As we have previously reported
here, native advertising is intended to form a part of
users' online experiences, aiming to engage and compel with
minimal disruption. Often the content of native advertising is high
quality, reaching out to an audience's wants and needs,
sometimes going viral. Clearly marketers are working within
divergent boundaries; creating appealing and intelligent content
whilst simultaneously being careful not to camouflage the content
so well that consumers are misled about its origin and purpose.
Last week the ASA (the
Advertising Standards Authority) upheld complaints about a banner
ad on newspaper The Independent's website, ran by content
discovery company Outbrain. Outbrain generates paid for links to
recommended third party content, or a publisher's other
content, based on user patterns. The recommendations can sit as a
panel ad at the end of an article on a publisher's page. The
complaints were over whether or not the advertising, which
