Calling bullshit on John Oliver’s attack on native advertising

Well of course it “leaves you cold”. The fact is that he’s spot on, despite what the ad-bubble perpetuated by articles like these reinforces.

Well said. It’s entirely possible to agree with Oliver’s (basic) point that news is better if entirely free of commercial forces but also feel that native is as old as the hills and, as he shows himself, used to be a lot worse. It’s also clear that he’s spending far too much time attacking easy targets when he should focus in on the real problems facing the news, indeed the entire media industry

One of those would be that people increasingly prefer to get stuff for free, including stuff that costs money to make. But that would mean attacking the kind of smug downloaders who adore Oliver, and would be a much more unpopular message to take to market. Perhaps Oliver does understand how the commercial world works after all.

there are two a holes John sicks to both of them

It’s a comedy show designed to make us laugh and succeeds beautifully. The blurring of lines between editorial and advertising, especially online, is a perfectly reasonable target.

This is a fairly predictable response from a content marketer. John attacks native marketing and you’re left a bit cold. Shock horror. I wonder if there are any journos who would care to proffer an opinion on John’s piece?

Advertorial needs to be more obvious otherwise it’s just trickery. Australia needs some standards on marking paid content and ads.

Richard, even your article is an ad for your company disguised as a ‘think piece’, or in other words native advertising.

I loved Oliver’s piece – he’s on the money. I also liked your response.

In short – confusing topic – no clear answers but absolutely deserves to be put under the microscope.

How much does Edge pay to get their ‘think piece’ in mUmbrella? If they don’t, why do you guys keep putting them up as experts in content marketing? I guess their ‘portfolio’ speaks for itself yeah?

Hey Rich,

How dare you criticise John Oliver – his British accent is so cute. And he tells funny jokes.

If I have a beef with him on this piece it’s his muddling of ‘sponsored content’ and ‘native advertising’ (although he’s not the only one to do it).

One is theoretically great content that happens to be sponsored (as he acknowledged with the Orange is the New Black piece), the other is a digital advertorial – or ‘camouflaged advertising’ as he puts it.

Blurring them all together got him more laughs, but also keeps us in a world where interruptive marketing continues to derail smarter conversations.

Did I mention his video was also funny?

Richard, it’s one thing for lifestyle publications, listicles, etc to have “native” content. It’s quite another for hard news, serious commentary and the like to go down this path. I think the vast majority of the PRs that you say have been doing this kind of thing for years (in a more subversive way) – many of whom got in to their job because of their love for media – would be appalled at respected media outlets opening up their pages and airwaves to sponsored content, without any overt mention of where the content is coming from. The media may never have been ‘free’ as in free of external influences, but if we want to live in a society where free and open debate occurs, there need to be some pretty tight rules around disclosure.

Edge is a custom publisher of magazines isn’t it? I love the fact that that is now called ‘content marketing’ like its a new thing.

This is a classic case of the bad paying for the good. You put up with native/embedded/integrated marketing/advertising as its resources can be put to better use elsewhere. Every journalist has written an advertorial and not loved it, but these are the things you need to do to keep business flowing into your business.

Good luck running a media organisation in the future without greater native integration.

Hold on and let me see if I’ve got this right. Native advertising is okay because it’s not as bad as slavery? Okay dude, whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess. Shame’s a perfectly natural reaction to being called out on your bullshit, man. Feeling it at least indicates there are parts of you that are still human.

Mumbrella asked me for an opinion and I gave it. I honestly think Oliver’s piece was soft – yeah it was funny, but soft. Whatever your thoughts on native (and I thought I made mine pretty clear – I would love to see a free press, I’m all for disclosure, I think there are many, many worse practices in today’s media world), this was slightly hysterical. Avocado company pays buzzfeed to run list of avocado recipes. Gasp. The sky is falling down. I would say that a PR feeding some ‘research’ on the health benefits of a food that haven’t been proven or peer reviewed constitutes a much, much worse violation of the readers’ trust. And just to be clear, Edge don’t do native advertising – that’s a media/publisher thing. We create content.

I whole heartedly agree with John Oliver, we trick people into reading branded content under the guise of journalism and I for one think we should be ashamed.

But I guess ethics “really” have no place in advertising.

To defend advertising by saying people are thinking about this kind of stuff anyway and that if major corporations have been controlling the news anyway sso if we give other brands access its totally fine, is a joke.

John Oliver has a point. I can’t stand blatant advertorials.

