When it comes to blurring news and sponsored stories, it isn't just John Oliver who thinks there's no place for it. Fairfax Media group director of Life Media, Melina Cruickshank said that in a news environment publishers shouldn't go near native.
Leave it to the lifestyle channels, she said, hot off the back of a big deal with Woolworth's-owned Dan Murphy's and sitting on native revenues that now make up around a third of the business.
“The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age don't really play in that space to be honest and they're very focused on independence, they're very focused on getting that real message out,” she said.
“So I see it as Life Media's responsibility to really to grow all of these new revenue streams so that we can fund that quality journalism that Fairfax is responsible for.”
Managing director content marketing at Fairfax Media, Simon Smith agrees telling AdNews that Fairfax protects it's newsrooms and the news they produce from commercialisation, however sponsored lifestyle content can work on a news site such as smh.com.au.
“(While) we ring-fence and protect our newsrooms from commercial content, parts of our network are more open to commercialised content than others and definitely the area of Life Media, but when it comes to the actual investigative journalism or the breaking news that we're renowned for, that's an area that we don't play in for commercialised content or native advertising,” he said.
However on the site itself he said, “I think it can mix, news sites have a responsibility to their audience to ensure that there is transparency, you've got to show who's the author of the content.
“Our view here is there are a couple of rules, don't try and trick them and don't piss them off,” he said.
When it comes to native on news.com.au, general manager of the site Julian Delany said: "Native is not a new concept in the world of digital news delivery. News.com.au has looked at international trends and adopted native best-practices to develop its native opportunity.
“It's our view that what we produce meets the needs of both our customers and consumers of our site. We believe that our native opportunity is in line with the news.com.au brand and style of content that we present to our consumers every day.”
“It's (native advertising) a valuable channel for advertisers to both engage with consumers through creative and innovative executions, but also through contextual, thought-provoking and relevant content.”
Cruickshank told AdNews that the Life Media division of Fairfax has over 3.6 million unique users and suggested lifestyle lends itself most readily to native advertising.
She cited Life Media's recent partnership with Dan Murphy’s, which matches the retailer's wines with recipes on the Good Food website, as one example.
Cruickshank said the deal, worth over $3 million, involved a level of integration Good Food had never done before.
“Dan Murphy's actually approached us and felt that the Good Food audience was where they wanted their brand to be,” she said.
“We thought a deep integration through wine matching would be the best approach, it sort of grew from there. We've never done such a deep native advertising before, it's going really, really well. We pitched that to them and they were really pleased."
When it comes to native advertising on Good Food, Cruickshank said that monthly 25%-35% of the advertising on the site is native, which is up from zero a year ago.
“We keep a really close handle on that. If our audience doesn't want that content or if they think they're being sold a product and it's not exactly authentic, we've lost them and we've damaged our value proposition,” she said.
Although many news-based publishers face structural headwinds, Cruickshank said Life Media is going "gang busters" across all 15 brands that make up the group.
“The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age are the core business, but these lifestyle brands are coming into their own because we can be more commercial than the mastheads, we're seeing a strong growth in that space.”
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