Guidelines are designed to protect the consumer from being hoodwinked by promotional content.
So how about a set of guidelines to protect the advertiser from promotional content? Because ultimately native content should not be promotional in any way.
It should add value to the consumer experience, building on the editorial content. Native content should be something consumers welcome, not complain about once they realise it is not editorial.
There are strict guidelines on both sides of the Atlantic as to how native advertising content should be presented, and the industry can now move forward with confidence on a more solid footing. Or can it?
The US Federal Trade Commission recently issued standards on the presentation of native advertising on websites. And after almost two years of discourse, the Enforcement Policy Statement of Deceptively Formatted Advertising was published. This follows the launch of guidelines by the IAB – with the support of ISBA and the Content Marketing Association – earlier in 2015.
The rules were brought in due to an increasing number of complaints that consumers were finding it difficult to distinguish between non-paid and paid content.
If native content is promotional, then it is not doing its job. In fact, it’s not native, but advertorial.
If it’s not doing its job, then it can potentially drive negative sentiment about the brand behind the content, and at the very least not work as an engagement mechanism.
It will, therefore, deter brands from using native, which is something we are seeing, as revealed by a recent survey from Trusted Media Brands Inc (TBMI), implying that fewer marketers plan on using native this year when compared to 2015 (45% versus 50%).
Consequently publishers will be denied revenue from this potentially lucrative medium.
Therefore, rather than spending time and energy drawing up guidelines for native advertising (which should be an anachronism), it would make more sense to work with agencies, brands and publishers to ensure that the content is editorially driven and relevant.
Only then will native benefit brands, publishers and, of course, consumers. Only then will native become a successful media platform.
Nick Brown is CEO of Avid Media
Originally posted Wall Blog 22 January 2016