Check out this one, which I found this morning, on none other than The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/lif.....floorboard

Newspapers need to earn coin though.

We the people don’t want much do we.

In depth, high quality, investigative journalism which unravels the world around us and catches baddies.. while giving us all the nice stuff that makes the bad stuff go away – sports, gossip, lifestyle news… oh and we don’t want any ads to help pay for it. Oh and we won’t pay for it ourselves.

Holy shit, that guardian one is appalling.

“Corporations have been controlling the news agenda for a long time – and much more surreptitiously than through native. Good old PR is nothing more than corporations controlling the news”

er, no actually Richard, the only people that control the news are the editors, journalists and sometimes the publishers. They are always responsible for editorial outcomes. If a PR supplies information that helps with a story, good for them, especially in today’s 24/7 newsroom. Non-PR marketing types never seem to get this.

the thing i love about the new advertorial is that publishers have found a new way to subsidise journalism by hiring out their employee’s writing skills and charging premium ad rates for oblique copy that influences no-one – it’s another party being paid for by hapless advertisers because they don’t understand that you dont need to buy advertorial to get positive editorial outcomes

yet again, an ignorance of basic media relations is causing more ad spend to be wasted. first its advertising which is run irrespective of the co-existence of widespread negative publicity (not just a waste but a complete backfire as it worsens the PR problem – Qantas brand campaign during plane grounding fiasco is a good eg) – now its the con of ‘native advertising’ which has no credibility and no cut-through

Just wanted to say, thanks mattt – best summation of the problems with the media industry right now. Native advertising is a reality, and personally, I don’t see the problem. If the content’s not compelling – don’t read it.

Content marketing, Richard, is the same as native advertising… A rose by any other name and all that… All of it uses the conventions of editorial to persuade readers to perceive the brand in a certain way, and then buy it. The idea that you are in some way opposed to the unification of church and state is laughable.

opposed, not apposed

Bill Hicks did it better, to a larger slice of the marketing services spectrum. Kind of a full service roasting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

surely the people who control the news most are the audiences who consume it?

I call bullshit on this:

“it’s human nature to buy stuff that simultaneously says something about our individuality whilst ensuring we defiantly fit in with everyone else. ”

No, this is what the ad industry *wishes* was true.

Also, you can’t “defiantly fit in” – that’s a straight oxymoron.

Ho hum. More jargon. Native advertising means web ads. But does it work? Well yes, if ads are beautiful, interesting or entertaining. Most aren’t. So who cares how either John or Richard defines native advertising?

“At least Chevron clearly sponsored the piece about changing energy needs in the New York Times – it seems a lot more honest to me than commissioning a market research company to ask some very leading questions and then releasing the results to journos as a press release.”

Yes but was the article itself honest? That’s the problem with native advertising / sponsored articles (which you conveniently gloss over by comparing it to something else no one likes) – because the person paying for the article has a vested interest, does the journo really give the reader a journalistic perspective or is it a brand perspective? The NYT’s article is hardly going to cast Chevron in a bad light is it? So it may be more honest than a slanted press release which would only be picked up by lazy journos but far less honest than a press ad. I haven’t read it so I can’t say for sure.

I thought John Oliver’s piece was laugh out loud stuff that at the same time exposed some deep underlying problems and a few raw nerves…

John Oliver also quite clearly said it was our fault (meaning the consumer of news) because we weren’t prepared to pay for online news. At least his piece had balance.. something that’s sadly lacking in sponsored journalism.

So yes it hit on some soft targets but legitimate targets nevertheless.

Gotta say it concerns me when people conflate content marketing with native advertising. Just as native advertising isn’t the same as sponsored advertising, content marketing is by far not the same thing.

The whole point of native is to gain readership and authority by mimicking genuine editorial to look like real or unbiased reporting. No matter how people try to tie themselves in knots trying to claim it isn’t deceptive, it’s deceptive. It always makes me laugh when marketers claim such things aren’t deceptive because the audience is too smart not to recognise it’s advertising. In which case the obvious response is “why bother then?” Why mimic something that the reader/viewer will instantly realise is fake? Unless you really hope/know that a significant number won’t realise.

Content marketing in my mind doesn’t try to hide the brand or pretend it’s something else. It avoids pitching, but it doesn’t necessarily avoid the brand. No one is in any doubt that Open road magazine is produced by NRMA or that the blog on the CommBank website is run by the CommBank.

