I was about to write a snarky, contradictory response to this, but I think you have a point. When a normal ad comes on, it's outside of the "content" you're us

I was about to write a snarky, contradictory response to this, but I think you have a point. When a normal ad comes on, it's outside of the "content" you're used to. A different voice, a different presentation style, a different part of the webpage, a different section of the newspaper. When the content producer themselves is presenting the ad, however, you feel a bit more subconsciously inclined to trust them. IMO this is why YouTube ads have taken off so well. Obviously I know that it's just an ad, but in the back of my head I'm paying more attention to it.