Are Native Ads in Podcasts Possible?
Nowadays, journalists face an ominous and even existential question: how do we eat? The Internet didn’t pull the rug-that-was-advertising-dollars out from under publishers’ feet so much as expand it outward. The boundless web created abundance where formerly printing-press owners controlled scarcity. Every newcomer and iteration of advertising in the digital era — from blogs bloating the space to programmatic (automated sales) ads gutting the price — has undermined journalists’ meal tickets.
Enter the ethically-sticky world of native ads: advertising dressed up like news stories that appear in the normal stream of pages. Also call branded content, journalists love to loathe even just the second half of that phrase. For me, the modifier “branded” implies that its the only thing that separates journalism from average Joe’s opinion. As the old joke goes, “Opinions are like assholes.”
The way people consume and engage media has changed. Now social media gives every citizen and government stooge with wifi a digital megaphone, a platform to incite and organize around any cause no matter how virtuous or vitriolic. Take Donald Trump. Please.
Old jokes aside, native ads pose an especially tricky question for young freelancers. Legacy outlets are scaling back, and journos tend to hold onto good gigs. So is the separation of reporter and pen-for-hire possible? Can we report on oil spillage one week and the virtues of the spiller the next?
People do it. But polls show more than 60 percent of people say branded content erodes trust in journalists.
Does native content work in podcasts or video streams? I’d argue yes. How? Brands are interested in three things from publishers: storytelling skills, audiences and the trust they put in news outlets. Therein lies a conundrum: Can networks like Gimlet and Radiotopia create native episodes for existing shows without betraying the audience? Probably. Another option is to create new native shows. It could be a limited 6-episode run of innovations and dilemmas in self-driving cars, brought to you by Google.
But for native to work (especially in broadcast) requires a set of standards for publishers, brands and content creators: The editorial side of Gimlet, say, needs to remain independent from brands; native content needs to be true, fair and balanced.
To that end, native producers need to pull the best narrative threads and expertise from brands, but, they need to ready to abort the production if sources (that is, the brands) insist on skewed, staged or false accounts. Only if we’re completely ready to walk away from those hefty paychecks can we maintain trust of the audience — and thus the interest (and paychecks) from brands. That’s one way podcasters can eat these days.