Perhaps this nonsense has been brought on by the complete lack of foresight of the industry itself. The whoops moment that free online news was undermining printed news revenues should have come as no surprise. Then there were the efforts to convince consumers to make up the short-fall of a flawed model that was never going to work after receiving news for free for a substantial amount of time.

Consumers weren’t stupid. It is so easy to get around the paid model of larger publishers. Once the monthly amount of free views is exceeded simply read the news of another paper in the publishers stable and continue to receive it for free until it resets again. Never pay for a newspaper again!

Consumers are also not stupid when it comes to seeing through paid ads dressed up as news. And if hiding it is an achievement, what purpose has the native ad served anyway?! As for marketing content, isn’t it a given that consumers are provided the info they need to make a purchasing decision or is informative advertising dressed up as a buzzword meant to make the bleeding obvious all seem new and cutting edge all over again?!

We should never need to hide the content or or dress it in another way if it is good enough to read and be accepted as an ad in the first place. Or have we simply become needed to become deceptive because so much advertising is just trying to be smart, overly clever and ironic.

Is it any wonder that consumers are quite simply not impressed and incredibly bored by it! Or is the industry too busy to notice whilst it congratulates itself continually with its own cleverness. It even spends endless head hours creating fake ads to win awards to somehow convince itself it still has credibility.

“Managing partner at content marketing agency”

Richard, I’m shocked you would hold this view…

What a sucker. Oliver says the obvious and now we get this whining!

Call me old fashioned but the whole advertorial/sponsored/native debate overestimates the effectiveness of the said content as ‘advertising’.

Advertising needs to do two basic things.
1. Be noticed in the first place
2. Be branded

Most so-called native does neither of these things particularly well.
The real losers are the clients being hoodwinked into paying for it.

@Michel content marketing is not the same as native advertising.

Native advertising pretends to be editorial, and is created by the publisher
Sponsored content clearly indicates that it is editorial SPONSORED by a brand, but it is created by the publisher
Content marketing is content produced and disseminated BY a brand, cutting out the publisher altogether.

I would have thought this was obvious.

@Reuben – Read ‘Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behaviour’ by Geoffrey Miller. Then ‘call bullshit’. Oh, and I deliberately used an oxymoron to draw attention to the fact that human nature is hypocritical. We believe that we want to be individual, when underneath it all we just want to fit in. It was a literary device. But if you want to take it at face value, go ahead.

Native is essentially about lazy, and unimaginative marketing, ad and sales types trying to find ways of attaching themselves to editorial without the consumer noticing.
Intrusive, weirdly shaped print ads were all the rage five years ago, now it’s all about native. It’s so tedious.
This twizz used to be tagged as “advertorial”, then it became “a special report”, then a “special reader feature” or a “special promotion”. Editorial could deal with this as it was made to clear to the reader that this was cash for comment.
You can dress it up all you like, but as soon as the writer loses the ability to comment openly on the product they are charged with writing about, or to suggest a competitor’s product, then it is meaningless rubbish and should be tagged as such.
Anything else is entirely unacceptable.
Here’s a thought for the native gurus: instead of worming your way into the editorial side, why don’t you come up with a few zippy, memorable advertising ideas instead? We’d all get along a lot better that way.

@Richard Parker Re: “Sponsored content clearly indicates that it is editorial SPONSORED by a brand, but it is created by the publisher
.. I would have thought this was obvious.”

But that’s not obvious at all – at least for the major case the video was talking about – the Atlantic / Scientology article which was clearly labelled ‘SPONSOR CONTENT’.

According to the policies of ‘The Atlantic’, ‘Sponsor content’ is created BY a sponsor (in partnership with the promotion department of the publisher). It is **NOT** editorial content created by the publisher .. in fact the editorial team of the publisher is NOT involved at all.

Proof: http://www.poynter.org/wp-cont.....cscien.jpg

That’s why it is called ‘SPONSOR CONTENT’ rather than ‘SPONSORED CONTENT’.

So now I have “Sponsored Content” (which you argue is ‘obviously’ editorial content by the publisher) and ‘Sponsor Content’ (which the Atlantic 100% defines as NOT editorial content by the publisher).

And you say that this is obvious?

When an expert like yourself can get mixed up by what a publication really means by the terms then I’m afraid it isn’t surprising that the rest of us are doomed to continually mix them up ..

I’m assuming your opinion is ‘native advertising’?

