Native Advertising: True Innovation or Traditional at Heart?
As discussed previously, the prime difference stylistically between advertising today and advertising 50 years ago is the usage of extensive copy. Despite the significant drop in copy length, David Ogilvy’s stylistically long copy is not irrelevant, it is merely hiding in the form of another type of advertising. Today, we would call this “native advertising.”
These modern advertisements are formatted in a way that mimics the natural surrounding content. They are ads dressed in camouflage and disguised as articles among publications. Although touted as a recent buzzword, this form of branded content is perhaps less innovative than previously assumed. I like to think of this longer form of engaging advertising as a throwback to traditional length advertising and advertorials. Ultimately, native advertising has proved one massive fact: Copy is not dead, it has simply been re-purposed.
The decrease in copy can be viewed as society reverting to a more simplistic and innate way of viewing visuals as giving over the most information. At a glance, the consumer can know who, what, and where — an efficiency that can’t be beat.
Ogilvy wrote information-rich ads. Below is one of his most famous advertorials:
It is easy to see how this would be categorized as native advertising today, as it would likely blend right into publications that already feature articles that resemble this style.
If you are unconvinced of the similarity between traditional, long-form ads and modern magazine articles, below is a New York Times Magazine article from 2013:
The grouping of text and accompanying images have a likeness to the Guinness ad that is difficult to ignore. Whether these modern articles are mimicking old-school advertising or if the similarity is merely a fluke would require an in-depth analysis of the history of magazine articles. However, for now, let’s focus on ads.
Ogilvy’s information-rich ads, combined with the resemblance to contemporary, visually-led articles have led to sponsored content and modern native advertising that look like a combination of the two. See the following example:
This is the title page for an extensive expose on the American prison system and the lives of women inmates.
While the article fits the tone and goal of the New York Times Magazine, the disclaimer “Paid Post” is pasted directly above it. In actuality, this article was sponsored by the prison-themed show “Orange is the New Black.”
This article/ad is widely regarded as ground-breaking and a successful piece of sponsored content. What perhaps makes this idea so fresh is that “Orange is the New Black” is only referenced one time in the whole article:
“In an August 2013 op-ed in The New York Times, Piper Kerman, author of the prison memoir Orange Is The New Black, which inspired the Netflix series of the same name, calls the distance between women prisoners and their families ‘a second sentence’.” (~)
Unlike Ogilvy’s repetition of “Guinness” in his oyster-themed print ad, the name of the sponsor is only mentioned one time in this branded article. And yet, it was considered a massively successful ad. An AdAge article about this NYT Mag piece explained that this instance of native advertising really did “seek to mimic the editorial content surrounding it.” (~)
While buzzwords are nice, it is always beneficial to look deeper than the trend and try to understand its roots. Native advertising may seem novel, but in reality, it is simply the newest iteration of David Ogilvy's style and an extension of his advertising spirit.
