The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) of Australia and The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) have teamed up to create guidelines around native advertising for both advertisers and publishers.
The two industry bodies have created what they call the “Native Advertising Principles”, with the aim to provide protection tools for advertisers to reference, aimed at ensuring readers can easily distinguish between what is paid-for advertising versus editorial content in the online environment.
Matt Tapper, managing director global markets, Lion Beer, Cider and Wine and new chair of the AANA board, said with the increasing potential for blurred lines between editorial and paid-for advertising, it’s timely that these principles are being launched to provide guidance to advertisers and publishers about how they should guarantee transparency for consumers.
The IAB and AANA define native as: “Paid for content that is assimilated to appear like surrounding editorial content in the online environment,” with the principles for doing native well mainly focusing on ensuring there are visible cues for consumers to devise the content was paid for.
These cues could be the use of the brand’s logo in or around the content or the use of a different design, font or shading to clearly differentiate it from the editorial content.
Alice Manners, CEO of IAB Australia, said: “The rise of native advertising and storytelling by brands is fundamentally shifting the way in which we, as an industry, need to consider advertising.
“The Native Advertising Principles are an important addition to the IAB Australia’s Advertising Playbook and the AANA’s Code of Ethics and we expect they will provide valuable guidance to advertisers and publishers alike.”
Ed Harrison, IAB chairman and CEO of Yahoo7 agreed and said native advertising is a strategically important format for the industry, particularly in the drive towards monetising mobile.
“Its ability to provide a seamless consumer experience is exceptional, but its success will ultimately be defined by ensuring the advertisements are clearly delineated and defined for consumers.”
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