3 ms·

Can you point to any current examples online? I'm not quite sure what this would look like. I know in the UK it's obligatory for an advertisement to be identi

Can you point to any current examples online? I'm not quite sure what this would look like. I know in the UK it's obligatory for an advertisement to be identified as such.

petercooper 14y ago
The issue is it can be hard to tell if it's happening and in cases where it's not disclosed, I could be committing libel by suggesting it is. However, keep a particular eye open for where companies "partner" with publications to write articles or "sponsor" entire columns. The identification can be quite subtle and totally avoided in the main content. Picking on Monocle in the print world again though, the New York Times had a great analysis of the way Monocle applies the idea: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/business/media/24carr.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/business/media/24carr.html... .. the model (and attitude) explained in this article is something I expect to see become very prevalent online. I'm not UK media trained but to the best of my knowledge, the Advertising Standards Authority has no power to force publishers to meet its demands. What can happen, though, is publishers can be sued under the Unfair Trading Regulations Act for "misleading omissions" (an act that applies to all business activities and can be very broadly interpreted) specifically when a commercial practice "fails to identify its commercial intent, unless this is already apparent from the context". Context is tricky though. If a publication is particularly vocal about its practices, I suspect it would be hard to get to court. Another related context is when newspapers are paid to give away freebies that are not marked as advertising but the context is clearly of an advertising nature. Sorry for the disjointed bundle of ideas here but I've just seen how much time I've spent so far. I think this is a fascinating area though and one I much enjoy observing mostly (but not entirely) as an outsider. .. Update: I did some more digging into this because I know it happens and I know it's not always disclosed.. and think I have found the loophole - http://www.out-law.com/page-4853 http://www.out-law.com/page-4853 Specifically, the ASA code states: "Advertisement features, announcements or promotions, sometimes referred to as 'advertorials', that are disseminated in exchange for a payment or other reciprocal arrangement should comply with the Code if their content is controlled by the marketers rather than the publishers." So content produced by a publisher on behalf of an advertiser for pay may still be an advertorial but seem to have some sort of exemption under UK standards. This would explain a lot of magazines I know do this stuff.
smirksirlot 14y ago
I think an example would be this: http://tweepi.com/blog/2011/10/top-10-twitter-utilities/ http://tweepi.com/blog/2011/10/top-10-twitter-utilities/ Tweepi's Top 10 list of Twitter utilities includes Tweepi itself. Lot's of other companies are doing this too, that was just the quickest example I could find. They generate content that could have value, but also insert self-promotional stuff in there.
- petercooper 14y ago
  That's really "content marketing." Similar, but not quite the same. The trend I'm referring to is when independent publications produce content that's bankrolled (but not supplied) by advertisers. Content marketing is the same concept but done by the advertisers directly.
mirkules 14y ago
The example that comes to mind is content that IS advertisement. For that you can look into just about any US magazine (not sure about UK, but I suspect they are very similar there), for example this article in GQ http://www.gq.com/food-travel/restaurants-and-bars/201211/foodie-gift-guide-2012 http://www.gq.com/food-travel/restaurants-and-bars/201211/fo.... In this instance, they are making recommendations to you from a position of authority, even though it comes from a position of selling ad space and delivering the ads as content. If you go to slide 3, you will see peppermint bark stuff "for the chocolate connoisseur", which is about as far as away from a chocolate connoisseur as I can think of, conveniently with a price right there. Another good example is celebrity magazines that just happen to drop the name of a designer that a particular celebrity is wearing. Keep in mind, I use adblock (edit: and noscript and ghostery) and these adverts still come up.
- petercooper 14y ago
  You got it. And my main observation (or hunch, to be safe!) is advertising "blindness", whether psychological or technological, has encouraged and will continue to encourage this form of advertising.
  - mirkules 14y ago
    Interesting. I never thought of it as an advertisement arms-race, but that's what it is.
- AlexMuir 14y ago
  I don't disagree, but there's another side to this. It's happened in print for years - a review in June, a double page spread ad in July. But it damages editorial integrity and it dilutes genuine content. In print this doesn't really matter - there are huge barriers to entry, and newcomers are more likely than anyone to do it to make it easier to score revenue. Online though, if I suspect that [blognamehere] are plugging something shit for profit I'll just go elsewhere for my news. It doesn't cost me a penny, and there are infinite other options.
  - 14y ago

