Online advertisers want to erase the line between content and advertising.Internet publishers have run into a problem. While we here at CyberNole take no pay away from our publications, most online magazines and newspapers require some sort of profitability to be plausible. The latest solution for many websites? Native Advertising. |
On websites like The New York Times and the Atlantic, content is often available for everyone to see, because people detest paywalls. Paywalls, or the practice of charging people a fee to view online content, (sort of like a newspaper subscription) was a trend in online publishing that has all but failed totally. Because consumers have such a wide array of sources for media, there is no reason to pay for one, even If it is an established name like The New York Times. The standard practice for profitability over the past decade has thus been an endless barrage of banner ads and pop-ups
Online advertising is a huge industry, incorporating billions of dollars of research and consumer data-mining (mobile ads accounted for about $20 b of spending last year alone). While these numbers may be impressive, the rate at which consumers respond to online ads is not. In a study conducted by geek website Destructoid, about half of the site’s users were using ad blocking software, meaning that they didn't even see the advertisements that their sponsors were paying big money for. An industry exists just to gauge the effect of online ads on consumers, incorporating a huge web of data and analysis. However, according to a Slate article, there is almost no way to know if banner ads are effective at all, and most research suggests that they are not. According to Adweek, consumers intentionally click on banner ads only .08 percent of the time.
With such low effectiveness for online advertising and viewers ignoring paywalls, there is a fundamental problem with online publishing. How do you make online content profitable? There needs to be some form of revenue for these types of media outlets exist, yet no one seems to have an answer. One solution that marketing companies and content creators are trending towards is what is referred to as “native advertising.” Native advertising is the process of taking advertising and disguising it as online content such as articles, videos, and memes. Buzzfeed.com is the reigning king at this sort of thing.
Buzzfeeds’ brainless and casual “list-style reporting” is the perfect way to integrate marketing into content without consumers ever knowing they were looking at an ad. After finding out “Which side of Arianna Grande’s Face” you are, you might click over to “12 Emotional Stages We All Go Through On A First Date.” You might read through all 12 gifs of bullshit content before realizing that you were in fact viewing an advertisement for A&E’s new series Love Prison. At this point, you may think, “what did I just read?” or “how can I get those 30 seconds of my life back?” or, if you are truly a special breed of consumer, you may actually go watch A&E’s Love Prison, a reality show about a couple in an online relationship being forced to live on an island together for a month.
What is most infuriating about native advertising is how stupid it assumes the average consumer to be. Buzzfeed is saying “OK, this person is so stupid that they will look through 12 gifs of horrible content, see the ad spot, and go watch the show, because it looks so awesome.” Is this realistic? Chances are, if you weren't going to watch Love Prisonin the first place, a set of gifs with shitty, cheesy captions will not make you want to watch it. In fact, it will probably just make you annoyed that you had to waste your valuable web browsing time watching an advertisement snuck into what you thought was legitimate content.
Ultimately, native advertising seeks to take what makes us who we are as humans and turn it into something marketable. It seeks to turn American culture into an advertising medium, which can only add to the vapid consumer culture that exists all around this country. It also represents a breakdown of the line between content and advertising, which is inherently bad for both. Most online consumers are savvy enough to know when they are being fooled, which makes native advertising annoying and ineffective. This Fast Company article attempts to argue that native advertising will make web content “more meaningful.” I will argue that it seeks to make all web content devoid of any meaning at all. How can an article or video be truly meaningful when it is merely a ploy to sneak in advertising for some multinational brand?
-Nicholas Farrell, Editor in Chief
Online advertising is a huge industry, incorporating billions of dollars of research and consumer data-mining (mobile ads accounted for about $20 b of spending last year alone). While these numbers may be impressive, the rate at which consumers respond to online ads is not. In a study conducted by geek website Destructoid, about half of the site’s users were using ad blocking software, meaning that they didn't even see the advertisements that their sponsors were paying big money for. An industry exists just to gauge the effect of online ads on consumers, incorporating a huge web of data and analysis. However, according to a Slate article, there is almost no way to know if banner ads are effective at all, and most research suggests that they are not. According to Adweek, consumers intentionally click on banner ads only .08 percent of the time.
With such low effectiveness for online advertising and viewers ignoring paywalls, there is a fundamental problem with online publishing. How do you make online content profitable? There needs to be some form of revenue for these types of media outlets exist, yet no one seems to have an answer. One solution that marketing companies and content creators are trending towards is what is referred to as “native advertising.” Native advertising is the process of taking advertising and disguising it as online content such as articles, videos, and memes. Buzzfeed.com is the reigning king at this sort of thing.
Buzzfeeds’ brainless and casual “list-style reporting” is the perfect way to integrate marketing into content without consumers ever knowing they were looking at an ad. After finding out “Which side of Arianna Grande’s Face” you are, you might click over to “12 Emotional Stages We All Go Through On A First Date.” You might read through all 12 gifs of bullshit content before realizing that you were in fact viewing an advertisement for A&E’s new series Love Prison. At this point, you may think, “what did I just read?” or “how can I get those 30 seconds of my life back?” or, if you are truly a special breed of consumer, you may actually go watch A&E’s Love Prison, a reality show about a couple in an online relationship being forced to live on an island together for a month.
What is most infuriating about native advertising is how stupid it assumes the average consumer to be. Buzzfeed is saying “OK, this person is so stupid that they will look through 12 gifs of horrible content, see the ad spot, and go watch the show, because it looks so awesome.” Is this realistic? Chances are, if you weren't going to watch Love Prisonin the first place, a set of gifs with shitty, cheesy captions will not make you want to watch it. In fact, it will probably just make you annoyed that you had to waste your valuable web browsing time watching an advertisement snuck into what you thought was legitimate content.
Ultimately, native advertising seeks to take what makes us who we are as humans and turn it into something marketable. It seeks to turn American culture into an advertising medium, which can only add to the vapid consumer culture that exists all around this country. It also represents a breakdown of the line between content and advertising, which is inherently bad for both. Most online consumers are savvy enough to know when they are being fooled, which makes native advertising annoying and ineffective. This Fast Company article attempts to argue that native advertising will make web content “more meaningful.” I will argue that it seeks to make all web content devoid of any meaning at all. How can an article or video be truly meaningful when it is merely a ploy to sneak in advertising for some multinational brand?
-Nicholas Farrell, Editor in Chief