Marketing or sponsored deception

Marketing or sponsored deception…  Sponsors Now Pay for Online Articles, Not Just Ads by Tanzina Vega. New York Times piece looks at the increasingly popular trend of online publishers selling advertisers on sponsoring or creating content posing as editorial. Not a new concept by any means, previously labelled “advertorial”, branded content (aka sponsored content, native advertising, etc.) is taking off online in a big way. Advantages are bigger dollar relationships for the publisher and considerably more cheaper content to populate web pages. Questionable downside is whether content diminishes the value of the overall editorial product or if readers/visitors are led astray with content that is written with the sponsor’s obviously-biased intent in mind. Like before in the magazine world with advertorials, publishers just need to safeguard their own brand by prudently working with advertisers or partners to market their wares and keep the audience in mind when presenting this hybrid material. Sounds simple enough in the right hands…