Seriously your argument falls flat for me. It’s disingenuous to say advertising is only about selling products, and flaccid to say it’s ok because it’s just perpetuating evolutionary psychology – no it’s taking advantage of a psychology that evolved in a completely different information environment.

But thanks for bringing the piece to my attention. I’ve missed John since his departure from The Daily Show

What would a ‘live read’ that follows on from a related discussion topic on a radio station be considered? Haven’t they been doing those for decades?

Rich, I actually think you make some decent points. Native advertising is no worse than the infinite ways to market consumers.
Unfortunately its the agenda behind it… Still good to see you don’t give a shit and have written it anyway.

@Mac – good point! It is a little confusing. I guess part of my issue with John’s piece is that he conflates ‘sponsor content’ (and ‘sponsored content’) with native advertising, thus adding to the general confusion – and the hysteria surrounding the topic – rather than clarifying. Of course it’s a comedy show, not a current affairs show so, y’know, probably not his job to clarify and present a rounded case. And my piece above, in response, was intended to be a little tongue in cheek too.

To make my position clear, I’m NOT a fan of native, and I’m not actually ‘defending’ it as some on this thread seem to believe I am. I’m just critiquing John’s segment.

One more thing…you seem to have found the Atlantic policy OK, so I guess others should be able to, too? And the New York Times/Chevron piece makes authorship clear at the bottom of the page.

1st, thanks for making me watch this. Excellent and important content from Oliver!
2nd he’s right, you’re wrong. He’s crapping where you eat(and pay for your hipster clothes) and you don’t like it.
This native shit is the ‘boiling frog’ trick. Accept this and watch it slowly get worse; more manipulative, amoral and straying into political and social control.
Finally-corporations do serve up shit everything!; especially food. Don’t give me that “you can’t get by without us” drivel. That’s just sad, self justifying delusion. You’re just a crap merchant preying on the weak. Get over yourself.

You could sum it up like this:

The higher the authority of the publication, the more the advertorial sits like a giant turd on the page.

Less authority or more fluffy sites then no one cares about advertorial as no one takes the publication seriously anyway.

This debate is not really about the format, rather about control of the message. Despite Richard’s struggle to articulate the context within which he makes a valid point, it’s rather simplistic to compare native advertising and/or sponsored content to media relations activity. Control of the message, especially in the news agenda, should remain with the editorial team and any pressure to bias an opinion should be removed for the sake of a genuine views. When editorial is paid for, the results will naturally bias the opinion and colour the article. For good or bad this question of values should remain with the publisher. Should a publication push forward the benefits of scientology or Chevron’s own content, yeah, why not? Will it impact any articles around it, especially those relating to the brand’s paying the publication for sponsored content? It shouldn’t do…

Your argument that native doesn’t deserve to be picked on because its not as bad as slavery is……unconvincing.

I never joined a high school debating team but I’m pretty sure even the teenagers would shoot that one down with an easy retort like saying “So Stalin is ok because he isn’t Hitler?” Or, “Breast cancer is ok because it isn’t heart disease”.

If such an obviously flawed argument is so….obvious….one starts to feel their intelligence is being just a teeny bit insulted that anyone would think one could fall for it. I feel like I’m at a magic show and the magician is saying “look behind you” while the rabbit prematurely climbs out of the hat. Spare us. We may not be the sharpest tools in the shed (we are after all at the magic show) but give us some respect.

Yeah native advertising is just one of the many destructive things on the spectrum of rainbows and bunnies to nuclear war. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve a public pasting. It doesn’t mean a districated public doesn’t benefit from some comedy/benevolent information about native.

At the end of the day, all of us in the commercial industry whether it be TV, radio, newspapers, print or on-line have to realise that punters are getting very clever at avoiding advertising. This is why Netflix and i-Tunes etc have become so popular. My young nephews would NEVER sit through a block of ads, and it seems more and more people are doing the same, whether it’s fast forwarding through ads, not clicking them on-line or changing the dial. It’s a real challenge for our industry, and we have to do something, because our livelihoods are at stake.

You’ve got to be kidding me Richard Parker?

John Oliver NAILED IT – I am literally open-mouthed at the sheer, brazen gall of marketers defending Native Advertising because they are too bloody lazy to come up with a decent idea for their clients.

Native advertising will be the final nail in the coffin for reputable news organisations who’s very existence is based around their credibility.

The very IDEA of Native advertising is to bury sponsored content into areas where consumers are expecting news reportage, analysis and unfettered information (give or take the editorial stance of given publication). It is by DESIGN there to deceive the reader – calling it anything different is delusional (like the New York Times marketer in the video – dear God!)

