Satirical HBO TV host John Oliver launched a tirade against native advertising on his HBO show Last Week Tonight, arguing that it's corrupting news and media. He can of course, because HBO is an ad-free network.
Oliver lashed out at media brands including the New York Times, Bloomberg, Buzzfeed and Time Inc. which are all taking the native advertising route in the US.
In Australia brands are queuing up to work with Buzzfeed since it launched here in January and brands like ANZ bank are turning to brand journalism with editorial platforms like BlueNotes.
Advertising is heading that way and it's got everyone talking. Mia Freedman, media and creatives weigh in on the debate.
Gemma Hunter, head of MediaCom Beyond Advertising.
I watched it all the way through and I hope everyone in the Australian market watches it and learns from it because it's our responsibility to sort this shit out. We as an industry, we all understand everyone has to make money, the world is changing and we have to be smarter about how we get messages to audiences. But the the whole thing for me is the whole term native ads is absolute bollocks, what we should be talking about is content marketing. It's the content, the story that's important.
The whole creating advertorial and hoping your audience doesn’t notice is ridiculous. They’re not stupid. People know the difference between a story written by a journalist and an ad.
A story about a brand or about something a brand has the right to talk about is a great idea and is fundamentally what we should all be doing.
I think what was interesting in there was him having a go at Buzzfeed which was idiotic because Buzzfeed is doing it really well. They provide fun and entertaining, bitesize bits of content. The reason they are so successful is the way they construct those pieces of content. It's clever because the thing they really think about is the audience desire. What I have got no problem with, and the majority of the public haven’t either, is an energy company talking about the 12 craziest things we do using energy – if its fun and entertaining and I get something out of that. I like the fact they are and I think everyone else does as well.
We need to really seriously stop thinking about advertising. Its not advertsing, native ad is a ridiculous name for it and we should kill it as a business - as soon as possible.
Is it informative, inspiring entertaining - that's what matters. Brands don't have a choice, the world's gone here and it's not going back so you’ve got to be coming out with better stories. The problem in a lot of instances is media owners haven't moved as fast as the audience.
As an audience, we are used to seeing content in this way now. We like Buzzfeed, but inside media owners - this is a global problem not just Australia - they have picked up journalists and moved them and called them something else but those people don’t understand brands. Or moved people from the sponsorship team, called them an integration team and getting them to come up with the ideas. But they are sales people basically. So you’ve either got journalists that don’t understand brands, or sales people dressed up as something else that don't understand storytelling, that's where it goes horribly wrong.
The reality is that the industry has to take a good hard look at itself. The audience wants to be entertained, are happy for those stories to come from brands as long as they're relevant, but the people writing them, need to understand both the world of the brand and storytelling. I hope this video creates a debate.
Craig Hodges, founder and CEO of King Content:
John Oliver nailed it. It’s hilarious. The sarcasm is pretty good. Brands should make the most of it while it happens.
If you’re a brand you’re doing two things: hiring journalists from newspapers and your trying to pillage their audience so you have direct communications. That’s the most cost effective way of doing it. Most of the banks and most of the insurance companies now have journalists on staff producing content directly to their audience. Twenty years ago they were using paid media. We’re seeing examples of that now with ANZ BlueNotes.
Brands are going to go hell for leather with that audience so they can have direct relationships. They rent that space. IBM has been doing this for years. They do a whitepaper download which comes out of their owned [media] assets and guess what, they’ve built their own audience.
This is not just about native advertising. It’s the business model of publishers. At the end of the day that’s what’s caused this to happen. The change from dollars in print to dimes in digital doesn’t match up.
Let’s see how it lasts. Everyone is getting paid somewhere. Look at the Fox network in an election race. Everyone has an ulterior motive these days. Some are just more out there than others.
It’s a bit sad for publishers to be honest. And for journos.
Mia Freedman, founder and Publisher, Mamamia Digital Network
John Oliver makes some excellent points. Many print companies are struggling to do native advertising in an authentic way because they're not digital natives. We are. At the Mamamia Digital Network we've always been very clear and transparent about our native ad content. It's never about camouflaging a client's involvement. Otherwise it's deceptive and pointless.
Our lines are very clear - far far clearer than when I worked on magazines which rely on straight advertorial and a huge amount of non-declared native ad content. It used to make me really uncomfortable some of the things we'd have to do. It was the opposite of authentic.
The key to doing native advertising with integrity is to make sure you're not interrupting the content your readers are reading. You have to BE the content your readers want. Some of our most successful pieces of content have been native advertising. These are posts that have been organically shared tens of thousands of times on social media and generated traffic for months and even years afterwards because they've been created to benefit the reader and the brand.
Nobody is being tricked here.
We know what our readers can tolerate, what engages them and we decide our native strategy for each client based around that deep understanding. Everything we publish is authentic - in the writer's own voice. The reality of the digital business model is that advertisers help us to promote more content. Combined with our innate understanding of what makes women share and amplify that content on social, it's win-win.
Helen Walker, head of Fuse Sydney
John has clearly highlighted some of the more extreme and poorly executed examples which have overstepped the mark. As a relatively new format, we will continue to see some brands and publishers get it wrong. When executed well, like in the ‘Orange is the New Black’ example, Native Advertising can deliver powerful, topical and informative stories, that offer real benefit to readers, without compromising editorial integrity.
As long as Native Advertising is treated with integrity, authenticity and objectivity then it can continue to be a format that offers value to publisher, brand and consumer alike.
Richard Parker, joint managing director at Edge
Firstly, we need to keep in mind that John Oliver’s program isn’t current affairs, it’s a comedy segment. He's deliberately trying to be funny, and he's sacrificing accuracy for the sake of humour.
Most of the examples he used aren't actually native advertising; they are sponsored content, which is clearly labelled and really just advertorial and has been around for ages.
Let me make my position clear: I’m no fan of native advertising. I actually see it as being immoral and misleading. I believe that any content paid for by a brand should be clearly labelled, and should sink or swim on its own merits. Is it entertaining? Is it useful? If it is, I'll read it whether it comes from a brand or not.
So ultimately Oliver's rant against native advertising has really only muddied the waters, rather than clarify anything in the debate. He has confused what the meaning of native advertising actually is, which isn't useful. He's set up a bogeyman in the form of native advertising to scare us all with, when in reality there are far, far worse ways to manipulate the news agenda. But at least we're all talking about it!
What do you think?
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