Native advertising: How news sites separate church and state

journalism.co.uk reporting:
Native advertising has been a key trend of 2013, with many publishers keen to benefit from this revenue stream.
Sometimes called sponsored or branded content, it is a form of advertising that moves beyond the advertorial.
"It is content that is created for or provided by a brand or an advertiser that is then surfaced on a publisher's platform," according to Raju Narisetti, senior vice-president and deputy head of strategy at News Corporation.
The Huffington Post, in conjunction with parent company AOL, last month published a report which proposed that native advertising is "sponsored content, which is relevant to the consumer experience, which is not interruptive, and which looks and feels similar to its editorial environment".
Perhaps the easiest way to understand it is by looking at a couple of examples, such as the Guardian's 'what to wear on a date' video, sponsored by John Lewis, with clothes featured in the video from the department store, and BuzzFeed's '20 coolest hybrid animals', created for hybrid car Toyota Prius.
Many publishers see native advertising as a huge opportunity.
"We will participate very aggressively in this space," Narisetti said, referring to News Corp titles the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the company's Australian assets.
"We will go after the revenue, we will go after helping big brands figure out how to do this well, but we will do it with very clear, transparent labelling so there is no confusion in the minds of our audiences," he told us in this podcast on native advertising.
"We are starting to engage big brands and big advertisers with native advertising concepts and ideas, and we are prepared to not only run it but also help them create content," he explained.
Separating church and state
The Wall Street Journal is one of a number of publishers creating content on behalf of brands. But, crucially, it is not a task of newsroom journalists.There is never any question that a Wall Street Journal newsroom staffer is creating content for a brandRaju Narisetti, News Corp
"We will never have our journalists write that kind of content," Narisetti said. "There is never any question that a Wall Street Journal newsroom staffer is creating content for a brand."
At the Wall Street Journal paid-for content is created by a "custom publishing arm" within the advertising department. It "has a lot of seasoned former journalists who can produce the kind of Wall Street Journal-level quality content that a brand might want", Narisetti explained...
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/native-advertising-how-news-sites-separate-church-and-state/s2/a554648/