I’ve dealt with dozens and dozens of ridiculous sponsor requests over the years to embed marketing messages within content – the one thing you overlook is that in the digital space, the consumer is highly aware and the moment they realise they are being duped, you lose them for good. Just try it on social if you don’t believe me – fails EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Sure it’s all Swiffer cleaning tips and Guardian ‘how to fix a floor’ infotainment pieces – but frankly its the thin edge of the wedge.

As John Oliver said, rip out the heart and you’re killing the very thing that made it work in the first place.

Speaking of bullshit, this par is a great example: “Marketing just perpetuates basic evolutionary psychology that exists anyway (costly signalling theory etc) – it’s human nature to buy stuff that simultaneously says something about our individuality whilst ensuring we defiantly fit in with everyone else.”

It’s human nature to buy stuff that individuate us? Uh-huh? I guess that’s why archeologists keep digging up the remains of markets and malls from the palaeolithic era.

Anyone who uses evolutionary psychology (as distinct from biological evolution) to explain anything is talking nonsense.

“Everyone hates big old evil corporations, and everyone hates advertising and marketing. It’s the way they just force us all to buy things we don’t want, right? Because without them we would all be happy eating shit food, driving cheap, shit cars, living in really ugly homes and wearing head-to-toe velour. Balls.”

Nope.

People hate advertisers because they lie. You know you do it. So does the public.

“Native advertising” is just the latest iteration of what you call lying.

Typical response, I like John until he says something thats going to affect my bottom line journalism.

I don’t know what advertising you’ve been looking at, but all I see is ads for shit food, cheap, shit cars, and ugly homes.

“it’s human nature to buy stuff that simultaneously says something about our individuality whilst ensuring we defiantly fit in with everyone else”

Products don’t define someone’s personality and social groups can function without corporations defining their status symbols, almost every country outside the west is living this way it just doesn’t lead to economic prosperity.

@Geoff Field

Two year old sister was very adept at skipping youtube ads on her tablet.

Until I remembered to install adblock for her.

“He’s talking about native advertising, which, y’know, isn’t really all that evil.”
Hmmm, forgive me if your argument leaves me unconvinced Richard.

@ Richard Parker (#40)
“.. my issue with John’s piece is that he conflates ‘sponsor content’ (and ‘sponsored content’) with native advertising, thus adding to the general confusion … rather than clarifying”

OK – so let’s clarify. According to the definitions which you’ve discussed:
1. Native Advertising ‘pretends to be editorial, and is created by the publisher’
2. Sponsor content is something that is created by the brand but in the style of an editorial

If a discussion conflates the two it is just because there isn’t any difference from a reader’s point of view. You say the label at the top of the article makes it obvious which one applies.

But even an expert like yourself got it wrong – despite the fact you were reviewing it carefully when writing an article about it! Doesn’t that demonstrate that the rest of us will easily miss the distinction too? Are we going to be reading it more carefully than you did?

(PS: You’ll notice from the link that I gave that I did NOT the explanation easily on the publisher’s site. In the same way that you didn’t see it when researching the article. I found it on someone’s blog discussing the problem. If there hadn’t been a ‘scandal’ about it then I wouldn’t have noticed the subtle difference of sponsor content .v. sponsored content .v. independant article on that site.

After all – there’s a lot of clutter on a website. My eyes zoom straight to the article. After all – when reading the article on this site are you noticing all the icons and explanations? Did you read carefully the notice about how the site is hosted using AW Cloud Management? Probably not – because you naturally skip the little icons and explanations littered around the content.

It’s natural behaviour. So when the difference between journalism and an ad is simply yet another icon that the brain ignores – you can’t blame the reader (who reads the WORDS) from not noticing it.

“Marketing just perpetuates basic evolutionary psychology that exists anyway”

Ha! This is as naive and/or misleading as the argument that advertising just REFLECTS society. Fact is that all media FORM society, and marketing is powerful dollars trying to make people do the things that suit those powerful interests.

Marketing sure ain’t perpetuating basic evolutionary psychology because it ain’t morally neutral.

Any way you look at it deception is the cornerstone to Native Advertising. Not only deceptive but really really lazy as it saves anyone from actually developing any form of creative idea.

Native Advertising – Like real news. But sluttier.

Yes LH….it is me!

Whatever. I’m still going to use adblockers to block that type of garbage.