• by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, February 9, 2015

Here, here. You can hear the nods of agreement across the country as the IAB issues guidelines to bring some common sense transparency to native advertising. 

In fact, the chorus of approval includes brands as well as publishers and advertisers. It's quite rare that you can get everyone to agree a set of guidelines makes perfect sense. If you wanted to be really picky you might say the guidelines are pretty much already in use by the most responsible advertisers and publishers, but that's effectively what the IAB does. When looking at guidelines, it embraces best practice rather than starting from scratch. 

The guiding principles are simple. Publishers and advertisers cannot get away with making advertorial look exactly like editorial. It needs to feature a slightly different font and design to set it apart, and it needs to carry a clear message that it is "promotional content" or "brought to you by."

With a value of more than GBP200m in the first half of 2014, native accounts for just over a fifth of digital ad spend, and it will only go up in value because research study after research study shows that consumers will engage with commercially sponsored articles, so long as the content is information and entertaining and is not just full of sales messages. Being clearly labelled is central to this transparency.

Where I can see native really taking off is mobile. It's popular in online because it's great for long-form messaging and has a better response rate than digital display. Throw in a tiny screen where small buttons and banners get even less attention and it's clear why advertisers have to get positioned in the centre of a screen with their clearly labelled, sponsored articles and, of course, videos. 

It is important for this to be done because it will open up mobile native and it will help set digital apart from print. I think everyone's had a supplement in their newspaper that occasionally might appear to be thinly disguised advertorial. I should know --  I've written enough of them and I've also tried to tell publishers how they are, at the very least, bending publishing rules to the breaking point when articles are not clearly labelling as promotional. Here's a hint, though, next time you're wondering -- see who's quoted in the article and then look around the page for their advertising? Not there? Then check the front page and content page logos for supporting organisations. I'm not saying that all behave in this way, but there are enough that do to make it worth pointing out. 

If native is to live up to its full potential it must avoid the route that print has allowed itself to go down. People don't need to be tricked or hoodwinked into inadvertently opening an article. There's no reason why a marketer cannot commission an interesting article that gets across a point their brand wants to make. Make it fun, entertaining and informative -- or at least two of the three -- and you'll get people sharing it, let alone just reading it.

The one big point I'd make, though, is that from experience, it's brands that ruin it for themselves by insisting salesy messages and products are overtly included, not to mention ensuring they get to pack the article out with pointless PR puff quotes nobody wants to read.

So now that the transparency guidelines are in place, marketers take note -- native advertising is a huge opportunity only you can prevent your brand from enjoying.