Is Native Advertising a Savior or a Niche?

There has been a mini-maelstrom of debate about whether sponsored stories, aka a type of “native advertising,” are good for the news industry or a devious way to dupe readers. I have a different question: Are they good for business?

Publishers from BuzzFeed to the New York Times are selling articles that are advertisements in droves, in some cases hyping them as the antidote to falling display ad prices. The theory is they are worth more because they are part of the experience, not an interruption, and because in some cases at least they’re in limited supply. Or as Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti laid out during an interview with me last week, branded content, done the BuzzFeed way, can help you buck the space constraints of the Internet. “BuzzFeed is a little different because we aren’t selling adjacency,” he says. Advertisers are “using our platform, plus distribution, plus audience, plus media.”