The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) will host a one-day workshop on Wednesday, December 4, 2013 to look at the issue of “sponsored content” or “native advertising,” terms which refer to advertising that is blended into news, entertainment, and other content. According to the FTC, the workshop will “bring together publishing and advertising industry representatives, consumer advocates, academics, and self-regulatory organizations to explore: the ways in which sponsored content is presented to consumers online and in mobile apps; consumers’ recognition and understanding of it; the contexts in which it should be identifiable as advertising; and effective ways of differentiating it from editorial content.”
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BLURRED LINES: The Evolution of Native Advertising
Driven by the evolution of technology and social media, brand advertisers are increasingly turning to “native advertising” — a form of paid media in which promoted content is woven into the actual visual design, or fabric, of a website, magazine, or newspaper. The theory is that by providing ads in the context of a user’s experience, and designing content that blends in with the media in which it is placed, the promoted content is less intrusive, and more likely to capture the attention of consumers.
Of course, because native advertising necessarily blurs traditional lines of editorial and advertising content, regulators have begun to more closely scrutinize the practice, and have expressed concerns about the potential for consumer deception. Earlier this year, for example, the National Advertising Division (“NAD”) examined a campaign from Qualcomm, in which it ran banner ads for its Snapdragon processor adjacent to a series of articles that it had sponsored on the Mashable website. For the duration of the campaign, the banner ads included a tag indicating that Qualcomm had sponsored the articles. Once the campaign concluded, however, the tags were removed (even though the articles remained live on Mashable).
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