Timing is everything.

This piece began as a a conversation I had with a friend who is a former newspaper designer and later became a self-taught digital developer. He has a deep well of experience in print and the web and a love of both. So when he told me he thought native advertising tries to fool readers into believing an ad is news, it was obvious to me that even those most likely to understand the form have concerns about its function. Bob Garfield’s February Guardian article also seemed like it deserved a response. So I decided to put down some thoughts about native advertising that had been brewing in my head since the Atlantic‘s Scientology dustup.

That was two months ago.

For one reason or another, it took a while before the piece was ready to pitch around. By then, Jill Abramson had been fired from the New York Times and native advertising was cited in many of the discussions about the split. I worked with our agency PR director to rewrite it as a peg to that event and what started as something rather navel-gaze-y ended up as timely.

The piece below first ran in PR Week on May 19th, 2014 and was one of its most-shared articles that week.

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Many articles about New York Times editor Jill Abramson’s firing discuss her clashes with the business side of the Times organization. One area of conflict was native advertising. According to reports, Abramson’s primary concern with native advertising was her belief that it could mislead readers into thinking the Times was the source of the work rather than an advertiser. Though many questions surround her departure, perhaps it’s worth revisiting why native advertising is often a source of controversy.

Abramson has a point about some native advertising; even marketers who embrace native ads must acknowledge standards aren’t applied across the board. Because of this, the form has an identity problem – perhaps because it too often obscures that identity. When it comes to effective, ethical native advertising, the best of it communicates its intent and meets the reader’s expectations. Here are five suggestions to ensure it does:

Continue reading How to make native advertising more ethical and effective →