Can you point to any current examples online? I'm not quite sure what this would look like. I know in the UK it's obligatory for an advertisement to be identified as such.

petercooper 14y ago

The issue is it can be hard to tell if it's happening and in cases where it's not disclosed, I could be committing libel by suggesting it is. However, keep a particular eye open for where companies "partner" with publications to write articles or "sponsor" entire columns. The identification can be quite subtle and totally avoided in the main content. Picking on Monocle in the print world again though, the New York Times had a great analysis of the way Monocle applies the idea: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/business/media/24carr.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/business/media/24carr.html... .. the model (and attitude) explained in this article is something I expect to see become very prevalent online. I'm not UK media trained but to the best of my knowledge, the Advertising Standards Authority has no power to force publishers to meet its demands. What can happen, though, is publishers can be sued under the Unfair Trading Regulations Act for "misleading omissions" (an act that applies to all business activities and can be very broadly interpreted) specifically when a commercial practice "fails to identify its commercial intent, unless this is already apparent from the context". Context is tricky though. If a publication is particularly vocal about its practices, I suspect it would be hard to get to court. Another related context is when newspapers are paid to give away freebies that are not marked as advertising but the context is clearly of an advertising nature. Sorry for the disjointed bundle of ideas here but I've just seen how much time I've spent so far. I think this is a fascinating area though and one I much enjoy observing mostly (but not entirely) as an outsider. .. Update: I did some more digging into this because I know it happens and I know it's not always disclosed.. and think I have found the loophole - http://www.out-law.com/page-4853 http://www.out-law.com/page-4853 Specifically, the ASA code states: "Advertisement features, announcements or promotions, sometimes referred to as 'advertorials', that are disseminated in exchange for a payment or other reciprocal arrangement should comply with the Code if their content is controlled by the marketers rather than the publishers." So content produced by a publisher on behalf of an advertiser for pay may still be an advertorial but seem to have some sort of exemption under UK standards. This would explain a lot of magazines I know do this stuff.

smirksirlot 14y ago

I think an example would be this: http://tweepi.com/blog/2011/10/top-10-twitter-utilities/ http://tweepi.com/blog/2011/10/top-10-twitter-utilities/ Tweepi's Top 10 list of Twitter utilities includes Tweepi itself. Lot's of other companies are doing this too, that was just the quickest example I could find. They generate content that could have value, but also insert self-promotional stuff in there.

petercooper 14y ago
That's really "content marketing." Similar, but not quite the same. The trend I'm referring to is when independent publications produce content that's bankrolled (but not supplied) by advertisers. Content marketing is the same concept but done by the advertisers directly.

mirkules 14y ago

The example that comes to mind is content that IS advertisement. For that you can look into just about any US magazine (not sure about UK, but I suspect they are very similar there), for example this article in GQ http://www.gq.com/food-travel/restaurants-and-bars/201211/foodie-gift-guide-2012 http://www.gq.com/food-travel/restaurants-and-bars/201211/fo.... In this instance, they are making recommendations to you from a position of authority, even though it comes from a position of selling ad space and delivering the ads as content. If you go to slide 3, you will see peppermint bark stuff "for the chocolate connoisseur", which is about as far as away from a chocolate connoisseur as I can think of, conveniently with a price right there. Another good example is celebrity magazines that just happen to drop the name of a designer that a particular celebrity is wearing. Keep in mind, I use adblock (edit: and noscript and ghostery) and these adverts still come up.

petercooper 14y ago
You got it. And my main observation (or hunch, to be safe!) is advertising "blindness", whether psychological or technological, has encouraged and will continue to encourage this form of advertising.
- mirkules 14y ago
  Interesting. I never thought of it as an advertisement arms-race, but that's what it is.
AlexMuir 14y ago
I don't disagree, but there's another side to this. It's happened in print for years - a review in June, a double page spread ad in July. But it damages editorial integrity and it dilutes genuine content. In print this doesn't really matter - there are huge barriers to entry, and newcomers are more likely than anyone to do it to make it easier to score revenue. Online though, if I suspect that [blognamehere] are plugging something shit for profit I'll just go elsewhere for my news. It doesn't cost me a penny, and there are infinite other options.
- 14y ago