FiercePharmaMarketing
| By Beth Snyder Bulik
Did you see
that ad? In many cases of native advertising, the answer is no--because people
can't always tell what's an ad and what isn't. A study in the December Journal
of Advertising found that the majority of consumers can't tell the difference
between native advertising and editorial content. As more pharma marketers
begin to embrace the format, and as the Federal Trade Commission continues to
home in on native advertising for any deceptive practices, the findings are
worth noting.
In two
different experiments, researchers from Grady College in Georgia found
surprisingly low recognition of advertising. In the first, consumers were asked
to read two stories, one that was native advertising and the other editorial.
The native ads were marked with a variety of labels including "sponsored
content," "advertisement," and "presented by" placed
in different areas around the page. Overall, fewer than 8%--17 people out of
242--recognized the native advertising as an ad.