medium and shrinking budgets for newspapers, this content once known as “masquer-ads” has emerged as an increasingly prevalent and concerning feature on many editorial pages. This week’s Wrap takes a look at some of the attention this controversial topic is getting from the media and Federal Trade Commission, as well as having WordWrite’s own Jeremy Church weigh in.
Native Ad Workshop Leaves FTC Perplexed
Adweek
Last week the Federal Trade Commission convened a workshop to discuss native advertising. The only consensus seemed to be one that supported transparency but rapidly changing technological mediums will always prove a problem.
As Online Ads Look More Like News Article, F.T.C. Warns Against Deception
The New York Times
How will the FTC handle the likes of the Huffington Post’s native advertising department? Admittedly, it develops content around specific brands and products with intent to post alongside their news coverage? This article raises many different issues including the nuanced variations of branded content and the fact that a major study found that half of its participants didn’t know what the word ‘sponsor’ meant. This study, whose administrators apparently lacked the self-reflective qualities necessary for questioning the selection methods employed in grooming their sample, concluded that ignorance is equivalent complicity on behalf of the public. This fact, above all else, may portend a bleak future indeed.
What’s in a name? A paid ad by any other name is still a paid ad
WordWrite Storytelling Blog
Jeremy Church takes on public relations agencies testing the waters of advertising by developing sponsored content. His take: no big deal, as long as you own it.
Journalism has always been forced to balance itself between objectivity and its financial interests; in the information age, this is proving to be no different. As newspapers go defunct and electronically remote journalism becomes the norm, how these decentralized outlets of maintain journalistic integrity against the need and desire for profit may define how information is disseminated in the 21st century.
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Joe Ducar is a public relations intern for WordWrite Communications.
