• About

The Malcolm Auld Blog

~ Marketing Musings and More…

The Malcolm Auld Blog

Tag Archives: advertorial

Native advertising perils and editorial pitfalls…

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, Content Marketing, Digital, Digital marketing, Marketing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

advertorial, content marketing, digital marketing, earned media, editorial, native advertising

One thing you cannot always control in marketing, whether your message is owned, earned, paid, native or any other digi-buzzword, is the content that accompanies yours, in whatever channel it appears.

Like many, I’ve always thought the word “editorial” did a reasonable job of describing/defining any content published about a brand by a third party, at no cost to the brand, in any media channel. But hey, it’s the digi-age and everything that’s already proven and defined, now has to be given a new buzzword to describe it – otherwise it’s viewed as old fashioned or irrelevant by the digi-fashionista.

And if you consider it, to the uninformed layman, the term editorial is obviously confusing. After all, it appears to just describe the words and images independently published in any media channel.

Whereas the term native advertising has a far clearer meaning. It obviously means advertising about natives.

What’s that you say? It doesn’t?

Well confound me. I’m a confused communicator.

Apparently native advertising is part of that amazing new digi-invention known as content. You can read the definition of native advertising on Wikopinion.

native

Anyway, last week the Courier Mail newspaper ran a story on its website about a murder in Brisbane. It involved a gruesome murder where the poor victim was ‘cooked’ by the murderer. On the same page as the story, a video automatically started with an ad from Masterfoods that asked, “Why cook when you can create?”

Then yesterday, one of the Australian advertising industry gossip newsletters ran a story headline: “Why agencies should focus on reciprocity rather than engagement“. I have no idea what that means. But the final sentence in the introduction copy, located just above above an advertisement, read: “So it gives me no pleasure to condemn it <engagement marketing that is>

The advertisement that appeared directly beneath the article had the headline: “Marketing Nation Roadshow – Engagement Marketing 2014”

So the lead article condemned engagement marketing, just above an advertisement promoting an engagement marketing conference.

I wonder how that will affect the advertiser/publisher relationship, engagement-wise, if you get my drift?

mumbrella gaff

Don’t do engagement marketing, but buy a ticket to the engagement marketing conference

So the editorial content was in conflict with the paid content. Will this have any impact on either? It’s difficult to know. And while this isn’t really native advertising, as the editorial is an opinion piece about a technique not a brand, it does demonstrate the pitfalls that can occur when advertising or creating content.

Years ago, despite supplying correct artwork, The Australian newspaper retouched my client’s advertisement with disastrous results. Read more here.

Even worse was a printer we used for a fundraising mailing. They completely reproduced our artwork, because they had old-fashioned technology and couldn’t read high-res PDFs. We didn’t know this until it was too late. We discovered the problem because the printed samples had typographical errors that weren’t on the original approved art supplied to the printer.

Suffice to say we didn’t keep the account. And one wonders what sort of compensation was given to ASDA for this placement mistake:

asda-mirror-advert

Sadly these sort of stuff-ups will always occur – from either human or computer error. And unfortunately the social media zealots will blow the mistakes completely out of proportion.

social overreaction

When it does happen it might feel like the end of the world and your job. But the noise soon dies down, as people’s “social focus” very quickly changes to the next trending topic.

That reminds me. I have a copy deadline for a press and online advertisement. You remember paid advertising don’t you? The first one I wrote in this series more than paid for itself. Plus there was the branding value it generated and the Likes and the comments on social media and the editorial in another person’s blog.

Hang on. That wasn’t editorial. That was native advertising.

How fan-digi-tastic! Next thing you know I’ll be publishing content…

keep calm

 

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Recent Posts

  • WOW a 5-hour marketing seminar on a subject that doesn’t exist…
  • Good grief, now LinkedIn staff are sending unsolicited social selling spam…
  • Another example of social selling failure with marketing automation on LinkedIn…
  • Has COVID killed the culture cult…
  • Social selling has become the new spam…

Archives

  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • December 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • November 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012

Categories

  • Advertising
  • B2B Marketing
  • BIG DATA
  • Branding
  • Content Marketing
  • Copywriting
  • Culture
  • Customer Service
  • Digital
  • Digital marketing
  • Direct Marketing
  • Email marketing
  • Group Buying
  • Marketing
  • Marketing Automation
  • Media
  • Meetings
  • Mobile marketing
  • PPC
  • QR Codes
  • Remarketing
  • retail
  • Sales
  • Sales Promotion
  • SEM & SEO
  • small data
  • Social Media
  • social selling
  • Telemarketing
  • Thought Leadership
  • Uncategorized
  • Viral marketing

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • The Malcolm Auld Blog
    • Join 542 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The Malcolm Auld Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: