• by Mark Naples , October 21, 2005

Lately, much has been made of the (maybe) increasingly blurred lines between marketing and journalism. I put maybe in parentheses because, depending on the outlet, this line has either been nonexistent or as impenetrable as the Great Wall of China since the advent of the insertion order. That's how much variance there is in the relative integrity of newsroom across the country, in my two decades' experience dealing with them.

Of course, a version of the 80/20 rule applies. There are far more media outlets that maintain a strict firewall than there are editors who care about the feelings of their advertisers. But, let's just say that I'm never surprised any more when that firewall seems more like a curb to jump off-or sleep on.

An article in MediaPost earlier this week by my colleague Ross Fadner reviewed a recent study conducted by Roper Public Affairs, a GfK Group market research firm, that suggested consumers are more comfortable with the concept of branded content, or content generated by a company primarily for marketing purposes, than they are with messaging delivered via pure advertising by these same companies.

As Ross reported, "85 percent said they prefer custom publications to ads, and 75 percent felt better informed after reading them. More than six in 10 said custom pubs made them feel closer to the sponsoring company, and 75 percent said they believe the effort shows an interest in building good relationships with customers. Eighty percent said they find the information in these magazines interesting."

This study was directed by a custom publishing house. So, factor that in when evaluating the data. But, while my first inclination was to think, "Sure--this is why I always seem to recommend well-executed PR over ad buys for my clients," my next thought was of what this means for search.

After all, anyone in that space will tell you that, using the search-as-medium proxy, search engine optimization provides the editorial content with sagacious PR, and search engine marketing provides the advertising. Which one drives more business?

Well, SEO, of course--right? All manner of data seems to suggest this, and it's intuitively apparent as well. After all, which messaging within your own search results do you believe? When you search for any branded company in our space, for example, and the paid listings on Google, Yahoo! and MSN all show its competitors first, what does that tell you about not only the company you searched for, but also about these competitors? Study after study indicates pretty clearly that people may shop in the paid listings, but they buy in the organic listings.

But, that's just a simple direct marketing consideration. Let's try something a little dicier (which may get me in trouble). If you've read this far, finish this paragraph and look up from your screen. Then close your eyes and recall which advertiser sponsored this column today... or recall what other ads you've seen during your Web browsing today.

Pretty compelling, huh? I'm looking forward to the scathing remarks from many of you on the Spin Board. But, what's most interesting about this little exercise for me is that people will recall far, far more of what they've read--even in less punchy columns like this one - than they will from even the most intrusive ads. That is, they will unless the ads are from brands they know and trust.

So, for those of you who remain offended by me for that little exercise, please be reassured that I am well aware the true power of advertising resides in well-executed brand expression. Just as poorly executed PR will result in no media coverage, poorly executed advertising or, yes, even poorly executed direct marketing won't get the job done.

As for well-executed advertising, that's a gorgeous tower on the top-right of this copy, don't you think?

The lines have always been blurrier than those in the newsrooms would have you believe. That's part and parcel of their job. If they ever claimed otherwise, we'd all be in a different line of work.