"Recommended for you": like what you see? Friso Gentsch/DPA/PA Images. All rights reserved. Your Facebook feed says: “Recommended for you” and “Sponsored”. Your online magazine says “Paid content”, another in Buzzfeed says “Promoted Content” and lists “12 Backpacking Hacks That Are Vital For Business Trips” in an article paid for by Holiday Inn Express, or lists KFC as “Brand Publisher” for an article, “11 Things All Busy Families Should Make Time For”, including KFC’s popcorn nuggets. You read a powerful series of articles on hunger in America, but it is labelled a “paid programme”, produced by Wall Street Journal’s Custom Studios in collaboration with Mini, and includes such branded wisdom as: “Mini owners are all different. There's no one person that Mini drivers look like. It's the same with food insecurity. It's all walks of life”.
From TV product placement to mobile news feeds, brands are burrowing into media content and leaving many of us not only confused about spotting the advertising, but concerned too, as advertisers weaken what attracts them to media in the first place: reader trust and credibility.
Native advertising
“Marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such”; so says the UK code administered by the Advertising Standards Authority. Yet, increasingly, advertising is ‘native’, blending commercial messaging so that it appears like editorial content.
