Consider this scenario: it is a bright morning on a nice autumn day, you are sitting on your comfortable sofa as you indulge your first sip coffee and surf the web browser on your mobile phone when… Pause! Someone is deceiving you!
The article you thought you were reading contained useful information for you regarding the five benefits of the coffee was just another advertisement about a coffee brand. This strategy illustrates how native advertising typically works. This approach usually presents content that includes useful information, but also tries to pitch an idea or sell you a product or brand. Based on what was described above, can a person trust an article’s content if the advertisers are also trying to promote a product by using indirect or deceptive strategies to reach its goal?
Most of the content of these articles portray accurate and simple information. The problem is not that they are providing false information, but they might be trying to influence and guide you towards purchasing a specific product. It is as if they are baiting you. It makes one wonder if this kind of content has a any honest purpose.
The issue is that these sites that generate such type of advertising do not interact with the audience as readers, but as a customer. In their perspective, the audience is a “consumer” whose interaction with the article is a potential to increase their revenues.
Research studies suggest that native ads outperform ordinary ads by 52% in terms of public acceptance, as well as outperforming the original editorial content of the sites. For these reasons, many advertisers rely on these strategies and place native ads in prominent places to better attract the customer’s eye.
Are you a reader or a customer?
The answer to such a question is determined by the way in which a person deals with the material that they read and what type of articles they find appealing. Serious readers often follow sites that do not rely on this method of native ads and where the content of published articles is credible and detailed. In contrast, enthusiasts of light articles and simple information are potential targets for native ads. Now that people are more awareness of the native ads phenomenon, many recipients can easily distinguish the nature of the content presented.