• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, August 16, 2013

On my way to the park for a round of frisbee golf this morning, I was listening to Z100's talk show. All was well until they went to commercials without actually going to commercials. AKA - "native" advertising.

One of the radio hosts went into a painful-to-listen-to segment of, "If you're like me, then you ____ every day. Now there's a solution!" I can't remember what the product was, but she name-dropped it once. She was done with the segment and about to move onto to the second "native" ad when the show's main host jumped in with, "What's it called again?" in what was clearly supposed to be genuine curiosity; a back-and-forth between hosts just like all of their other content.

The same thing happened on the third (and final) native ad the host had to deliver. She was just about done with the segment when she clearly remembered that she hadn't named-dropped the brand a second time (it seemed to me that part of the contract included a minimum of two brand name mentions).

After getting to the park, I sent out this tweet:

Just heard some "native" advertising on the radio. This is what it was like: pic.twitter.com/XFoBAMrMNj

— Tyler Loechner (@mp_tyler) August 16, 2013

Like the red rose in the field of yellow roses, which is only native because it's a rose and in the same field, the only thing native about the segment I heard this morning was that it, too, consisted of sound waves and was on the same station.